bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Victoria Button

WORK FROM THE heart and the money will follow. This is the philosophy of the Janssen Pharmaceutica  winning team.

Business executive Ip Wing and product specialist Chris Wai  deal with tough customers in doctors who have plenty of education and little time to spare for sales calls. Still, they find the work rewarding.

'I can help save patients' lives and improve their quality of life, and that gives passion to my job,' Ms Ip said. 'If you don't believe in your product, how do you expect others to believe in it? If you sell from the bottom of your heart, it's not selling. It is helping people.'

For example, she recommended a new drug to a doctor who was treating a schizophrenic patient suffering from an obsession with thirst and a desperate need to drink water incessantly. The drug worked.

Ms Ip, who has a degree in biology and an MBA, chose sales because she liked the idea of a challenges and also because she felt her outgoing personality was not suited  to laboratory work.

Mr Wai, a product specialist, was previously an engineering student.

'No matter how the economy is going, business needs sales to create profit,' Mr Wai said. However, he advises against focusing solely on money.

'The word 'sales' starts with an 's' and ends with an 's'. Those are dollar signs. But my top tip is to do everything from your heart. Forget about the money. Money should come last,' he said.

He said he appreciated  the  questions and feedback  from doctors because it helped him to  understand their perceptions about his products.

'Perception can kill your deal, but everyone is a customer if you can satisfy their needs,' he said.

Ms Ip said the pharmaceutical sales industry was highly competitive, offering  drugs  with different characteristics to treat the same condition.

She cited one drug that she is happy about.  It is a new anti-psychotic medication that has  none of the unpleasant side effects - tremors, anxiety, salivation and weight gain - associated with alternative drugs.

'I'm proud of my product because it is beneficial to the patient's body and mind,' she said.

Doctors also considered cost as a factor when choosing  drugs, she said.

Pharmaceutical sales representatives are legally and morally obliged not to oversell the benefits or effectiveness of drugs to doctors. They are expected to  use clinical trial data to sell a drug.

'Doctors are  very knowledgeable, so we must  have a deep knowledge of our products,' she said.

Mr Wai said that Janssen's quality brand image was  important  in getting doctors to choose its drugs over those of its competitors.



Selling from the heart brings  rewards and a sense of pride