"If he says that again, just tell him about the safety data."
I used to give reps advice like that in the car park. It sounded helpful. Then I watched the next call, the doctor raised the same objection, and the rep froze.
Advice is easy to agree with. It is hard to use under pressure, with a busy doctor looking at you.
What I do now is rehearse.
Collect the real objections. The exact words doctors used this cycle, from the rep's own calls. Not the textbook list.
Shape the answer together. Acknowledge, ask one question, then answer with approved data. The rep drafts it. I help refine it.
Rehearse it out loud. I play the doctor, the rep answers, and we repeat until it sounds natural. Short rounds, said out loud.
Use it, then review. The rep tries it on the next call and tells me how it landed. We keep the words that worked and change the ones that did not.
One warning. If I play the doctor too harshly, practice turns into a test, and the rep learns to fear rehearsal instead of using it.
“Advice fades by the next clinic. Rehearsal is there when the doctor pushes back.”
Lesson 15 of 23 in Step 4: Coaching, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.