If you haven't seen the movie in the title, no worries! I am not going to tell you what happens. The only thing that is relevant for me right now is the Jake Gyllenhaal is in the movie, he's a sales rep and literally goes from doctor's office to doctor's office trying to get them to recommend his drug of choice. He spends every day on the road, chatting up receptionists and leaving behind samples and gifts. All in hopes that they'll like him enough to let him talk to the doctor!
Anyhooo, I work in consumer health care and went out with one of our sales reps last week to get a feel for how our products are received by the medical community. It's a really tough job, the reps spend all day on the road and need to call on at least 8 practices everyday. The goal is to pitch your products to a nurse or a GP, but they're usually very busy and finding the right moment is a matter of luck. I was excited to go out in the field, but because it can be so exhausting I was hoping for a really productive day.
On my way out that morning it suddenly dawned on me that we could use a little help. I called on my angels and asked for help, letting them know that it was important for me to be able to listen to a lot of nurses, doctors and hygienists. I wasn't to bothered about selling our products, they key thing was to get their point of view so that I could use it to do my job better going forward. I sent out the request and then just got on with my day.
The average call rate is 8 practices, and on any given day a sales rep will only be able to talk to 3-4 of the on-call doctors, nurses or hygenists. By 4 pm we had already spoken to four doctors, two nurses and two hygenists. In one practice they even walked us into the surgery and let us have a long chat with 2 of the clinicians, as it turns out the patient they were waiting for was 15 minutes late! =)
Reading about call rates and pharma reps might not be as exciting as spirit guides and healings, but if you think about the odds and all of the help I got from my angels it was really remarkable!
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