Hello Dr. Dave and thank you in advance of your response. You're a great resource for us. I'm writing because last year I relocated across the country for family reasons after 11 years of working as a pharmaceutical rep for one company in two different territories. I understand this part doesn't matter to you but I was very successful in both territories winning national sales awards, top rankings, etc. I expected that some employers with what I'll call "underdog" medications or highly competitive DME products would favor hiring a representative who was familiar with this geography over someone like me with a record of proven ability to deliver results. Access is an issue everywhere and being able to see a physician is always the first step towards market share gains. However, I'm finding that the fact that I've never been a rep in this geography is a deal breaker or decision maker 90% of the time when it comes to hiring decisions. Will you please share your insight on the value and impact of a rep you've not met before vs one you're familiar with? In my 11 years I got the impression that physicians, PAs, & NPs only had an affinity towards a small percentage of the reps that called on them. Docs often expressed what a breath of fresh air I was during their workday-wouldn't that translate to any geography? Thanks Dr. Dave!
Speaking as a physician, yes, personality and affability would be valuable commodities anywhere. I can only speculate, but I wonder if the challenge you are facing simply reflects access issues. IE, a new rep now faces more barriers to reaching prescribers than ever. Having developed relationships in the territory is also now a very valuable commodity. Here's an example - we still do lunches at our practice, but my recently taking on some administrative duties has affected my availability significantly. Since I've had to cancel approximately 50% of lunches in January and February, we are having reps leave their cards, and we call them later when we have relative certainty of my availability for specific March dates. I suspect this will be the general system moving forward. To be absolutely candid, given the limited time I have available, we generally call the reps we know first when those dates come up. There are other factors (new product, company resource access, etc.), but, at a very basic level, I just don't want to gamble the limited downtime I have on someone not known to me. Being known is an advantage. I wish you the best of luck with your employment challenges. Although not insignificant, the obstacle you're facing is by no means insurmountable for someone with the skills you describe.
I have found that the reps who work for the largest companies that offer the most enticing educational grants get the lion's share of physician access. I worked for a small company. I was usually invited to bring more free samples and at that time I could detail the doc for a couple minutes - but many times the doc was busy and I could only talk to his nurse or the office manager. So in my experience if you work for a name company that has a reputation of being a source of generous grants your prospects for access are greatly enhanced.
Grants don't factor into access in the health system for which I work, but I have heard 2nd hand that they may for one of our competitors. As for the size of the company, hard to say. When I think of reps for Merck, Pfizer and AZ (probably the three biggest companies that call on me regularly), they all have reps I've known for 5-15 years.
