Every week
News from the Trenches
One article a week on access, engagement and account work in pharma. What I see in the field, what the research says, and what you can do about it on Monday.
Did we miss the opportunity?
Last week I read that Novo Nordisk has now cut 13,000 jobs, 4,000 more than it announced a year ago. It took me back to 2008, and an opportunity I think we never took.
23 September 2026Who decides what is relevant?
In my last Notes from the trenches I wrote about why so many pharma executives worry about not being relevant to healthcare stakeholders, and what being relevant actually means.
10 September 2026We have been telling our teams to be more relevant. We never told them how.
The other week I had a meeting with a senior executive at one of the large pharmaceutical companies. My job was to brief him on a workshop I will run for his team in a few weeks.
1 September 2026Let's talk about key performance indicators
Yes, I have been writing about this before, and with the current rate of adoption of more appropriate KPIs I will continue to do so.
27 August 2026Let's talk about account plans
I’ve seen my fair share of them, and they come in all different flavours and sizes.
21 August 2026I got the right prescription. Then nobody called me back.
About three years ago I noticed something. A high-pitched sound in my ears that never went away. Is this tinnitus, I wondered? And why have I got tinnitus all of a sudden?
13 August 2026Will AI come for your job?
What can I possibly say that will motivate a very senior, training-fatigued audience to care about why we are here? Why should they pay attention?
28 July 2026Nobody posts a picture of the “stau”
Our trip through Europe is coming to an end. My wife, our two energetic staffies and me, sharing a very small camper across a lot of countries and a lot of road. Tonight is our last night in Germany.
23 July 2026The best sales training is watching your waiter
Yes, I am on vacation. Travelling through Europe with my wife and two dogs, all four of us sharing a small camper.
13 July 2026The metal thingy and the oldest advice in the world
It is summer, and it is vacation time. For me, like a million other house owners, that means the roof job I have postponed for years is finally being addressed.
9 July 2026A thought experiment for the beach
It is July. If you are reading this the way most of my audience is right now, you are horizontal, warm, and somewhere between the second and third umbrella drink of the afternoon.
25 June 2026The machine that asked better questions
I was researching different ways to structure a database that would improve on how well it generated answers to query’s when I stumbled into something that resonated strongly with the what I do all the time: train cross-functional pharma teams on how to get access to and engage healthcare stakeholders.
25 June 2026We should all listen to Richard Feynman
I was watching an old clip on YouTube, it was Richard Feynman at a blackboard at Cornell in 1964, a year before he won the Nobel Prize, explaining in under a minute what science actually is.
25 June 2026The meeting is the experiment
We had read everything we could get our hands on.
17 June 2026Current pharma layoffs and the push for AI automation
I’ve seen the demo like everyone else, and for a few minutes it was hard not to be impressed.
11 June 2026The selling ape
We have all witnessed a person whose meetings with senior healthcare stakeholders just go differently.
2 June 2026The skill no one will teach you
One of the best sales reps I have ever watched in action did nothing the Challenger model, or any other model, would tell you to do.
28 May 2026The new pharma role you should start training for
European launch team, minus nine months from launch.
21 May 2026An industry built on evidence. Trained on a model that has none.
"This is good. But our KAMs are using Challenger. How do we fit your model inside that?
14 May 2026The (mis) use of manufactured emotions
I had just outlined the core pieces of my insight-driven KAM approach when the sales director interrupted me.
7 May 2026Stop trying to convince them
A study, published in Science in 2016, showed that a 10-minute conversation produced attitude change that lasted three months.
22 April 2026The pod just got its deadline.
On April 2, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order imposing up to 100% tariffs on patented pharmaceutical products entering the United States.
15 April 2026The rep is dead. Long live the pod.
Fewer than half of US physicians still accept an in-person visit from a pharmaceutical representative.