Company : Abbot Laboratories (Pakistan) Ltd.

Mr. Aamer Bashir - Territory Manager

Territory & Time Management

The twin city territory is broadly divided in to two parts. Islamabad is divided in two parts.

1. Islamabad Left (On left side of Islamabad Express way starting from Zero-point
interchange)
2. Islamabad Right (On right side of Islamabad Express way starting from Zero-point
interchange)

Rawalpindi city is divided in two parts as well.

1. City
2. Cantt (From Sawaan to Daewoo bus station including Saddar)

The cantt area comprises of 250 doctors. The sales representative is supposed to visit all the
250 doctors once and complete the sales cycle in 1.5 month. He is in-charge of three products
and no other sales representative of the company Abbot deals in those products. The products
are;

1. Brufen
2. Urixin
3. Becefol (Vitamin)

The annual sales target of Mr. Aamer is PKR 12 million.

Sales Calls

The sales calls I attended were done on Friday 14 th May 2010. The sales call were done in Cantt
General Hospital, Saddar, Rawalpindi. First call was done with Gynaecologist Nighat Shaheen.
Sales reps of different companies were present there and were waiting for their turns as all of
them were there to conduct the call with the same doctor. When the turn of Mr. Aamir came,
we both entered the chamber. She was attending a patient at the same time while the sales rep
was observing the call. There were no seats to get seated and the sales rep did the whole sales
call while standing. The whole call took 60 – 90 seconds.
He wished the doctor and started the call by introducing himself and named the company he
represented. He started the approach part with an introductory statement. The sales rep
started off with the medicine Brufen. He placed the literature regarding the medicine on the
table of doctor as he started the call. The table was almost full of literature and samples as
other sales reps had already visited her before Mr. Aamir. He told the doctor that Brufen is for
acute back ache, acute head ache and migraine and its usage gives relief in 15 mins
(Advantage). He didn’t talk about the features (also not needed as doctor already knew about
the product) and he didn’t talk about the benefits as well. He placed the sample on her table
(another sales rep went out of the chamber to get the samples as he didn’t take his back in to
the chamber at first time). During the whole call, doctor was looking at her table working on the
prescription she was giving to the patient and shook her head constantly giving the message to
go on and complete the call. He then placed the literature of the second product Urixin. He
told the doctor that this medicine is for urinary tract infection and didn’t tell specifically any
advantage or benefit. He again placed the samples on the table. The third product he talked
about was Becefol (vitamin) which is used as a nutritional supplement. He placed the samples
and again didn’t talk about any of the FABs. He then thanked the doctor and came out of her
chamber.

The sales presentation was the memorized one and was well structured. The rep was supposed
to visit all 250 doctors in cantt area and already knew about them so didn’t need any proper
prospecting as it had been done earlier. The doctor didn’t say a single word during the whole
presentation. As the selling time was very short, so going with the memorized sales call was a
good option to go for. There was no prospect participation and the rep proceeded very quickly.
It was a routine sales call and the objective was to meet the doctor and give the sales call of the
three products (and samples) as he was supposed to visit her once during the sales cycle. I don’t
think any buyer mental step was there as the doctor didn’t even pay any attention to the call.
The only steps of the selling process that were present in the sales call were approach and the
presentation.

Towards the ending of the sales call, the guard entered the chamber and asked if the sales rep had taken
permission from the MS hospital and got his card signed. The rep replied in negative as no rep had done
that. He then went to the MS office and got his card signed. (The rep told me he signs the cards only if
reps give him something and this time the rep had to give him few samples). So some unethical practice
was done by both the rep and the MS.

The rep was dressed well and his outlook was decent and professional. Not much of the SELL sequence
steps was observed as only advantage was talked about.
The second call was one of its kinds. A number of reps were waiting outside the chamber of Medical
Specialist Hamid Bashir. When announced of the starting time of the sales calls, about 15 reps entered
at the same time in to the chamber. They all made a queue while standing along the wall of the
chamber. The doctor also stood up and listened to each rep one by one. While one rep was giving the
call, the other one was standing right behind him waiting for his turn. Each rep gave a call of maximum
20 seconds. One rep gave the doctor a tissue paper box with the medicine information imprinted on it.
The doctor asked a single question out of all the sales call from a rep asking about the availability of the
sizes if the medicine he gave him the samples of. On his turn, Mr. Aamir quickly gave the call and told
him about the medicines and their advantages and placed the samples on his table. The doctor didn’t
ask any question and was merely giving indications of listening to each rep with attention out of
politeness.

Again the sales rep used the memorized type of sales call and only approach and the presentation steps
were present in the sales call. The call started with the introductory statement with only telling his name
and the company he was representing.

The last call was not much different except that there were no patients in the doctor’s chamber and the
sales rep didn’t give the call while standing this time. Doctor offered us to get seated and then the rep
asked how he was doing. Then, he started with the same introductory statement and talked about the
same information he gave earlier. This time the doctor asked about the availability of other size variants
of the medicine Brufen. The rep told him that 200mg, 400mg and 600mg variants were available in the
market. The posture of the rep was upright and he talked about the products with full confidence.

The calls were more of routine calls. Not much of the steps and stages that we studied in the sales
course were observed in the sales calls that I attended. The sales rep knew what he had to say keeping
in mind the time duration he had. He talked about the company, for what problems to use it and the
advantages of the products. He started the calls greeting the doctor, introducing himself and naming the
company he represented. Memorized type of presentation was opted. Only approach and the
presentation stages of selling process were there. The close included only the end greetings in all the
sales calls as the rep only talked about the products in brief and gave the samples and doctors didn’t
look at them as long as the rep was present in their chambers. They may have looked at them after the
rep left their chambers. No trial closes were there as the nature of the calls didn’t allow for them or
were not needed because of the nature of the calls.