S(KILL) SALES

Mathew joined Pioneer Animal Pharma Ltd. recently as a Veterinary Sales Executive. Mathew, along with 20 other new recruits were sent for a month long training program at the company’s Bangalore factory office. The sprawling campus of the Bangalore factory was quite impressive. The Factory premises also resided the training facility. Mathew and other trainees were lodged in a three star hotel in Bangalore city at the cost of the company. The transport and boarding was also at company’s expenses. The trainees would report every day morning at the factory training facility. After finishing their breakfast, they would be taken to a nice air-conditioned training room and taken through multiple sessions, mostly on product and technical knowledge. From the second day onwards they started to have a test on previous day’s learning. The test would be objective in nature and designed purely to test the conceptual skills of the trainees. Mathew’s ability to grasp the product and technical knowledge was very good and he constantly scored highest amongst the group of trainees. This was first job for Mathew after his graduation and he worked very hard in remembering the product formulations, technical aspects like amino acids, salts etc. On the penultimate day of the training, the trainees were told about ‘detailing’. Detailing is basically the way in which the sales guy makes a presentation in front of the doctor and is considered to be important in the entire pharma-sales process. The trainees were first given a demonstration by the training manager. This was followed by an in-house simulation, where one of the training manager posed as a doctor and one by one all the trainees rehearsed the act of ‘detailing’. Mathew did not feel much challenge in the same. On the last day of the training Mathew received an award from the Vice-President of the firm for scoring highest aggregate marks in their month-long daily tests based on the training content. Mathew was told that his name would also be published in the quarterly pull-out of the company. Mathew was thrilled & excited and was raring to go on the field.


Mathew was posted in a small, dusty town in the northern part of the country called Bulandshahr. Bulandshahr is famous for its dairy farms. The milk produced here is mainly exported to Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan. The major dairy farms in Bulandshahr are Parag, Param, Gopaljee, Madhusudan, Rama and Balka Dairy. Mathew found a place to live-in and found the first few days in his job very chaotic. The scene here was so different from the air-conditioned confines of the training room. Managing the route was a challenge in itself. Each route was of minimum 50 kilometers which meant that he had to commute an average of 100 kilometers everyday on his two-wheeler on broken rural roads. The veterinary doctors were very difficult to approach but veterinary sales being overtly a prescription market, he hardly had a choice. Over a period of time he also learnt that in many villages instead of the veterinary doctor, it was the local self-proclaimed animal doctor who ruled the roost. Contacting them and convincing them was even more difficult. His ‘detailing folders and detailing techniques hardly worked on them. Most village chemists were very rugged and hardly polite. Dealing with them was not easy. At times he would have to wait for long hours at a dairy farm or a poultry farm. He did not know on such occasions whether to wait or proceed for the next call. His clients and dealers would have strange demands at times that he never knew how to deal with. At times they even conflicted his ethical principles. Bulandshahr being a dairy rich town had lot of demand of medicines for the cattle. Mathew would many times talk about all the medicines rather than specifically understand the customer needs, much to the frustration of the doctor or other clients. Mathew wondered why he was not told about all this during the training program.

Mathew story could be the story of any guy working in pharma sales. The competencies of a sales person in pharma sales are developed and polished by the companies through sales training programs. But many times, there is gap between what a sales person demonstrates and what is desired from the person on-the-field. We call this ‘competency-gap’. What do you think went wrong with training in Mathew’s case?

Mr. Kawaljit Singh Chadha, Director Von Remedies, Himachal Pradesh (India) feels that for a pharma sales person the basic knowledge of medicines and salts used in formulations is very important. But along with this knowledge, he should be very good in his ability to convince the doctor, who is key in pharma sales. He should have good marketing skills that should combine ethical sales. A good pharma sales person must be able to build a good team and should have leadership skills. Mr. Chadha also opined that companies must have a combination of classroom and field-based training. The classroom training would help them to gain good product and technical knowledge; on the other hand the field exposure would help them to understand the practical realties and problems on the field – like many times getting an appointment from the doctor in itself is a challenge.

Mr. Rajesh Roy feels that competencies in a pharma sales person can be developed only through a combination of classroom and on-the-field training. The classroom training prepares a person in terms of his product-knowledge, etiquettes & mannerisms; whereas the field training helps him to understand practical situations and how deal with them. One doctor may give 30 minutes time to a sales person while another doctor may give only 3 minutes. How does the sales person deal with both these doctors effectively can only be learnt on the field. A lot of learning is actually experiential.

According to Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, Training, coaching and development of sales reps is one of the key area to be addressed to improve the effectiveness of the sales force, that can be achieved only through upfront training for sales managers and reps.

Going back to Mathew’s case the training program that he received scored excellently on developing product and technical knowledge but lacked from providing the trainees an experience of the field and various issues one confronts in the field. A competency-based approach to pharma sales, with a combination of classroom and field training to develop such competencies, would help companies to nurture more and more successful sales people in the organization , contributing to both the individual & organizational benefit.

The last time I heard Mathew had left the company and was contemplating what his future course of actions would be. as for the comopany, they had lost on a good potential and the cost of hiring & training Mathew, besides ofcourse now having to incure re-hiring and re-training cost for the new candidate.