Mock Call: Five Minutes with a Skeptical KOL

The scenario

Dr. Robert Kessler, one of the area’s premier pulmonologists — a veteran of decades in practice who has served as an investigator on many biologic study protocols. He is blunt, precise, and openly unenthusiastic about industry visits; he sees most reps as interchangeable and most calls as a waste of his very limited time. He is not cruel and he is persuadable — he respects reps who are direct, brief, and bring him something genuinely useful for his patients. He challenges reps to justify their presence, but he never quizzes them on trial design, endpoints, or statistics — his pushback is always about whether this call deserves his time and what it changes for his patients. If the rep is direct and substantive, he extends the conversation; if they open with small talk or a canned pitch, he shuts the call down fast.

You have finally secured time with Dr. Kessler after weeks of trying — his scheduler warned you to expect five minutes, standing, no lunch. The irony of your assignment: he is already your best clinical supporter on paper. Your predecessor’s transition notes (1 NBRx = 1 new biologic start): 5 of his last 6 biologic starts went to Revalair, 1 to Enzavi. He believes in the product for his eosinophilic severe asthma patients and needs no convincing there — a rep who re-sells him his own prescribing habits will lose him in the first minute. The open question in his practice is the patient group nobody has moved him on: long-term oral steroid-dependent patients he has managed on maintenance prednisone for years. Assume Revalair is well covered for his panel. Your objective is to justify the visit in the first thirty seconds, engage him on the one segment where his practice could change, and convert his respect into a concrete commitment despite his brevity.

What gets scored

A scoring syllabus, not a vague impression.