Death of the ‘Detailing’ Salesman

By 28/09/2011 September 20th, 2012 Attitudes & Behaviours, Marketing

If you have been paying attention for a while you will have realized that a lot is happening and changing in the world of selling and buying. The internet and social media are the most significant game changes along with the commoditisation of products.

With access to so much information, the buyer has grown into a more sophisticated, well informed consumer, especially in the B2B (business to business) space. The savvy business person knows that many of those commodity purchases they have traditionally made face-to-face with a sales representative can now be made online thus saving them valuable time and money.

So why do so many product companies, such as the lucrative Pharmaceutical Industry persist in funding highly expensive, field sales forces whose job is nothing more than getting in front of clients to detail basic product information that is already known to the client and available on the internet?

What value does this add to the client experience? What costs does it add to the product? And could we get it cheaper elsewhere?

pharmaceutical repclubI propose that before long, the ‘detailing’ sales force days will be numbered.
I originally was blooded as a sales person in the pharmaceutical industry back in the early 1980’s and found the experience of selling that way really at odds with my natural tendency to help, advise, educate and produce results. I left the industry after only 2 years hating selling – or at least hating how selling was portrayed to me in this industry. Since then I have understood why this type of selling is not the best approach.

So it came as a great shock to see that nothing had changed in the industry when I presented at a recent industry conference for the pharmaceutical industry – it was like Groundhog Day, the 1980’s all over again. Although there is mounting evidence that this is not working anymore, the industry is still sending out field sales forces.

Time poor professionals such as doctors and dentists do not want to see them anymore – they do not see any value in someone just ‘showing up and throwing up information’ or ‘taking orders’ they could put through on the internet, unless, of course, the sales representative shows up with a lovely lunch befitting Masterchef.

Clients are not stupid; if they can get the basic commodity products cheaper online they are not going to make time for a sales person that adds no further value. Why would they?

They would rather invest time talking to a sales representative who will bring valuable insight to the latest innovation or technique and educate them on how to run a better business, achieve better results, give them back more time.

If these businesses are to invest in any field force representation the place would be in new product and techniques innovations, and education and consulting. Clients want business people who can sell, add value and help grow their business. At the same time, these businesses will need to set up effective online channels which give their clients access to fairly priced commodity items they know they can rely upon in terms of quality and efficacy.

However if the original companies who have made a name developing and producing these quality products, which are now commoditised, do not have an online presence then other companies, some who are less than reputable, will fill in the gap and take sales the original companies could have got.

The clock is ticking down. Watch this space.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, MD of www.barrett.com.au

2 Comments

  • caroline says:

    Do you think this phenomenon is exclusive to medical sales reps, or does it extend to all reps selling to retail of any type, where competitive pricing has become far more important due to competition on the internet?

    • Sue Barrett says:

      it is happening across many industries where there is transactional selling – where the product or service has been commoditised. I have just attend the CSE11 Sales Leadership conference and it is predicted that there will be less actual sales people around in the coming years and the only ones left will be the ones who can work at the complex sales end.