Frequently asked questions

Healthcare professionals expect the pharmaceutical industry’s sales force to save time, to provide useful information and to ensure that the visit/sale is carried out properly.
The future belongs to the 2.0 sales people who will know how to use their CRM, communication tools, investments allocated to customers or social networks in their commercial relationship.

The digitalisation of the sales force will enable the interaction between the healthcare professional and the visitor/salesperson to be optimised in order to increase the act of purchase by alternating between physical contact, telephone, social networks or even a platform with an individual account, but all personalised!

The objective being to give a new dimension to the relationship between the sales force and their customers, systematic feedback from the customer on the experience will be the best KPI to follow.

The search for a significant competitive position will guide your investment in the sales force.
For the OTC market in pharmacies, 30 salespeople to cover France (excluding DOM-TOM) is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
In hospitals, depending on the size of the market, 5 to 12 salespeople would be sufficient
In town medicine, 10 to 60 salespeople
In specialised distribution channels such as supermarkets or specialised channels, 3 to 10 key account managers are needed to cover the whole of France.

Your in-depth asset-attribute matrix will enable you to refine these figures, which will depend on the market and the competition in place.
Depending on the possible investment at launch, it may be possible to increase your number of sales staff gradually at a rate defined according to your objectives. However, this minimum number should be considered carefully as it can slow down the growth and establishment of a brand if it is not adequate.

The choice of your sales force will depend on your short-term, medium-term (3 years) and long-term (5-7 years) ambition
The stronger the short-term ambition, the better it is to have an external sales force with a portfolio of acquired/loyal customers.
The stronger the long-term ambition (strategy of small steps), i.e. the gradual construction of knowledge of your customers, the more interest there is in creating an internal sales force dedicated to your company.

Pharmadvisor will support you whatever your strategy. We can help you create your own internal network and guide you in the research, negotiation and monitoring of your future

The multi-channel approach, to be differentiated from the omnichannel strategy, consists of diversifying the distribution of your brand in order to better reach the end customer/patient at each friction point of their journey.
Opening a new channel will most often allow you to develop your business by :

• Reaching new customers/patients not covered by other channels
• Increasing your overall visibility and awareness

The multiplication of distribution channels is easily and unconditionally possible for medical devices, food supplements or cosmetics.
In France, the city pharmacy or pharmacy for domestic use has a monopoly on medicines. However, OTC medicines can be sold on the web if the e-commerce site is backed by a pharmacy and declared to the ARS (Regional Health Agency).

At Pharmadvisor, we simplify and support your sales on all possible channels.

The ongoing transformation of sales forces in the pharmaceutical industry and other sectors, including digitalization, is reshuffling the cards regarding their sizing. Indeed, thanks to digitalization, a salesperson can interact with a larger number of customers, with the prerequisite of a good targeting and segmentation carried out upstream.

Consequently, the cost of your sales network will depend on the promotion channel and the existing competition. At Pharmadvisor, on average, our approach is to achieve the following costs in the city market:

• 150% of turnover at launch (short term)
• 50% of turnover over 3 years (medium term)
• And to stabilise over the long term (5-7 years) at 15% of turnover.

The prerequisites for answering this question, whatever the life cycle of your brand, are:

• Is your brand’s purchase lever the product brand or the corporate brand?
• Am I launching a product or maintaining my customer relationship?
• How long does it take to convert a prospect into a customer?
• What is my short-term ambition?

Pharmadvisor will be able to guide you towards the most appropriate personalised solution based on each of your answers.