How to improve pharmaceutical representatives’ knowledge successfully?

Being a great pharmaceutical rep is becoming more and more difficult. With almost unlimited Internet access and tons of available materials about medicines, doctors are expecting from reps the most up-to-date knowledge.

What is the risk of having poorly trained reps?

Pharmaceutical representatives are at the forefront of the company communication channel to doctors. With a week performance, the costs could be enormous. Losing physicians trust due to the lack of knowledge or miscommunication is like operating to the detriment of the company. How managers and sales directors can act to avoid such situation?

A traditional way of teaching reps

In the era when the Internet was used rather out of curiosity, for fun or perhaps to send an email, pharmaceutical companies were accustomed to the traditional way of training representatives. The whole company gathered for two or three days in nicely looking hotel localized in the beautiful environment and a professional set of trainers though and motivate reps to work. Although the conditions were perfect and the trainers were the best in their class, after two days of intense learning, not so much was absorbed. And with the integration party at night, the second day of training for some attendants was most often described by the saying “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Those kinds of meetings are essential for companies and need to be organized for keeping the team motivated, learning soft skills and integrating with each other. But for difficult to acquire pharmaceutical industry knowledge, there are different, more effective ways of learning. Especially now when the Internet changed mostly everything, and the costs side of the project is more important than ever. The ROI from training sessions must be ensured so that companies could invest in the new training. Let’s be frank, the whole company gatherings or even regional ones are very expensive and time-consuming. Comparing to not so great results,  there is a lot to consider.