Open Enrollment Sales Training
Private Group Sales Training:
Group sales training
seminars can be tailored to the needs of
the client
organization and delivered on-site at the time and location of the clients choice.
Public Open Enrollment Workshops: Individuals are invited to
participate in monthly sales classes held across the US in an open enrollment format.
For more information and pricing, please complete this form and we will email
you a confidential Annotated Outline that will provide you with an hour by hour
description of our sales training workshop
of your choice.
Would experience selling computers or office copiers help you break into pharmaceutical sales? Some people think that if you get sales experience with products like copiers or work stints with rental car agencies, you would automatically have an easier time breaking into the field you really want to get into which is pharmaceutical sales.
The office equipment market including copiers is a very different type of business environment compared to that found in pharmaceutical sales. Since customers can often be one time buyers only, sales people in equipment tend to use a more aggressive and sometimes cut throat form of sales in order to get the business.
Some pharmaceutical companies have hired these relatively aggressive sales people for their sales forces. However, this is certainly not true for all drug companies. This is because pharmaceutical sales involve a much longer term environment with an emphasis on building business relationships in order to get the trust of customers. Repeat sales calls with the same customers is the norm in this industry.
An overly aggressive pharmaceutical sales representative can easily turn off customers and even lose the opportunity to have future appointments with them. I've actually seen this happen to some drug representatives out in the field as customer’s physicians have told me that they refuse to see certain sales reps because of their aggressive styles.
Therefore, some pharmaceutical companies will not hire former sales people who were in aggressive short term selling environments unless they can prove that they can tone their styles down to adapt to the pharmaceutical sales environment.
So to answer the original question of whether one should try to get some work experience selling copiers in order to break into pharmaceutical sales, the answer is any previous sales experience dealing with real customers is an asset whether it is dealing with copiers, rental cars, medical equipment or even retail sales.
The key is being able to utilize the same selling skills but to adapt the style to fit in well with the pharmaceutical sales environment. In many ways, selling copiers can be a more challenging form of sales since one may not always have the benefit of follow up appointments with the same customers.
It is also important to realize that although previous sales experience is an asset, it is not absolutely required in order to break into pharmaceutical sales. After all, former nurses and other health care related individuals are also breaking into pharmaceutical sales jobs successfully as well.
