SELLING pharmaceuticals must be the toughest of all sales jobs. The healthcare industry is the most highly regulated sales environment, and the customers – GPs and hospital doctors – are some of the most intelligent and unswayable people around.
Although highly paid and highly qualified, reps spend most days trying to get past receptionists, and once they do have an appointment, they have to convince an overworked doctor to change entrenched prescribing habits. But in the past few years, the role of the pharmaceutical sales rep has changed – and the job is getting tougher.
For a start, decisions about which drugs can…
