Due to the large number of responses to the publication of our previous press unit associated with the prospects of medical representatives and other professionals of the pharmaceutical industry, we prepared another review on this topic.Sooner or later any medical representative is faced with strategic questions to develop your own career: where to grow, what step should be next?
the Most common are the following two: either it management positions in sales (Supervisor / Senior medical representative / district Manager / Regional Manager and so on), or this care marketing (Junior Product Manager / Product Manager).
In our experience a lot of medical representatives do not have detailed information about what exactly do marketers in the pharmaceutical business and makes his choice in favor of sales, without considering seriously the marketing.
let’s Try to disassemble the main objections which we have to face and present your counter-arguments.
«I don’t want to leave sales». In fact, the marketing Department and the sales Department are working on the same task, carrying out the established plan, just doing it from different sides. Clear task marketers – sales support, they help fix bugs, make improvements to the Sales Force: they collect feedback from customers, make double visits with medical representatives, conduct joint meetings, etc. However, the main task of marketing is a strategy of getting the product to the market, this is the answer to the question: what, who, where and how to sell the company in the short term.
«I don’t like to push the paper». Of course, in the marketing Department to work with documents more often than used to it medical representatives. However, marketing is not only accountability, but also the development of plans for product promotion, then its implementation. One of such tasks may be searching for a new key messages for doctors, the new packaging for the product, or even a commercial shoot. Even if these tasks have to remain in the office, we call this monotonous work is difficult.
«Only by working in sales can grow to the level of Director General.» Of course, for management of the pharmaceutical business, you will need extensive commercial experience, but this position also required and marketing competence. Starting from the position of a Product Manager, marketer learns to think and act from the point of view of strategic development of the product, in fact, he already is the CEO, if not all businesses, but only part of it. Well, formally: the transition from the position of marketing Director to the position of General – quite often, because strategically position in marketing are not much different from positions in sales.
«in order to get into marketing, you must specifically learn.» In the pharmaceutical business marketing positions have their own unique features most often they suggest the presence of medical or pharmaceutical education of the candidate, and then the «classic» marketing competencies. According to our observations, more than 80 percent of marketers working in farm, have such education, «clean» marketers are found much less frequently and mainly work exclusively with consumer promotion. Therefore, it is necessary to understand that the position «medical representative» and can become the first step towards a career in marketing.
Summarizing all above mentioned, we can say that a medical representative can confidently build their career in marketing, as experience in sales is a good precondition for this. If you notice a tendency to improve own work, if, when faced with the actions of competitors in the market, you think about that, that could be countered by your company, it is likely that a career in marketing can be to your liking. Of course, this will not prevent a solid knowledge of the English language and secondary specialized education, but to start with, you will just need your initiative within the company. Collaborate with marketers, offer them new solutions that help them better understand the situation in the fields and it may well be that one day you will be asked to join the team.
Alexander Pokryshkin,
The recruitment consultant.
Recruiting company AVICONN