From Dairy Farm to Boardroom - Cheryl Halbert's truly Americana experience prompted her to found RepSource and identify security gaps in healthcare

I had the chance to connect with Cheryl Halbert, Founder and CEO of RepSource.?

Cheryl is an award-winning, veteran medical device representative that started her career with a small distributor and was later recruited by Medtronic to work in the Structural Heart division as a Senior Sales Representative. Having worked for the smallest and largest medical device companies, Cheryl’s niche sales experience identified a universal security and patient care gap in the market. Armed with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an Invited mini-MBA, and a work ethic from growing up on a dairy farm, Cheryl is now the Founder and Chief Enablement Officer of RepSource in an effort to make a bigger impact on the healthcare industry.

Q: Tell me about your business and what separates you from your competition?

A: RepSource is a verified representative management (VRM) platform for healthcare. We streamline verified connections between healthcare providers and their local product and service experts. What separates us is we're a neutral 3rd party that automates, manages, and authenticates all the information at the supplier source, so it's current, accurate, and trusted data for healthcare providers and third-party applications.

Q: How do you build culture, relationships, and teams inside and outside of your organization?

We focus our customer relationships on solving their problems, removing hurdles, and earning their trust.?

A: Our team is scattered throughout the US, so our company culture is built on trust, deliverables, and doing the hard work. Doesn't matter when or how you get your work done, just that it gets done to the best of your ability when you said it'd be done. We focus our customer relationships on solving their problems, removing hurdles, and earning their trust. As a team, we focus on having fun together, over-delivering value to our customers, making it easy to do business with us, and taking responsibility when we fall short.

Q: Who or what has influenced your leadership ethos?

Leaders provide value and grow other leaders and their skills.?

A: My husband has been a huge influence on my leadership ethos because I'm privileged to witness first-hand how servant leadership looks, feels, plays out, and matters in real life, especially in business. I’m also part of a Selling from the Heart mastermind group, where I learned the difference between leadership and management. Leaders provide value and grow other leaders and their skills.? Managers measure their team member’s value and skills.?

Q: What are you expecting out of 2023 and how will that impact your business?

A: I'm expecting 2023 to be our breakout year! Creating a new product category in healthcare takes an astronomical amount of capital, time (namely patience), educating the market, and identifying the early adopters who GET IT and can make the purchase decision. It's no small feat, but it doesn't mean it can't be done. Timing is on our side because medical suppliers are rapidly shifting their business models to adapt to the changing healthcare business. RepSource is a modern-day change management system to support business continuity in healthcare. Our platform automates and communicates healthcare supplier rep changes to healthcare providers to ensure patient care needs get met with the resources and services needed, 24/7.

Q: What do you work for and what do you do for fun?

A: I work for my former healthcare providers and colleagues who deserve an easier way to do their job. They have to do more with less while simultaneously advancing patient care. That’s an impossible task if we don’t enable them with technology to streamline workflow efficiencies and connections.

For fun, I collect experiences - whether checking items off my bucket list, trying something new, or spending quality time with friends and family making memories.

Q: Given your tremendous career success, what advice would you pass along to other sales & marketing professionals?

A: Always question the status quo, never sacrifice your personal reputation for short-term gain, stay humble and curious, always look for ways to add value, hone your subject matter expertise,? and study the most important product - you! Studying others gives us knowledge of what’s possible, but studying yourself leads to freedom, self-acceptance, and an ability to outsource our shortcomings and align with our life purpose. Self-work sucks, but it makes life and decisions so much easier.

Q: You started a medical industry business right before the pandemic. What was that experience like?

A: The pandemic was advantageous for us because there was no FOMO while building our platform and doing the tedious data mapping it required. Then when elective procedures resumed, things got interesting because hospitals tightened rep access restrictions. Yet, supply chains continue to scramble for alternative suppliers to mitigate disruptions, because they’re unaware of their local reps for the alternatives.??

Q: What advice did a mentor give you as you started your entrepreneurial journey and would you give that same advice to someone just starting out??

Knowing yourself, believing in yourself, and surrounding yourself with positive people you look up to are required to make it through the desert to fruition.

A: I’ve been fortunate to have lots of mentors on my entrepreneurial journey, but don’t get too many chefs in the kitchen.? Advice paralysis is real. It happened to me.?

My advice would be to find one mentor you know, like and trust,? who has started and built a successful business most similar to yours. Be wary of mentors who advise based on theories versus their own experience. Every founder's journey is different and there are pros and cons to each approach. Figure out YOUR path, stick to it, and then lean into that ONE mentor you can trust. Being an entrepreneur can be lonely and full of rejection. Knowing yourself, believing in yourself, and surrounding yourself with positive people you look up to are required to make it through the desert to fruition.

Q: Tell us more about the how and why behind RepSource’s unique core values.?

Our core values should make my parents proud because most stem from my Christian upbringing—especially our first value - The Golden Rule. Nearly every time I was disciplined, the Golden Rule was referenced. Doing the hard work stems from growing up on a farm. There was no “half-assing it” as my mother would say.? If you did, the punishment was starting over and doing it the right way, which perfectly correlates to how shortcuts play out in the real world. Keeping it simple is a reminder to myself because I’m of German descent. I can complicate some things, but simple is refreshing and necessary in healthcare. Our last value of gratitude is a simple reminder to enjoy the journey. It’s an honor and privilege to serve others, even when the data or feedback sucks.

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Thank you for contributing to this series, Cheryl.

Cheryl is offering a free strategy session for first-time, SaaS or healthcare founders looking to avoid the landmines of building a successful company.? Connect with her on LinkedIn here to schedule a time to connect.

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