Life Science Tools of the Trade

So, a local sales rep for a certain Qompany that sells mainly kits, but also robots, came by my office recently with a promotional flyer. An invitation, if you will, to a V.I.P. event - a showcase of their new robotic, liquid-handling, sample-preparing, all-singing, all-dancing box. A box with a lovely name, evocative of orchestras.

Now, I’ve made no bones in the past about not this not being my favourite of companies, their sales tactics ranging from dubious to downright annoying. And this fits right in… a V.I.P. event, you say? Then why, I ask, is it from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM in a conference room? With refreshments all day? “Oh, don’t post this notice, I don’t want this open to everyone… just a select few.” They sure know how to make a fella feel special, I tells ya.

Oh, and the robot in question? Well, the sales rep described it to me as being a box that you can put any kind of sample into, and get any kind of prep out. Cells in, RNA out. Brain in, DNA out. Fossilized pterodactyl bones in, highly purified Jak Kinase out, that kind of thing.

I think I may give this one a miss.

By now everyone should know our lab uses Operon (www.operon.com) for all of our oligos.  When I say oligos, I mean TONS of oligos.  We generally receive at least one order a day from Operon.

That said, when I was ordering my oligos today I noticed the money in our account was getting low.  I submitted the required paperwork to add funds to the account and before the day was out - our account had been credited.  Now, that didn’t really impress me.  What impressed me was the email I received soon after.  Jeremy, our Operon rep, sent me a thank you note for the order.  It was just a quick note saying thanks and if he can help with anything to give him a call.

Little gestures like that go a long way in our lab.  We have the most respect for sales reps that know what we order from them and say thanks for the order.  It’s a small simple  gesture that goes a long way!

time for the annual Halloween vendor show.  It all happens tomorrow!  Sales reps in costumes…  always interesting.

There have been some pretty bad costumes in previous years.  The rep that went as a pipet tip always comes to mind.  I guarantee Hbogerd hasn’t forgotten that one!

I think we might have to have a contest for best and worst costume.  And the winners are…

It looks like Sigma has been moving people around and so we now have a new sales rep.  The new rep, David, stopped by and introduced himself the other day.  Congratulations to him on the new job.

Ahh, the joys of the Holidays. Nobody is around, its quiet, and you think you are going to get some work done. But I think it is too quiet, and therefore I search the internet for amusement. Oh well, at least I’m working on digesting all the food that was force fed to me over the long weekend.

One quick update. Since the hbogerd’s last posting the Qiagen tech support has called the lab again. Evidently they had his email wrong, and wanted to shoot him a email. I guess they are still reading the blog. I’m sure we’ll get an interesting update when the masked man returns from his holiday respite. Personally, I think Beta testing would be great….if there was some incentive. Hbogerd has already made mention of the reasons not to, so the incentives should be pretty nice. Just a thought.

Alright then, how ’bout a little contest. Reply to the post with your most outrageous company/lab holiday party stories, and when one is left that beats mine, I’ll post that for your amusement.

I had the most amazing sense of deja vue when I read What makes a good rep?. You guys have got incredibly short
memories.

Anyway - some content. For me, the most important thing is that the rep is a scientist. For me that means a PhD. All right, so that possibly means they weren’t very good (relatively speaking) at science because they couldn’t make a career of it, but at least it means they know what it’s like to do research, usually on a shoestring budget. (And of course I’m not being totally fair; good scientists might well go into sales for other reasons than not being good at science. That’s not the point, here).

So the good rep understands my situation. I don’t necessarily expect the good rep to understand my research project; after all, I’m not sure I do sometimes - but they have a good grounding in molecular/cellular biology (etc.) and won’t get lost when I start talking about transformation problems or whatever.

The second thing about the good rep is that s/he is likeable. OK, this is really shallow, but I don’t want some arrogant tosspot with personal hygiene issues trying to sell me stuff. It’s just not going to happen. But more seriously, the good rep listens before opening its mouth. Think of your good friends - chances are they’re the ones who listen to you best. So we’re talking about building a relationship here. We’re going to spend our hard-won (with blood, sweat and tears - again, a PhD should understand this) grant money with your company. Make us want to. Make me feel special. You can do this deal for me. Naturally, after mumblety years in the business I’m a professional cynic and I know that you, the rep from BigPortfolio Inc, are everybody’s best friend and you’re a fool if you think I’m fooled, but I at least want you to make the effort.

Third, and this is only 3rd, not top of the list: Know your stuff. I can deal with “Oh, I’ll have to check that for you” occasionally but not all the time.

There’s probably more, but that’s a good start. Three essentials if you like. Additionally of course, knowing how impecunious we are, the good rep treats us to lunch occasionally. And has nice legs.

We’ve spent a fair bit of blogs on products we do and don’t like and the reps we do and don’t like. So, I started wondering….what is it that makes someone a good sales rep? Are there certain qualities we all agree a rep should have or does everyone have a different idea? Does the rep have to know all about the products they’re selling or do they just have to give good pricing?

Anyway, I was wondering what others think makes a good sales rep. Or conversely, what makes a bad rep?

I’m thinking particularly of K, who worked for BioRad when I was in Oxford. K was one of those rare (at the time) creatures who had a doctorate to go with their company car. Naturally she used to try to sell us BioRad gear, but she’d never lie to us if she thought another company did something better.

She understood the need to keep customers happy, and allowed us to trial a low pressure chromatography set up before the Department let me buy one, and naturally when I left that place I told all my friends (what’s that? Both of them? Yeah, hah bloody hah) about BioRad kit and tried to get them to buy it. K also didn’t wear strategic grade perfume and was very good at building rapport with the punters. I seem to remember going out to lunch down the Botley Road and - on K’s instigation - putting condoms over the end of the boss’s car exhaust. She went into the gents to get them, so I couldn’t really refuse.

I don’t remember why she left BioRad, probably getting ticked off at the way they treated her (and her customers). She went into business with some friends, selling stuff as a small, independent distributor. Got some nice things from them, including my favourite Nichimate stepper pipette and some very good low retention pipette tips (not coated; the beauty of these was that they were made from low retention plastic). She’s since moved on again, and I’m not sure where to. I should drop her an email and find out.

What companies seem to fail to grok is that reps are how people see the company. You get a good rep, one the punters like and get along with and can trust, and you get a good reputation. Reps like these, companies need to do all they can to keep them. And they don’t. Unfortunately the company and the punter lose out as a result.

Mood: green
Random musical fact: the opening chord of two riffs then an interval of a flattened fifth in Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze was a musical device condemned by the Spanish Inquisition.

Actually, I think the standard of sales reps has improved in the 15 or so years I’ve been in this business. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to divert to the coffee room to avoid meeting a rep because I’ve smelt the aftershave lingering in the corridor.

It used to be really bad using a lift (’elevator’) after a rep had been in it, and heaven help you if you had to share one. . . friends of mine have asphyxiated because of the fumes. I used to work for a biotech company and dreaded on-site visits: Actually it wasn’t so much the visits, as I got to meet interesting people, but the travelling to and from the site in the company of sales & marketing (there’s a reason it’s ‘S&M’. . .) personnel.

I don’t know whether these people had questionable personal hygiene (hence the need for masses of aftershave/perfume) or they never turned on the aircon in their cars, but it was a crime against humanity. As I say, things do seem to have improved - none of the reps I’ve met in more recent times pong particularly badly. Maybe the companies make them shower daily now.

(Yes, I’ve been on holiday. Back to work on Monday - I might have something ’substantive’ to say then).

One of our favorite reps stopped by yesterday (where have you been Rob?) and other than a little chit chat, Rob handed me a flyer on “A Revolution in Resolution”. Basically it was hawking the benifits of a new acrylamide solution that is supposed to give you the resolution of a gradient gel without the pouring nightmares (not to mention “publication quality gels the first time…everytime!”). Unfortunatly we told Rob that we buy pre-cast gradient gels. Now this could lead to the whole topic posted yesterday about lab waste, but instead I will simply pass a conversation I had with hbogerd when I first started in the lab. We had done some cloning (we is misleading as I was a fresh rotation student), and needed to test for protein expression. I came into the lab in the morning and inocently asked when we were going to start pouring our gel (Westerns took two days in the old lab). “You’re living in the stone age” hbogey said with a grin, and then he led me to the cold room and the box of precast Tris-HCL gels.

The discard mentality is here to stay. Perhaps we can find better ways of recycling all this plastic we toss in biohazard bags. Kind of sounds like the discussions that took place as comunities moved toward recycling programs for household and consumer waste.

I have been thinking recently about my previous posts giving reps a hard time about providing pizza, and it getting old. Last week we had a rep (one of our favorites I might add) throw a ice cream party. It was a tremendously nice break from the ordinare. Not only was it timely with the heat wave we’ve been experiencing (103 today folks…115 heat index who hoo!) but the literature was on a back table with some sort of drawing, but no pressure. Everyone was happy, and people actually stayed around and looked at the stuff. No grab and dash for the most part…reps take note…there are ways to keep us around without locking the doors.

Music: anything Steve Earle (concert Aug 27th)
Book: History of the Crusades (don’t remember the author, sorry)
Word of the day: scurrilous (could apply to the forum recently )

So we were decended apon by reps today. Exept they were all from the same company. Coming buy neatly in pairs to hawk their wares….oh my I’m rhyming. Sorry. But by the second set we were confused. We told them that we had spoke to two other reps from their company and they told us they wouldn’t bother us again. So here is the question. If you send a team of reps to cover a campus building etc, why not divide the work and not hit each lab extra times. Unless of course they are just trying to wear down our defenses!

Mood….better than the Caped Avengers…no bent bike.
Song: Farm Fresh Onions by REK

The Invitrogen rep (last week) sold me a maxiprep kit for half price, as an introductory offer. We had a brief discussion about discounts and how all scientists seem to ask for one. He didn’t get this at all, until I pointed out that people need to make grants go as far as possible and part of this is playing companies off against each other to get a good price. He’s right of course, if there’s a discount at all then we all get the same, and the companies just hike the list price to compensate. I guess there’s a psychological thing here - your list price might be less than Qiagen’s, but you don’t give me a discount. Never mind that your list price is less than Qiagen’s discounted price . . . Yeah, it’s odd. The boss always wants me to ask for a discount when I’m talking to reps, but what can I do?

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Some people here at the Institute for Medical Advancement have had problems with their Southern blotting. Apparently this isn’t down to the usual culprit (*cough*user error*cough*) but rather a bad batch of Amersham’s Hybond(TM) N+ membranes. This surprises me somewhat, Amersham having had a good reputation for quality (and corresponding expense, but you get what you pay for) in the past. I must admit, I was also a little surprised last year when General Electric bought Amersham, given the latter’s stranglehold on quality radiochemicals in this country and its commercial success since it was privatized in 1982 (to such an extent that it was able to swallow Pharmacia whole, without getting indigestion).
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What is a good enough “prize” to warrant talking to a sales rep? If free food isn’t enough incentive then what is. I’ve seen little plastic squeeze toys, blow up balloons, t-shirts, laser pointers, and in some instances gift cards. Is there a minimum standard of what you get before you’ll talk to a sales rep? What about the strangest thing a rep has passed out. I’m sure somebody out there has received something fairly strange.

As t