For the average rep, a 13-minute meal trumps a 60-second office visit, any day of the week.
May 1, 2005 By:
Sibyl Shalo Pharmaceutical Executive
It's twelve o'clock—do you know where your reps are? According to research from Health Strategies Group, lunches
provide one of the few opportunities in today's short-call environment for sit-down discussions with doctors. The average
length of a lunch is 13 minutes, with an average of three physicians per meeting.
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That's an eternity compared with the typical drop-in sales call, which lasts slightly less than two-and-a-half minutes. Sales
reps are nearly twice as likely to deliver an effective interaction during a lunch meeting than during the average drop-in
call. In a typical 40-call week, only four of a rep's interactions with doctors take place at lunch. Physicians average seven
lunches with reps per month, with about 92 percent of physicians agreeing to these kinds of meetings. On average, representatives
have lunch every 53 days with primary care physicians, and every 25 days with specialists.
Sibyl Shalo, senior editor, manages the editorial direction and content of Media Mix, Pharmaceutical Executive's marketing and media section. Sibyl's extensive healthcare experience includes writing, editing, media and government relations, medical education, and marketing communications. Her career has taken her from Washington, DC, where she wore many hats at the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, to her hometown of New York, where she worked as a freelance medical writer and media liaison for leading public relations agencies. She held positions at New York University Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center before freelancing with Reuters Health. She made the full-time switch to journalism with Pharmaceutical Executive in September 2000.
Articles by Sibyl Shalo
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