Read Online Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy - Free Book Online Page B

“You’re gonna do just fine at this job, Reidy. Oh yeah, just fine .” We drank a lot of beer that night, after Jack taught me how to chill warm beer in just two minutes by filling a hotel sink with ice and then spinning a beer can on top of the cubes over and over.
    Before he departed the next day, he encouraged me not to say anything to our boss about how one call could someday be entered as four calls. I was sad to see Jack go; talk about a mentor.
    When Bruce returned to South Bend for his first official field day with me, I felt an apprehensive curiosity regarding his management style. Bruce was a brand-new manager, a role I knew well. Having been a brand-new manager in the army only three years earlier, I was quite familiar with the myriad mistakes that such an individual could make. Army lieutenants were fortunate to have seasoned sergeants working for them, people who warned us to duck when approaching low-hanging branches. My right-hand man, Sergeant First Class Jose Santiago, had eighteen years under his belt prior to breaking me in. Although newly promoted sales managers underwentweeks of extensive training at the University of Pfizer, they had no one to lean on day in and day out.
    In addition to my concern over the lack of a steadying hand, my fears multiplied after hearing several horror stories about other new managers, and I grew concerned that I might be forced to update my résumé shortly. One new DM in Cincinnati required his reps to fill out a time sheet broken down into fifteen-minute intervals specifying how they spent every minute of the day, “8:00—Drove to Dr. Johnson’s office. 8:15—Arrived. 8:45—Departed to Dr. Smith’s office.” A manager in Kansas City forbade his salespeople from gassing up their Luminas between seven-thirty A.M. and five P.M. , saying it was a waste of time that could be spent selling. When Bruce pulled into the parking lot at our designated meeting place, I was more than a bit nervous.
    He quickly put my worries to rest. We were stuck in traffic on a two-lane road in rural Elkhart, Indiana, when Bruce began fidgeting in his seat. Soon after, he rolled down his window to lean out to see what was causing the delay. Banging out a drumbeat on the dashboard, he instructed me to pull onto the shoulder and go around the stopped cars. I looked in that direction and spotted a series of sizable potholes. “No can do,” I explained. “Those things will wreck the car.” The tapping stopped, and he stared intently at me.
    “Jamie,” Bruce began, clearly annoyed, “what’s the difference between a company car and a four-wheel drive?”
    I shrugged.
    “A company car can go anywhere .” He motioned to his right. “Now, hit it.” Like Elwood Blues, I did as I was told, and my freshly washed Lumina lurched and bucked unhappily but successfully through the mud and past the traffic jam. Bruce nodded approvingly.
    A district manager’s main job was to monitor and modify behaviors. For a person managing new reps, however, his most important task was to create those behaviors, to instill in his people the need to make ten sales calls every day, during which they would detail at least two products and close the physician for a specific number of future patients. Having created such a behavior pattern over the course of several months, the DM could then encourage certain habits, tweak others, and overhaul the remainder. The creating, monitoring, and modifying of the behaviors took place during field rides.
    As former salespeople, managers loved field rides. As current salespeople, reps felt differently. All salesmen thrive on their autonomy, their freedom to decide which customers to see when, and they hate the idea of reporting to the same office every day cooped up behind a desk. Once promoted out of the field and into management, though, DMs relinquish total control of their schedules, and they are suddenly forced to spend innumerable hours in management meetings or