Break Into Pharmaceutical Sales
By Selling Copiers?

Should you sell copiers in order to break into pharmaceutical sales?  This is a question that is asked on a regular basis in discussion forums.  Some feel that if you get outside experience in selling office equipment such as photocopiers or work for rental car agencies, you could get an upper hand when trying to break into the competitive pharmaceutical sales field.

The technology market including copiers is a very different type of sales environment compared to pharmaceutical sales.  Since customers can often be one time purchasers only, sales people in technology tend to use a more aggressive form of sales in order to secure the orders.  

Some pharmaceutical companies like these relatively aggressive sales people and have hired such candidates.  However, this is certainly not true for all pharmaceutical firms.  This is because pharmaceutical sales involve a much longer term selling environment with an emphasis on building business relationships in order to get the trust of physicians.  

An overly aggressive drug representative can easily turn off physicians and even lose the opportunity to future appointments.  I’ve actually seen this happen to some drug reps out in the field as doctors have candidly told me that they refuse to see certain reps because of their aggressiveness.

Therefore, some pharmaceutical companies will not hire former sales people who were in more aggressive selling environments unless they can prove that they can tone their styles down to adapt to the pharmaceutical medical scene.

So to answer the original question of whether one should try to get some experience selling copiers in order to break into pharmaceutical sales.  The answer is all previous sales experience dealing with real customers is an asset whether it is dealing with copiers, rental cars, medical equipment or even retail sales.

The key is being able to use these selling skills and adapt one’s style to fit in well with the pharmaceutical sales environment.  In many ways, selling technology equipment can be a more challenging form of selling because in many cases, one doesn’t get the benefit of follow up appointments with customers.

It is also important to note that although previous sales experience is a good thing to have, it is not absolutely required in order to break into pharmaceutical sales.  After all, former nurses and other health care related individuals are also breaking into pharmaceutical sales successfully as well.

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