A day in the life of a Medical Rep

The following account has been written by a GP/Hospital Medical Representative of about 12 months experience.

The average content of a day for a representative revolves around the following:

1. Selling to customers, either one to one or via meetings
2. Administration - Business planning, journey planning, setting pre-call and next call objectives, computer work.
3. Driving between customers.

• Two days are never the same
• The cliché, 'the more you put in the more you get out' has never been truer'

It is usually a fair goal to see between 3-5 GPs per day, 3 pharmacists and 3 Hospital Doctors. However, this can vary dependent on the products that you sell and the therapy area that you are working in. For instance, some products require contact with a variety of Nurses (District Nurses, Practice Nurses and Hospital Nurses). In general there is always a stronger bias towards prescribers i.e. Doctors.

GPs are traditionally seen in the morning, whilst hospitals are visited in the afternoon. With most doctors not particularly wanting to see representatives during their surgeries, the optimal time for representatives to see GPs is before and after surgery.

Question - What time does your local surgery open?

    - If you want to see the doctor before surgery then you will need to be there about half an hour before this time.

Question - What time do you have to leave the house if this surgery is 30 miles away?

    - So the average day for a medical representative starts early, from 7am onwards. This is why it helps if you live on territory within easy reach of your customers.

From 7:30am - 9:30am your sole aim will be to get to as many surgeries as possible to either try and see customers then and there or arrange to try and come back later.

Between 9:30am - 10:30am most surgeries are in full swing and representatives are not always welcome, not a bad time to see pharmacy or buy sandwiches for your lunch meeting. In addition this time can be well spent reporting the details of the calls you made on your lap top computer.

Madness from 10:30am - 12:30pm. Surgeries are closing, Doctors are preparing for home visits and it is prime time for representatives to be seen. In these two hours you will probably see between 3-5 doctors.

You will use your extensive skills and product knowledge acquired on your initial residential training programme to inform and influence. The dialogue, though is two- way: representatives also play a Marketing role, detecting changes in demand patterns and spotting new product needs.

12:30 - 1:00pm - after seeing 3 GPs it is time to prepare for a lunch presentation meeting you arranged last week. The meeting will entail standing on your feet, giving a slide presentation for the GPs in the surgery and answering any questions they might have. Besides settling your nerves the real skill here is being able to sell your product over the competition.

2:00pm - 5:00pm Meeting over, time for the hospital. You have 3 appointments you arranged 12 months ago with the 3 different cardiology consultants. The consultants do not use your product, they do not like it and are telling all the GPs in the area not to use it. It is your job to persuade them to change this. Are you confident enough to challenge leaders in their field or will you wimp out and agree with them?

5:00pm has arrived - time for home and a rest - not quite. As a new representative you probably have another hour doing administration work. This will include reporting all calls made, responding to e-mails and requests, speaking to the boss, but most importantly planning tomorrow and the rest of the week.

Maybe once or twice a week you will have an evening meeting where you play host to between 6-30 customers. This will often involve a meal and a promotional presentation. The representative who wrote the above has since gone on to pass her ABPI and to achieve outstanding sales success. Having spoken with her recently, her comments were: