An open letter to Joe Ciaffoni.

He better figure out a way to get off the metric obsession and how to pay his top performers more than $7500 a quarter for the hundreds of scripts they bring in or they will all leave. $7500 for hitting quota of 4-5-600 scripts is a joke. Well below industry standard. About a dozen people keeping the company afloat---they should be paid for the volume they produce. Somebody needs to tell him we are not a primary care company. Reach and frequency doesn't work in the pain space.

 

Couldn't agree more. The goals are so overblown and the growth expectations in a market that is changing and tightening with new regulations and every political agency getting involved to shut down opioids in every way possible is pretty demotivating. Do they realize this market is declining rapidly? Those who are making it happen despite all this should be rewarded because it is not easy and every single prescription is a major effort.

 

WOW.!! what a bunch of winers! Sales is becoming a bunch of caterers! You all are a bunch of overpaid Panera delivers!

Dont be so hard on the home office, quotas are just a crap-shoot. There is no real analysis behind it, what are you expecting?

Now go get me a sandwich!

 

Expecting some analysis behind it so we can both make money!
The Panera caterers are the lifeblood of your company!
Get your own damn sammich!

 

Please, sales,lifeblood? Really? 20-30 years ago, absolutely. THe lifeblood is in contracts and managed care.

tic, tic, tic, time almost over for the "life blood"

hahaha

 

You must not work in the pain market or know much about it in real time!! Managed care contracts mean very little if you don't have a rep following every single prescription written through the prior auth process and getting it to a pharmacy, neither of which are easy tasks!
Without the sales force, even with the decent contracts this company has, it would be over!

 

get out and sell baby bialy breath!

 

You would be correct if we had a bigger budget. $1900 buys a shit sandwich for about 4 of my offices of 40+ people.

 

Agree with above poster. $1900 is a joke. I can get about 6 lunches out of that. I'm used to doing 20 a month--and thats just for access. Because does anyone really think we LIKE being the office caterer and taking orders from vegans, vegetarians, gluten free this and gluten free that, and NO Panera and no onions and sauces on the side and peanut allergies and ONLY such and such a restaurant---oh and can you pick it up and have it here at noon but don't come see the DR until 3, and she may or may not have time for you today because she's seeing 40 patients today and needs to leave early? DOES ANYONE THINK WE ENJOY THAT??? And who of us doesn't experience this nonsense every single day?! I would LOVE to actually SELL all day! (And get paid for it beyond $7500 a quarter for hitting an ever increasing quota.)

 

WIth your points of PA and Pharmacies, you are making my point, thanks! If MC is doing their job, you dont have to worry about PA. (are you blonde?)

25 years in pain market, lots of changes. in the '90's Sales ruled!! And managed care was just getting started/

Unfortunately, everything is moving away from fee for service to value! Hard to justify the price of these pain products. Now Managed care rules and Sales is being replaced with caterers. Patients are coming in to their docs armed with information to direct their plan of care. Patients can not see paying

You may right, but for a handful of patients. Maybe some of the sales people can get a "Subway Sandwich" franchise. Nothing wrong with that.

But you are delusional if you think your calls matter in most cases

 

I am sorry your job has come to that. I'm sure if you have energy and enthusiasm, you can do something more meaningful than taking orders

 

I don't work for this company, but I do sell in the pain management arena. My only desire to post on this thread is to let any of the managers trolling here to know the the frequency focus you are pushing is effectively closing off access to pain clinics!! There are two companies that are going overboard with call activity on pain docs in Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte NC - and its Collegium and Novartis!!

I know it sucks to have ridiculous goals that you can hardly reach for, and that you think the only thing to do is push push push and make more and more calls to high volume docs...I'm asking all of you to PLEASE ease up on the high frequency calling!!! Shit, there are some reps making 2 or 3 calls a week to some clinics, and the doors are starting to close for ALL OF US because of this bullshit!!! Movantik reps have already gotten two offices in the Raleigh area to close to lunches/breakfasts, and several more are leaning that way.

The opioid market is tough enough - we don't need all of our key offices closed for stupid reasons.

 

I agree with the above poster. I shutter to see reach and frequency becoming such a focus here. Now ZS associates are on board at collegium. Please Collegium!! This group has ruined the pharmaceutical industry with their outdated ideas and metric focused BS! Over expansion is part of what they do. They have the same old tired ideas that they use with every single pharma company that hires them. This company needs to realize this market has changed dramatically! ZS will use the same model of business they used with Endo, Purdue and other pain companies and that is what ruined them all! Don't follow the same path!

 

Well, maybe ZS will get it right! What HO has given us sux!! They need help

 

ZS can't b worse than what we have now. Nice people in HO, but they are just not up to the task!

Let's hope, for all our sakes, HO gets better

 

What are your main complaints about HO?

 

HO is completely out of touch with the sales force. We don't feel like anyone in HO is for us. No one goes to bat for us. We rarely hear from our VP of Sales. He never communicates to the sales force as a whole. Our base payout of $7500 is a joke. And who in the hell decided to punish a reps growth of 150% or more of goal by lowering the percentage payout on 150% or more!? Are we in growth mode or not? The whole LTC debacle is very fixable. No one in HO cares enough to fix it. I've heard of reps losing THOUSANDS of dollars in bonus money because they had normal scripts show as LTC scripts through specialty pharmacies that we are partnered with! And the guys writing are the reps targets! HO doesn't care. If they did- they would've made it right and fixed this. Reps should be making a base payout of $10k minimum. $7500 is a joke. And for God's sake- of a rep makes 150% of plan....pay him for it.

 

Does that help give u an understanding & answer ur question? Is that fair assessment?

 

Forget the goals, most of you reps are not even selling enough product to cover the cost of you and your expenses. If the goals were 500% we would still be losing money hand over fist.
I am ready to replace you with a CSO or tele detailing service.

Best regards,
Joe

 

Yes it is fair