Medical sales and common Jargon

Medical sales is very much an insulated profession, and like so many other professional environments it comes complete with it's own selection of jargon. To an outsider listening in, the language of medical sales folk is like a foreign one, here's some of the most common jargon you will here..

• Key opinion Leaders or KOL's. These are people who are likely to be strong supporters and users of your products and indeed will likely be senior and influential people you can use to persuade others to follow their lead in prescribing your products. KOLs are utilised by many companies to hold speaker meetings to help sell products.

• Detail aids. These are effectively the sales brochures of the medical sales industry. They are highly regulated items in which every phrase and claim has to checked through a strict process to ensure they are correct and ethically sound to show to the prescribing medical profession.

• Patch or territory. Most national medical sales teams are divided up into manageable chunks to be looked after by a medical rep, these are usually referred to as either a patch or territory.

• CRM systems. When I started as a medical sales rep, everyday I had to fill out a piece of paper recording all my calls which I would then send on to my manager at the end of the week. Now, this is history, medical sales reps will run CRM software (customer relationship management) packages on a laptop onto which they can record all calls and details of customers. This can then be sychronised with a main database over the internet to be viewed by managers. It's a far more efficient system than the old paper one.

• Post grad meetings. An excellent opportunity of medical sales people to generate access to Gps who are otherwise difficult to see in surgery. All Gps have to continually educate themselves by attending approved meetings at post graduate centres. Medical sales reps can sponsor these meetings in return for having a promotional stand at the meetings. This usually generates several opportunities to see Gps who are otherwise difficult to see.

• AV budget. AV is a terms which has stuck from the time when medical sales rep's lunchtime meetings were essentially a video shown on a TV with video recorder. The AV budget was used to describe the annual sum available to runs these types of meetings.

• Reply paid card. This is an access tool used by marketing departments to generate additional calling opportunities for medical sales reps. A mailing would be sent out with card to return for free indicating whether they wanted a free item such as fire extinguisher. All of these cards would then be sent onto the relevant medical sales rep use as an opportunity to call on Gps

These are just some of the terms used in the medical sales industry, but they are just th tip of the iceberg. The industry is full of acronyms and jargon to almost form an entirely new language, brace yourself!