Damien Johnes, as a pharma rep, has a history of topping the sales charts every quarter for the past 3 years. With his initial reconnaissance, he had cast his net wide and far within his territory and knows every GPs in the primary care clinic very well. His lunch appointments with GPs always have scored a hit, making him the best sales rep within his team.

The last two quarters, however, hasn't been too good for him. He has been meeting the right people and approaching the same clinics and meeting up with the same GPs, but his sales seem to have reached a stagnation. His manager was perplexed wondering why a high performer suddenly was not able to deliver when his other teammates have consistently been showing improvement and reaching their targets well in time.

The reason was simple enough, when they sat down to discuss in detail where Damien was going wrong- he simply had exhausted opportunities to sell his product because he was reluctant to explore further afield. Feeling too comfortable with his own territory and the bunch of primary care clinics (even with the migrating GP population), Damien near looked at exploring opportunities that 'could have been'.

Here, we need to understand one thing- When GPs migrate to other clinics, they may prefer to quickly order drug samples locally instead of relying on a long-distance relationship with you. Even if you are happy to approach the replacement doctor who has come in their place, you may possibly be missing out on chance to explore further afield to increase your opportunities.

Missed opportunities: the underlying causes

The golden rule (and one that's as old) of pharma sales is to visit the primary care clinics in your territory, get a lunch appointment (or meet them after work, as it has become a norm now) and talk to them one- on-one. An established schedule for several decades now, this presents a great opportunity to meet the customer (or customer's') to talk to them about the product, drug, research and so on, to hit the mark.

With digital appointment booking systems in place, arranging meetings to discuss products has become significantly easier, saving valuable time and effort. So, all it needs is ensuring we do not let go of the opportunities that's presented for these one-on-ones to get the sales pitch going.

Then where are we going wrong? Why the missed opportunities? 

Remember - missed meeting opportunities in pharma sales are not just a vacant spot on the calendar, but moments that could have turned the tide in sales.