Get me out of here, I am bored!

I am a sales rep and I am bored. Is this not the reality for many of our sales force?

By 'Mal Barnard' on Feb 17, 2009

I am a sales rep and I am bored. Is this not the reality for many of our sales force? Think about it, after years at university attaining a degree and some sales or commercial experience, their role requires them to go around and deliver messages to GPs who often do not want to see them and when they do, pay very little attention.

The Marketers have let the Medical representatives down, most want to do a hard days work and make a difference but how? As our environment as increased in complexity, there are opportunities to upgrade the value delivery part of the role. But they must deliver those carefully designed messages, which appear so manufactured that they lose credibility with their customers.

In the end we get the sales but leave our customers disillusioned. Who cares? We should because we are not immune to a revolt from customers. We have to work harder to use the unleashed potential of the sales force - which is huge. These are bright, enthusiastic graduates that we often kill within a year or two and leave them dreaming of a new role as one of the marketers that inflicts the pain. Harsh? I am not sure.

If used appropriately the sales force are still the silver bullet, but let's leave the BS out and rethink how we deploy them. We are too clever and face too big a challenge not to.