Managing Motivation: The Value of Money in Pharma Sales

Asking a group of Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives the reason why they go to work, I receive a variety of responses from job satisfaction and autonomy of the role to improving patient outcomes. All good reasons, but ultimately the recurring reason is money. Why else do people go to work if not to get paid?

We all know that to be a successful sales person you need to be highly motivated, and we also know that if you don’t feel you are being paid your worth or you just miss out on that big bonus that can be highly demotivating, so it’s easy to see that if you pay sales people more they’ll be more motivated and therefore more successful – right? If only life were so simple!

Pick up any Management Theory text and it will tell you that money alone is not enough to motivate people – sure, people will do a job to get paid for it, but will they do the best job they possibly can? Which would you prefer: clock watching until you can reasonably go home, doing the bare minimum to make sure that you hit your targets, or feeling so inspired and passionate about the work you do that you don’t even notice the time fly by and over-achieving on your targets is a matter of course?

Of course some people do a job they love and are happy to earn less in order to allow them to do this, while others see the figure they receive as a status symbol or require a certain amount to live the lifestyle they wish for. In sales you are typically one of the latter, but how great would it be to also have the job satisfaction of the former?

What really motivates you is different for everyone and driven by your personal values, which is why fitting with your employer’s values and culture is the key to success.

Zenopa’s salary surveys allow you to benchmark your salary against your peers in other organisations whose roles are equivalent to yours. I recommend you do this: you may actually realise that you are being paid fairly or even above average for what you do, which may enable you to put some of your least favourite parts of your job into perspective – a job you love every aspect of probably won’t pay. Alternatively, if you find that you are being paid less than your peers, stop to consider all the other things you love about your current employer – chances are your higher paid peers don’t have all of those.

If you really believe that you aren’t valued fairly for the job that you do or that your current employer’s values and culture don’t allow you to be the best that you can be, then think about what it is that you require in order to feel valued – it’s probably more than just cold hard cash! 

Zenopa make a concerted effort to get to know all our candidates on a personal level, as well as the values and culture of all our clients, so you can be assured that when you decide the time is right to make your next career move to get a better job opportunity, our pharmaceutical team will be able to advise you where you are most likely to find the things you are looking for to be a success – not just who is going to pay you the most.

You can also visit our Pharmaceutical Sales Jobs section to know more about the latest openings we have to offer.