DESIRED QUALIFICATION
- Any Graduate / Post-Graduate
- Pharmacy or Science preferred
- M.B.A in Sales & Marketing would have added advantage
- For experienced persons, with relevant Sales Experience with Pharma Corporate is further preferred
DESIRED PERSONALITY
1. A person with an inner urge to connect with others, especially unknown persons
The medical representative needs to have a willingness to meet new persons, new doctors, new clinics/hospitals to explore the new business avenues. A person, without this urge, would find it difficult to do this job with success.
2. A person with eagerness to travel to places.
The sales job is full of wandering around the city, satellite towns, etc in pursuit of meeting existing & new doctors/chemists to get business; therefore, this is a must trait to be dashing Medrep.
3. A Person with a lot of patience to see success after many initial failures.
Here, many times, success, we mean, prescription followed by value sales come after many rejections/failures. We need to operate in a cut-throat competition era. Therefore, one needs to be loaded with a lot of patience to gain success, maybe after consecutive failures.
4. A Person with the ability to rise after failure.
Not, just patience, but, ability to rise after every fall, get the grip of the situation and further strive for success.
5. A person with the ability to handle pressures of sales operations.
Sales job, though, comes with a lot of rewards and recognition; it also has an inbuilt, pressure mantle. One needs to handle a lot of pressure, at a time, from the customer that is doctor, chemists, stockists, sometimes, even patients, then from up line managers, head office executives for certain data, etc. The main pressure, however, is to achieve Sales Target every month in spite of all odds.
DESIRED SKILLS
1. Excellent Communication Skills.
They say, in marketing, we / salespeople are paid for our tongue. That means excellent and effective communication gets the doctor to convince and to prescribe the brand and get the chemist to sell the stocks. Excellent communication, without sales, is of no use. We see such examples also in the field. Better, not to be on that side.
2. Reasonable command over English& at least 1 Vernacular language along with Hindi.
Generally, we speak 3 languages, considering the person with whom we are transacting. However, in sales, it is often required to start your conversation in English, as it gives a good start & your audience, start taking you in good spirit, later, you can switch to either Hindi or vernacular language in which your Doctor / Chemist is comfortable.
3. People Skills
Handling a variety of people, during the day, makes it imperative to have excellent people skill for a Medical Representative to have control over, so many aspects of the job. Given the number of people coming across any MR in a day, puts it in dire need to have Excellent People Skill to be a successful medrep.
4. Leadership Skills.
Leadership skills get developed, automatically, if one , pays attention while handling a variety of people, who come across during the course of the work. Very few, further develop, this skill, to become, Manager & further rise to go to the Top Most Position in the Pharma Corporate.
5. Quick learning ability.
Medical Representative Job, as conveyed earlier, starts at the very bottom of the Pharma Corporate Pyramid. As you, rise above the level, the number of positions, keeps shrinking. That increases the competition for getting next level promotion. Therefore, quick learning ability is a must, if you, want to have a successful career ahead. For people, who want to do just the Medical Representative job, as the new brands keep coming & communication of old brands also keep changing over 3 months or even 6 months, MR, need to quickly learn the new knowledge, communication and adapt to that, to be successful MR.
6. Problem Solving Skills
Medical Representative keeps getting problems/ issues at every step during his day or monthly work. He needs to prioritize the issues on its urgency basis and get it solved, either on his/ her own or with the help of his immediate senior or that of Head Office support.
7. Meticulous Follow Up with various stakeholders in the Trade Channels.
As conveyed earlier, Sales are done when the Payment is collected. This requires the MR to do consistent, meticulous follow up with Chemists (around 200 in his entire headquarter), min 5-10 stockists, and 1 C&F agent to ensure, the sales stocks are made available for honoring the prescription at each & every doctor’s nearby chemist & the payment is collected from chemist to stockists & from stockists to C&F.
8. Interest in understanding Human Physiology& relations of various diseases & prescribed medicines for these diseases.
One needs to develop an interest in understanding the topics related to the brand, such as basic human physiology, systems under consideration, disease profile, available drugs/ medicines for the same, and your own brand/ its molecule to be confident to face the doctor call without fear.
9. Desire to grow in Career.
One needs to keep running to be at the same place. This is true in the case of a Sales job, that too as Medical Representative. You need to get new customers/ doctors, at the same time, retain, old prescribers to keep growing in sales value, month after month. This can happen, only if, the Medical Representative has a Strong Desire to Grow in his/ her career.