Delve newsletter · Issue 1 · Running the field force

Why small pharma companies lose good medical reps

Sudhir Sharma, founder, Delve Solutions · 15 October 2026 · 6 minutes

Every owner of a small pharma company knows the feeling. A rep who took a year to build his territory hands in his papers, and within three months the doctors he looked after are writing somebody else's brand. The new rep starts from zero.

When we ask why he left, the answer we give ourselves is usually money: a bigger company offered more. Sometimes that is true. But in my years in the field and in sales-force effectiveness, I watched far more good reps leave for reasons that had nothing to do with the offer letter. They had already decided to go — the offer only gave them the door.

Here are five of those reasons. None of them needs a big budget to fix.

1. Nobody can tell him what "good" looks like

A target that arrives as one number for the year, with no split by month, product or doctor, tells a rep nothing about this week. He works hard, misses, and does not know why. Good people hate working blind more than they hate working hard.

Fix this month: break the target down with him — by month, by key product, by his own territory's pattern — and agree it, rather than send it. A target he has agreed is a target he owns.

2. His money arrives late, and wrong

Travel and daily allowance are not a perk to a rep; they are his working capital. When claims sit for weeks, come back cut without a reason, or depend on who checks them that month, he reads it as one message: this company does not trust me.

Fix this month: write down the allowance rule once — distance, fare, daily rate — and pay to that rule on a fixed date. Disputes fall sharply when the rule is visible to both sides.

3. His manager meets him only to ask for numbers

The first-line manager is the company, as far as the rep is concerned. If every call from him is "what's your secondary?", the rep learns that the manager is a collector, not a coach. A joint-working day where the manager actually watches the calls and gives one useful piece of feedback is worth more than ten review meetings.

Fix this month: ask each manager for one joint-working day per rep, with three written observations and one thing to try next week. Then check that it happened.

4. Good work goes unnoticed

In a big company, recognition is a system: certificates, contests, a name read out at the cycle meeting. In a small company it depends on whether the owner happened to hear. A rep who opens a difficult doctor or fixes a stockist's returns problem, and hears nothing, stops going the extra mile.

Fix this month: pick one simple, visible signal — a certificate for the best coverage, a mention in the monthly meeting — and give it on fixed rules, so it is not a favour.

5. He has stopped learning

Ambitious reps want to become managers. If the company offers no training — on the science of his products, on handling objections, on reading his own numbers — he will go where he can grow. A small company cannot keep a training head on the payroll, and it does not need to.

Fix this month: one focused session a quarter — product knowledge, or coaching skills for the managers — run by someone who has done the job. It tells the team you are investing in them.

One question to take away

Think of the last good rep who left you. Which of these five did he feel? Fix that one first — before the next resignation letter arrives.

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