Not every coaching conversation happens in the clinic car park.
Some weeks I cannot join every rep in the field. Territories are spread out, cycle meetings take a day, launches take another. For a long time I treated those weeks as weeks without coaching.
They do not have to be.
A short phone call, planned and regular, can still coach one skill on one real call. It just needs a different shape.
What works in my teams:
- The rep chooses the call. "Which call today would you like to talk through?"
- I ask for the doctor's words, as close as they can remember. I did not see the call, so those words are my evidence.
- We end on one action, in the rep's words, and I ask about it the following week.
Same evening slot. One call, one skill, one action. Fifteen minutes.
What I avoid is turning it into a run through the day's visit list. That is a report, not coaching, and reps can hear the difference in the first minute.
“On the phone, the rep's account is all you have. Ask better questions.”
Lesson 10 of 23 in Step 4: Coaching, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.