OT- Med/Pharm Sales

seaofred92

seaofred92

Well-known member
Close friend of mine went to school to work in the ICU in a rhespitory unit. Has enjoyed it but wants to pivot into Med device/pharmacy sales. Anyone take a similar path here? He says he’d be open to taking an entry level sales role in a company. Just curious how realistic it is to pivot at this point. 

 
seaofred92 said:
Close friend of mine went to school to work in the ICU in a rhespitory unit. Has enjoyed it but wants to pivot into Med device/pharmacy sales. Anyone take a similar path here? He says he’d be open to taking an entry level sales role in a company. Just curious how realistic it is to pivot at this point. 
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Bro, this field is a freaking mess right now.

A few years back they changed s#!t up and stopped all the "free lunches, breakfasts and tickets" that reps would drop off all the time at the doctors office.  Also, sounds like your dude friend is not a dudette...so that will not help one bit.  That field is female, big time.

I have a good friend and his brother and brothers wife both were in the field.  His brother lost his job and has tried for the last 10 years to get back in with a sweet company like he was before, company car, 20 hours a week, lots of golf and making bank, no such luck.  His (now ex wife) is still working with that company.

I also have a friend (girl) that does med supply sales and she loves it, travels a decent amount but not a ton and does really well.  

But from everything I have been told is that it is much harder to get into and to stay in the field now than it was in the past.

 
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teachercd said:
Bro, this field is a freaking mess right now.

A few years back they changed s#!t up and stopped all the "free lunches, breakfasts and tickets" that reps would drop off all the time at the doctors office.  Also, sounds like your dude friend is not a dudette...so that will not help one bit.  That field is female, big time.

I have a good friend and his brother and brothers wife both were in the field.  His brother lost his job and has tried for the last 10 years to get back in with a sweet company like he was before, company car, 20 hours a week, lots of golf and making bank, no such luck.  His (now ex wife) is still working with that company.

I also have a friend (girl) that does med supply sales and she loves it, travels a decent amount but not a ton and does really well.  

But from everything I have been told is that it is much harder to get into and to stay in the field now than it was in the past.
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Most definitely- my dad has worked at a Fortune 500 med/pharm sales company for years. The Affordable Care Act I believe also included the restrictions you're referring to on the perks a lot of doctors/hospitals used to get from these guys. Just was curious if anyone's made the transition from the hospital to the sales side and how successful they've been

 
seaofred92 said:
Most definitely- my dad has worked at a Fortune 500 med/pharm sales company for years. The Affordable Care Act I believe also included the restrictions you're referring to on the perks a lot of doctors/hospitals used to get from these guys. Just was curious if anyone's made the transition from the hospital to the sales side and how successful they've been
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I looked into it, about 16 years ago...My sister is a nurse and had some ins/connections and tried to help me get in with Pfizer but nothing happened for me. 

 
seaofred92 said:
Most definitely- my dad has worked at a Fortune 500 med/pharm sales company for years. The Affordable Care Act I believe also included the restrictions you're referring to on the perks a lot of doctors/hospitals used to get from these guys. Just was curious if anyone's made the transition from the hospital to the sales side and how successful they've been
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In college, I worked at a hospital as an aid (basically what a CNA is now).  I was getting a business degree and knew I would probably end up in sales somewhere.  I almost went into this field.  Sometimes I wish I had.  At the time, if you were good at it, you made a ton of money.  One thing is, it's very competitive.  Produce or you're gone.  

I don't know much about the regulations that others have mentioned.  But, let me ask this, what's the worst case scenario if your friend tries it?  A) He either gets a job or he doesn't...nothing lost.  B) if he gets the job, he either loves it or hates it and he can go back to what he was doing before.....again....nothing lost.

 
BigRedBuster said:
In college, I worked at a hospital as an aid (basically what a CNA is now).  I was getting a business degree and knew I would probably end up in sales somewhere.  I almost went into this field.  Sometimes I wish I had.  At the time, if you were good at it, you made a ton of money.  One thing is, it's very competitive.  Produce or you're gone.  

I don't know much about the regulations that others have mentioned.  But, let me ask this, what's the worst case scenario if your friend tries it?  A) He either gets a job or he doesn't...nothing lost.  B) if he gets the job, he either loves it or hates it and he can go back to what he was doing before.....again....nothing lost.
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He's going for it- applying to jobs and whatnot now. I was just curious if anyone had made a similar transition, I don't know diddly squat about this field and don't know how common it is. I do know its very difficult to get in though. If someone had gone down a similar path was going to potentially try to connect them to speak. 

 
BigRedBuster said:
In college, I worked at a hospital as an aid (basically what a CNA is now).  I was getting a business degree and knew I would probably end up in sales somewhere.  I almost went into this field.  Sometimes I wish I had.  At the time, if you were good at it, you made a ton of money.  One thing is, it's very competitive.  Produce or you're gone.  

I don't know much about the regulations that others have mentioned.  But, let me ask this, what's the worst case scenario if your friend tries it?  A) He either gets a job or he doesn't...nothing lost.  B) if he gets the job, he either loves it or hates it and he can go back to what he was doing before.....again....nothing lost.
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Shoot, back in the day you could make a fortune in Pharm sales...it was like the wild west of sales...stop in...drop off lunch...drop off your sample of wang-pills and wait.

 
Xmas32 said:
 FYP with bolded add.
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I didn't want to say it because of the you-know-who crowd...but that is so true.  The Pharm companies are known for hiring hotties...those hotties work for a few years and then are replaced by new hotties.

 
teachercd said:
I didn't want to say it because of the you-know-who crowd...but that is so true.  The Pharm companies are known for hiring hotties...those hotties work for a few years and then are replaced by new hotties.
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Yeah I only have my own personal small sample size to work out of but I know/knew 15 or so pharma reps in my network, 10 of those are female, 8 of those are smokeshows and the other 2 were highly decorated athletes (and were still pretty cute).  Perhaps hiring standards have changed in the last 10 years or so but I'm pretty cynical so I doubt it.  Where I see it now, and it could just be because I'm in recruiting now is the attractive female IT recruiter.  You give me a female that knows IT and is reasonably attractive and it's like fishing with dynamite when they go to networking events.  Seriously...it's not even fair.  Another rare skill is the sales engineer who can also sell.  If I could go back and do it again I would've focused more on computer programming in high school/college.  A couple of my friends from college did the CS degree coupled with a MBA and they're all stacking big time cheques.

 
Xmas32 said:
Where I see it now, and it could just be because I'm in recruiting now is the attractive female IT recruiter.  You give me a female that knows IT and is reasonably attractive and it's like fishing with dynamite when they go to networking events.  Seriously...it's not even fair. 
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I had flashes of Big Bang Theory guy's reaction when a hot babe walks in the room.

 
One area of sales in the medical field that gets over looked that probably doesn't have the same issues with women vs. men....is the medical equipment industry.  Hospitals all over are expanding and replacing old equipment with new.  It's a hot industry.  You're not selling to doctors (mostly) you're selling to hospital administrators.

 
I have a friend that taught school for a few years and then got into the drug sales.  His brother in laws got him on with whoever he was working with first.  I was surprised he would be any good at it, because he was a terrible speaker in front of people over the age of 10.  

Basically back when he got into it about 20+ years ago you needed to look good in a suit, which he did, and have a good drug to sell.  I think he still does it.  Selling any thing like that is a lot about image.  I used to have a trucking rep come and see me.  Very attractive late 30's female in a very male dominated world.  It may sound sexist, but she got a lot of men to use her trucking company to do their LTL shipping.   

 
This is my line of work - started 20+ years ago and yes, times have changed.  No lunches or time with docs doing fun stuff, and HIPPA and the AMA (it's not the affordable care act that impacted pharma, it's the medical groups banding together to track spending of industry, and it happened long before ACA).

The numbers of sales team members has been cut dramatically since the 2009 or so - I was part of a huge sales force (Abt 10k) that is down to maybe 2k now and I heard they're going through layoffs again.  I joined a small company awhile ago and it's much better, but that too has it's own tradeoffs.  Because of all the shrinkage of the last 10 years most "entry level" will be a contract sales force.  Companies can take their pick of tenured, talented sales people looking for work and wouldn't take a chance on a clinician who has no sales experience when they can get them. 

Why is he wanting to make this change?  He should be ready to answer that candidly, and have a purpose.  The old "to have more flexibility" will get him booted from the hiring managers short list immediately.  The biggest concern will be if he can sell.  Unless he has experience of cold calling and numbers and he's really serious about this I'd say he should also be looking to take a year or two in a sale job to get those skills prior to interviewing.

Id say to make the transition I'd focus on the arena he was a specialist for - looking at oxygen sales or an asthma and allergy company.  He better be ready to work in a team environment.  As entry level he'd likely be calling on a territory where at least two other reps overlap him, and the model is frequency on docs.  Teach above mentioned how easy the work is and how much money you make (as well as a number of other stereotypical comments) and while hard work can equal a good payday the bonus' are not like they used to be, and I'd have to know where he lives regionally, but without experience his salary would probably be better than some lines of work, but certainly below 60k.  (Teach if your buddy was working 20 hours a week and playing golf I can tell you why he was let go, and why it took him 10 years to find a new gig).

Device sales might be an option if he can get aligned to a respiratory company - typically entry level with those companies are on call 24/7 and weekends, and work in a team of 2-3 members where they split bonus.

Many people have a limited (and uneducated) view of what we do.  I'd tell him to connect with the reps who come to visit him now and network with them to understand how his skills might transfer, and if he'd really like the job.  Ask if he can spend time with them over coffee discussing the job and requirements.  The travel.  Depending on the territory many of us have to commit to 40-60% travel on average, so he should be ok with being away from home on overnights a couple times a week and then for meetings quarterly.

Lots of info and I've barely scratched the surface.  My q would be after all the schooling and training why would he want to leave RT?

 
My buddy that did it and worked 20 hours a week and never worked Fridays was making bank for years...once companies realized how bloated things were getting...he was gone.

 
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