Can Pharma Adapt to the New Field Force Reality?

If you were a pharma sales rep ten years ago you may have a story like this.

I just had a couple of tough calls so I was looking forward to visiting Dr. A and seeing a friendly face. Dr. A was one of my favorite doctors. He told you exactly what he thought about your medications in no uncertain terms and had a great sense of humor about it. We saw each other socially and he had the rather distressing habit of beating me badly at tennis.

As I stepped into his office, it quickly became apparent that things were not going to go as planned. When his secretary looked up and saw me, her eyes widened and she put up both her hands in a “stop right there”position.

At that exact moment, Dr.A stepped out of an examining room and caught site of me from the corner of his eye. With an expression of righteous indignation he marched to the front of the office.

Without giving me the chance to say a word, he started. “It is not even 9AM and you are the third rep that I have seen from your company!” Then, pointing to a pile of our samples that was tottering rather alarmingly on his secretary’s desk, he continued “If I hear another word this morning about that *$#%* product, I am going to throw up!”

In the years since, I have thought of a lot of smart things that I could of said in that moment, but of course, none of them occurred to me at the time. So, after a rather awkward pause, I put up my hands and backed slowly out of the office without saying a word.

Not the smart thing to do as it turned out because I then had to slink back in under the doctor’s indignant glare and retrieve my detail bag, which I had left on the floor.

At least the secretary covered her mouth so I could not hear her laughing.

In those days we had twelve reps covering a small territory, many of whom talked about the same product. We were normally pretty good about not stepping on each other’s toes, but some days, accidents happened and that was one of those days.

Those days are gone.

At that time, pharma field forces were used a lot like a hunter would use a shotgun. Pharma companies counted on the shear number of reps and repetition to get information through to a doctor. If one rep did not get through on a visit, another rep calling on the doctor the next week may make some progress. Through repetition from different reps, sooner or later, the information would stick.

Your aimin terms of which healthcare professionals (HCPs) you visited did not even have to be all that great. As long as they wrote some prescriptions in that particular therapeutic area, you would probably get some business if you were persistent enough.

But now, the pharma sales force reality has changed dramatically. Field forces have been severely reduced and so it is often the case that only one rep covers a specific geography. In addition, chances are that the geography they are covering is much larger than the one that they used to cover with a larger sales team.

Ironically, some pharma field forces have not adapted to this new reality and are using the same strategies and tactics as they did when they had multiple reps covering small geographies.

Simple test. If reach and frequency on physicians are a company’sprimary metrics for field force performance, they are probably using the same strategies and tactics that they did when they had a much larger field force.

To use an analogy, the change in the pharma field force situation is a lot like that hunter going from using ashotgun to a rifle.

Now, with one rep, maybe two covering a specific geography, using “shotgun” strategies and tactics no longer makes sense. Even with a reduced list of healthcare professionals to see, you can’t count on repetition as the way that you get your information through to the HCP like you did when you had with 6 plus reps covering thatgeography.

The quality of a call was always important but, in the new reality, it will now make or break you. The HCPswho are seen are more important than ever. With the reduced manpower and opportunities, you cannot afford to waste even one visit.

Before, the primary driver of success was repetition. Now, it is all about quality. More than ever before, you need to understand, connect and communicate with your customer to be successful.

I talk about this in some my videos (Solutions MRC YouTube Channel) so if you are interested in my thoughts on how you can do this, feel free to check them out.

I would argue that the metrics for the new, smaller field forcesshould reflect the fundamental change in the strategies and tactics required.

Whereas before it was largely about volume of activity against a specified list of targets, now the metrics need to reflect the hyper targeted, hyper quality approach that is required.

As an example, I believe that frequency should be a secondary metric in comparison to metrics like the ability of sales reps to identify the important HCPs, how well they understand their HCPs and how effectively they connect and communicate with them.

These metrics are more subjective to be sure but none-the-less are at the core of what the reps of today need to be able to do in order to be successful.