Medical sales and the dreaded field visit

That is, a day or days where your manager works with you in the field. The perception of field visits can vary enormously from a day of terror as you are policed by a manager checking your every move to an enjoyable experience where you have the opportunity to improve your performance.

Whilst I would concede that the end of the spectrum you personally are at is influenced by the manager and his style, the good news is that a large part of this is your own perception and how you approach the situation yourself. Before I proceed to offer advice on how to get the most out of field visits I should say that if you are not giving your job 100% I am unable to help. For people not who are not trying to achieve the best results they can and are basically trying to artificially generate a 'good day out' for their manager, this will ultimately be transparent to an experienced manager. To give you one howler of an example, when a rep of 2 years experience is driving around with a map on their lap in 'the' major city of their territory looking for a surgery, it's a tad obvious that not all is well!

If you are giving it your all then read on. Firstly, both you and your manager are trying to achieve the same thing, excellent results. Rather than preparing for your field visits trying to set up some guaranteed, albeit pointless calls, plan an ordinary day with perhaps an appointment, some known specs, and maybe some exploration of tougher access surgeries. Plan what you would like to work on with your manager to improve. Just like a tennis player would pick a stroke and ask to work on it with their coach, you should do the same. Set yourself an area to improve, perhaps access to tough surgeries, and e-mail this objective to your manager in advance, this will give him chance to turn up with ideas.

Having been in medical sales for several years before entering sales management, you do, of course, know what a normal day looks like, and equally what a manufactured day looks like. What a manager really wants to feel at the end of a field visit is that they have been able to put something in to the day that will improve your overall all performance. Being a spectator on a 'text book' day will not achieve this. If you start the day with a specific objective and indeed request to work on something 'with' you manager, you are highly likely to end the day with results.

Even the most 'stiff' of sales managers will not be able to ignore a polite request to call on their expertise and experience to improve your game plan, it also demonstrates to them that you are committed to improving. In this sense, even if your results are lacking, a manager will be encouraged that you are taking steps to improve matters.

In summary, many people in medical sales who fear field visits, only do so because of their own perception of them, viewing them as a policing exercise, trying to catch you out. If this is you, change your perception to the day as an opportunity to improve particular part of your approach, you'll like the results.

Good luck

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