Ravi Speaks:
My Tough early Eighties-Professionally.
June 29, 2020
updated again on 10.08.2022
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| Medical Representative |
I was just around 20 plus in 1982
This is about the time when I joined “The Himalaya D.rug Co.” in 1982. I was just around 20 plus and the freshness of my being a newcomer to this profession of selling, was quite obvious since I was bubbling with enthusiasm and having a feeling to go for the kill-You know that student’s feeling who has great ideas to be explored and no experience at all to realize the realities. I was supposed to meet the doctors of the city Ludhiana-Punjab and detail to them my range of products and influence them for their prescription support.
Unlike other Medical Reps of the allopathic companies, we had a tougher approach.
It was slightly different in one aspect. That was the nature of my products,, being Ayurvedic and not allopathic. I was told that since I could detail well and had the biology background-I had to meet the doctors of the Medical College of Ludhiana. I was devoting almost ten days to the Medical College- “Dayanand Med College” and the rest of fifteen days of the month in the trade/interior area (Open Market) including the potential Interiors or sub towns type.
The present time is altogether a changed one
It was this toughness where some leading trendsetters of the town or sub-town were not at all entertaining me and despite their reluctance; I had to continue meeting them, unhoping would be our supporters. “Times now and the times then” -there is a lot of difference. Now that the company is an international identity and has a very good market follow up and patronage-things that time were contrary to the present scenario.
How a leading doctor highly educated gets influenced by a Munich Letter for our Brand:
Here I would like to relate a very interesting happening that would always remain engraved in my memories of the past. It is about this Dr. L S Chawla-who of Dayanand Med College and also a very well-known gastroenterologist, the lone wall India Gastroenterology council from Punjab in those days. Presently the leading practitioner of Ludhiana at this old age. I remember he used to meet the Med Reps at his residence after he came from the medical College-normally at around 2.30 PM. Whenever I used to meet him, he, after knowing that I was from Himalaya -an Ayurvedic company -used to pack me back giving no. I too had to continue meeting him since he was very important and we wanted to convert such trendsetters then. It went on like this for so many months and I could not get any breakthrough.
One day, as I was on my usual visit to the Medicine OPD and trying to meet the Registrars of the same department-one Senior Resident approached me and asked me whether I was from the Himalayas. After my confirmation to him-he immediately told me that Dr. L S Chawla wanted to meet me and had said to his team of doctors that I should be immediately contacted. I was astonished to hear this since this doctor never used to even give me the time to make my call, but I went to his office in the Medical College itself. He after seeing me became very nice and politely told me he was interested in knowing more about our product “Liv52” and even said that he would be interested in conducting a trial on the same. I was very much puzzled since this was the man who used to outrightly say no to my brand and further said just one more line that I should immediately go to the Department of Pharmacology and meet the Head there. He would give me more details. I started feeling that there must be something good that has occurred in the Pharmacology department and Dr. Chawla was directing me to go there.
I left my work in the OPD there and rushed to their Pharmacology which was at least five kilometers from his office. I met the Head there and gave him Dr.Chawla’s reference. He was also very nice, and he told me the actual story. He said- there was one letter which was written to the Head of the Hepatology Department-PGI Chandigarh and in that letter, there was one line written that “the institute would be very much interested to know more about Liv52 -which is a drug from India”. And this letter had come from Munich (Those days in West Germany). Those days the East and West Germany were the two separate countries and became federal after 1990. I just ask for the letter and got the letter,f the same, which was addressed to HOD-Hepatology-PGI. He showed me a c, and of the same letter and I read the line regarding my brand Liv52. A proud feeling also crept over me. We in the Himalayas had a strong feeling of ownership and were taught to be members of the Himalayan Family, and seeing my brand in the international arena gave me a real thrill. Those were the same leading doctors who always had a feeling that Ayurvedic drugs had no importance and they used to take them as poor-quality ones.
Intellectual Block amongst those leading doctors who were the trendsetters:
Those days also I used to consider those doctors having the hitch in accepting our brands as the people with the “Intellectual Block”. What I meant by that was that they were highly educated in their subject,, but their maturity was too blocked at that point where they were not ready to accept any “specialty” other than allopathy.
Later on, immediately I found a sea change happening in the Medicine department of DMC-Ludhiana-where at least some of those Registrars who used to tell me earlier that because their boss was not writing they could not also write my brand, started writing with no inhibition.
Encashing letter at the organizational level:
Later, I remember having taken a copy of that letter from the Head of pharmacology and sending the same to my HO. There used to be a lady at the top of the affairs in the Himalayas with the name Dr. R M Captain. I still remember that immediately I was sent a letter of appreciation with the wording of doing “excellent detective work.” In an actual sense, it was not detective work, but yes, a brave breakthrough from the major channel of Medical college where from later, my company went on making record sales in Punjab.
Success begets Success:
One very important observation-that even one such work which gets through successfully gives rise to many more tracks opening and thus the replication happening for the brand’s sales. I remember my annual target for sales that year in 1982 was 39.00 lakhs with three reps, including two of my other senior colleagues and the same Ludhiana now giving somewhere up to 9-10 crores of sales of all the business-strategic units of the company combined.
Consistent efforts should be on to crack the rest of such Intellectual Blocks:
As of date, still, there is those set of reluctant doctors who otherwise the great-popular names of their towns but because of their-what I call- “Intellectual Block”, they have not started giving their due support to our Ayurvedic brands. The present field force must work on them consistently and try to get a breakthrough just like the one in 1982. Such breakthroughs are going to be of paramount importance in building the brands and merging their market positioning.
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