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The Pharma Career Ladder · The first-line manager · Step 5: Motivating and building the team · Lesson 5

The one-to-one that is worth the hour

Agenda, ownership and follow-through

By Ahmed El Menshawy · 20 years in pharma, from medical rep to country manager in the UAE. Founder of RepPharma. LinkedIn
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Many one-to-ones I have sat in, on both sides of the table, were the monthly report read aloud.

Sales versus target. Calls versus plan. A few instructions. See you next month.

The rep leaves knowing what the manager thinks of the numbers. The manager leaves knowing nothing new.

How I run them now, in four steps.

  • The rep sets the agenda.
  • I open with one question: "What do you want to use this hour for?" Their topics first, mine after.
  • Check last time's actions.
  • On both sides. If I promised to sort out a sample issue and did not, that comes up before anything the rep owes me.
  • Talk about the person.
  • Workload, development, what is getting in the way. The numbers are part of the hour, not all of it. This is the step that usually gets squeezed, and it is the one that matters most.
  • Agree who does what.
  • Two or three actions, each with a name and a date. The rep types them and shares them with me the same day.

And one rule. I do not cancel it because the week got busy. A cancelled one-to-one tells the rep exactly where they rank.

“The one-to-one is the rep's hour. Protect it like a meeting with your best customer.”
The one-to-one that is worth the hour: Agenda, ownership and follow-through

Lesson 5 of 19 in Step 5: Motivating and building the team, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.

More lessons in step 5: Motivating and building the team

Lesson 1The 70% managerWhy the first-line manager decides whether a sales team is engagedLesson 2What actually motivates a repFixing frustrations is not the same as building driveLesson 3Money is not the whole answerWhat an incentive can do, and where it stopsLesson 4Autonomy, mastery, purposeThree drivers, applied to a field teamLesson 6Knowing what is going on at homeCare as a management skillLesson 7Trust is built in small promisesThe manager who does what they saidLesson 8Recognition on a zero budgetFive things that cost nothingLesson 9Recognising effort when results lagProtecting motivation in a bad quarterLesson 10Emotional intelligence for managersKnow yourself, manage yourself, read your teamLesson 11Six leadership stylesChoosing the style the moment needsLesson 12The team meeting nobody dreadsStructure, timing and everyone talkingLesson 13Psychological safety in a sales teamWhy reps hide bad newsLesson 14Stages of a new teamForming, storming, norming, performingLesson 15When two reps do not get alongMediating without taking sidesLesson 16The difficult conversationPreparing, opening and staying in itLesson 17Radical candour in a field teamCare personally, challenge directlyLesson 18Managing a rep older than youAuthority without seniorityLesson 19The rep who wants your jobDeveloping a successor, not a rival

Motivating and building the team, in RepPharma

Plans approved in one click

Each rep’s monthly plan is drafted from doctor priority and visit frequency; you review and approve it in one click.

Team reviews that assemble themselves

Monthly team reviews are built from field data, and a month-end checklist shows which reps have next month’s plan, forecast and expenses in.

Forecasts graded against real sales

Bottom-up forecasts per account and product are graded against real sales every month.

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