the old detail man vs. the new "move the needle" Merckoid

Merck has gone from bad to weird...

 

Very simple, no new significant products, indications or clinical reprints. No value to customers. Only sound bites.

 

What other industry successfully uses this " fuller brush man" sales model to market it's products? The reason pharma continues to use it is: the vast number of ancillary support staff that support it, and whose jobs depend on having door to door salespeople and, the actual " sales" are almost impossible to trace back to the " salesperson." There is no " cause-effect" relationship model. Making it perfect for cluster dwelling, metric mending, marketing mouthing, results avoiding, empty suits. " Assume credit, avoid responsibility " becomes the corporate motto. Internal customers take precedence over external customers because the internal ones are easier to please. The model will never go away because there is a class of professionals who thrive on this fictitious nonsense.

 

Sad, but corporations could care less.

 

Just hang on to your panties sweety...it will all come full circle and be right back where it was twenty years ago! If in the course of a discussion which you can still get in with many customers you can make the doctor achieve a level of comfort with your product, dose, AE's , drug interractions, etc. then and only then will he consider the product without a jaundiced outlook! This has never changed in my 35 years in the business! Especially today with the cleavage, short skirt based begging, 'just five scripts' based soundbite docs are reluctant to use anything early! The new miracle drugs for diabetes have raised this fear to new heights...so many problems so few results! All a real salesman needs to do is to think of your own experiences with salesmen and what you like and don't like! Most docs are the same way except for those who were told in medical school that they were 'god' and never have awakened to the fact that it was all 'bullshit'! In the end we still have to cope with the fact that only the good doctors will learn from the 'detail men' and the 'gods' already know everything...don't quit teaching because when you do everything falls apart and you must start wearing a short skirt! Carpe diem!