In an earlier post I noted an odd persuasion outcome. Pfizer, an evil pharma and master manipulator of the universe, was experiencing signficant sales declines. Given the reputation many people give to pharmas and their fabulous persuasion skills, I noted that it was therefore peculiar that Pfizer was having trouble. If you’re that good, how can sales decline so badly?

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a comprehensive story about the continuing pharma woes and not just Pfizer. If you don’t have a subscription, you won’t be able to read this story, so let me quote the lead paragraphs.

Big Pharma Faces Grim Prognosis

Over the next few years, the pharmaceutical business will hit a wall.

Some of the top-selling drugs in industry history will become history as patent protections expire, allowing generics to rush in at much-lower prices. Generic competition is expected to wipe $67 billion from top companies’ annual U.S. sales between 2007 and 2012 as more than three dozen drugs lose patent protection. That is roughly half of the companies’ combined 2007 U.S. sales . . .

First, let me again note as I did in the earlier post, I am not gloating about this economic disaster. Lots of families are going to face some difficult challenges because of this and that’s bad. I would prefer that it didn’t happen.

The larger point, however, is how can this occur? A 50% decline in sales among some of the greatest persuasion manipulators this side of the tobacco companies?

My argument is that Big Pharmas are not and never were strong persuasion agents. That is, they were not particularly good at using words to change the way people think, feel, or behave. They were great at research, distribution, and, most importantly, patents. As the WSJ story makes clear, now that patents are expiring and generics can flood the market, the Big Pharmas will deflate.

I would also argue that the vaunted image of the tobacco companies as persuasion masters (past and present) is also overblown. Hey, how good does your message have to be when the product is also addictive? Merely giving away the product for free is sufficient to create later sales and that requires no persuasion skill.

The same reasoning applies with Pharmas. When no one else has that Pill, you don’t need a Genuine Expert like me to devise persuasion strategy and tactics. Just publicize it and make sure it is available for distribution and you’re rich.

Quick recap:

1. Nope, no gloating here; failure is bad and it hurts and I don’t take any pleasure in it.

2. Don’t confuse success with persuasion skill. Simply because They are Smooth Talkers who make a lot of money, you shouldn’t assume They acquired that money because they are Smooth Talkers.

3. Remember the Rules. Power corrupts persuasion. Pharmas (and Big Tobacco) had a lot of Power (patents, addiction) and achieved their success through that Power even if they also did some Persuasion, too.

Finally, if you’re a Pharma person reading this, good luck to you. Stay optimistic. You have a lot of skill, just keep after it.