WAYS TO STANDUP AGAINST ‘SERVICES SEEKING DOCTORS’
First of all, Medical Representatives must understand that their services are far more important to the Pharma Companies in the promotion of their products as per strategy, than the kind of services or supports that some Companies may offer to some Doctors. If Companies can win over the Doctors with supports or services, then the Medical Representatives will have too little to contribute and the job may cease to exist soon. Companies may send the services, supports, samples and other promotional inputs by Courier to the Doctors directly in such a scenario. A few small Pharma startups who tried this route couldn’t sustain such services for long and hence had to close down operations, because ‘greed has no limit’, and the demand keeps on increasing month after month. Besides, it is difficult to quantify the exact returns in terms of prescription support from such serviced Doctors, though some Companies try to see the details of supplies made to nearby Retailers from the Stockist/Distributor concerned every month, i.e. secondary sales. Once a Company falls into this trap, it may be very difficult to revert back to ‘purely ethical promotion’ again, because if we stop such ‘services’ one day, drastic sales loss may last for many months and rebuilding a healthy sales base again may take a few years, which may be difficult to deal with from business perspective. The working habits of frontline salesmen of such ‘service’ based Companies may come down drastically as their focus gets shifted to delivering the agreed upon services to the Doctors on time and then ensuring agreed upon returns from each Doctor serviced month after month, than sincere implementation of marketing strategies in the field. In addition, the sales base created through sincere implementation of marketing strategies may last long when compared through the sales base created through offering of other services, because if we stop the ‘other services’, the sales base may crumble quickly like a pack of cards.
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