Much of a pharmaceutical sales representative's professional life is spent alone, putting in that windshield time between calls, listening to talk radio, a favorite satellite radio station, or maybe even that training CD highlighting their peers' best practices. Whatever the case, day in and day out sales representatives become quite comfortable traveling their territory in their mobile office, with everything strategically placed in company cars. But rather than feeling lonely, you enjoy the job and like being alone and managing your own schedule. You've got your plan for the entire day ahead, and you're charged and ready to go. Life is good. Before you set out, you check your voice mail and hear a message that suddenly stops you in your tracks. Your district manager is excited to "inform" you that the regional vice president will be in town in two weeks and wants to ride along with you since you've been doing such a stellar job. Of course, you can't say no, so you reply to your DM with as much enthusiasm as you can muster and say, "I'm so grateful for the opportunity."

Actually, the person riding along with you could be anybody – your district manager, a regional director, a product manager, a sales trainer or even another sales rep. If you're not a big fan of ride-alongs, look at it this way: you're a victim of your own success. The reason somebody wants to ride along and observe what you're doing is most likely because you're doing it very well. Someone wants to see you being you, doing what you do best. Take it as a compliment.

So you're going to have a passenger. Now what? All you know is, now you have to be the perfect rep and plan the perfect day ... or do you? How can you make sure that when the day comes, it goes as well as possible?

With a nod to David Letterman, allow me to present The Top 10 Things You Can Do to Prepare for a Ride-along:

Number 10 – Confirm the date: Of course it can't be a successful ride-along if your passenger doesn't show up on the right day, so contact the person to make sure your date is set. Have a couple of alternate dates in mind in case there happens to be a conflict with the first choice. You can set the place and time once you have a firm plan in place.

Number 9 – Plan your day: Try to avoid the "milk run." The whole point of the ride-along is so this person can see what your day is really like, so make it as real as possible. If you can schedule a lunch or appointment with a key customer, great, if not, just do what you normally do. Those who have left the field often forget how difficult it can be to access customers, so it can be quite an eye-opening experience for them to see what you deal with on a regular basis.

You have your date set, so as you plan your day, review where you are in your call cycle when creating an itinerary. Who do you need to see? Who can you see? If you work in teams or pods, make sure you're up-to-date on their call activity with the customers you choose to call on. Next, pull the most recent sales data on these customers and prepare a call plan for each of them. Know what you discussed on your last call, what you're going to discuss on the upcoming call and what promotional materials you plan to use.

Number 8 – Stock up: Speaking of promotional materials, make sure you have an adequate supply of your currently approved sales aids, patient-education materials, and, of course, samples (if you sample your products). If you're running low on anything, place an order with your fulfillment center as soon as possible to ensure you'll have plenty on hand the day of your ride-along.