I'm new to the industry, and I'm a little taken a back by what I've seen here. What would some of you tenured reps correct? What are your honest suggestions for someone like me who is trying to make it in pharma - Can I make it here?
Our marketing and upper leadership have limited capabilities. They do not get how to run a company or handle 300 sales reps. The products are fine. Our commitment to pay bonus quarterly, a retention tactic, is history and the next field bonus will be paid in March regardless of your performance. That opens the window for reps to leave and not lose much. We also change marketing direction and territory alignments a lot. They mean well but the customers need to have some stability. It confuses our MD's when our product mix and their representative changes too frequently. Confused MD's choose other drugs to prescribe. For all we can tell, contest standings are based on wind direction on the moon and the humidity in Chicago. As for being on this site you always filter, filter again and then cut what you have left by half to find some bit of truth or news. The whiners come here hoping to learn something. The rest are looking for some news. NO COMPANY is perfect but almost all are better places to be. At a meeting last year, a VP said that we are a 'marketing company. That is what we are. Pain is a serious 'disease state' however we do not have any reprints we can open and discuss with our HCPs. We have nice glossy marketing aids and a few stats to toss around but not much in the way of evidence. We are a marketing company with marketing tools. We do no research, conduct no phase 4 studies, or even encourage potential poster session studies to get underway. The reps are forced to comply with dated and expensive tactics like required speaker programs. We do them to comply and stay off of a 'list'. Our marketing people do not understand the market and why people buy or what we tools we need to sell. Our strengths are some of the products and sales data systems. The managed care data tool is good and we can print coverage information for our prescribers. Also VEEVA is good and some of the District Managers are very good. Regional managers vary from awesome to . . .less than awesome. We hire some solid talent but cannot keep them past a few months. When the sharp new hires leave, we tenured reps notice and become concerned. Depomed has had better days. We hope this will pass and return to where we were 2-3 years ago.
