What Type of Sales Rep Are You?

I like working with start-ups a lot, and I love the fact dental is an industry where you find inventors, risk-takers, and disruptors. They make fun dates, and they keep the industry exciting; but they aren’t everyone’s marriage partners.

I love the oldies but goodies, too, as far as clients go. These are the manufacturers who make the staples every practicing dentist needs and buys, and won’t do without. As a recruiter, I want them both as clients, and I can have them both because I maintain my independence. You can have both too if you carry an independent sales bag and decide to represent multiple products and manufacturers at one time.

An independent sales professional has those options. But if the idea of being an independent isn’t for you, if you want to be a W2’d sales professional, playing on one team in one backyard, then you need to know what type of sales rep you naturally are and what environment you need to sell in to be most successful in whatever way you define career success. Know the way you sell best in order to pick the best marriage partner for your sales career.

If you need a refresher on types of sales and types of sales reps, now would be a good time to jump to the back and read the crib notes. I’ve outlined a number of types of sales professional profiles so you have points of reference for identifying your style and nature for selling. You are more likely to be one type or another versus to choose one type or another. But don’t be naive or uninformed—figure it out. “Knowledge is power,” to quote my favorite Schoolhouse Rock jingle. Side-note: yes, dear reader, I am aware that “knowledge is power,” as a direct quote can be attributed to early Persian writers dating as far back as pre-Christ. But I assure you, this reference is much more fun to sing.

Hunters. As a sales professional, are you a hunter? If you are, the hunt is your source of energy and build-up to the win. It’s fast-paced and constant. You need stamina for the hunt. Account managers, by contrast, are energized when they are managing and caring for their clients and doing more of the hand-holding. These two don’t have to be mutually exclusive in a professional sales role, however, and in fact, many roles require a combination of regular hunting and hand-holding. But the fact remains that without the hunt, the hunter will lose interest in the game, and without the hand-holding, the account manager will lose interest in the game.

Mismatched, both outcomes result in a loss. If you fail to take this into account when you are in pursuit of your next sales role, you’ll be setting yourself up for work that feels like work, rewards you like work, and drains your energy like work. In other words, your sales role will feel like a counter-productive grind. I like failure as a teaching tool, but it hurts an awful lot when your job is on the line, which is exactly where it will be if you toss this wisdom to the wayside.

Are you both hunter and account manager? To what degree are you more of one than the other? What happens to your motivation once you've hunted so successfully your territory has grown too large for anything but account management? What happens to your motivation when you’re in a scratch territory but you’re really wired for account management? Are you a W2 or a 1099? Are you a manufacturer rep or a distributor rep? Brand-loyal or brand-disruptive? What happens to you once your disruptive brand becomes standard of care? What does standard of care even mean as it relates to your natural sales aptitude?

Did you know so many questions would be up in the air when you decided to embark on a professional sales career? You need to be able to answer the questions honestly and patch together the picture of who you are and what you do best to be the most powerful version of you. It’s not always simple to figure out, especially when the best teacher is most often experience. I honestly love her, but she can be a real b----.

As a sales professional, though, you knew this job was dangerous when you took it. This career is not for the faint of heart. If you know professional sales is the career for you, great, you’re halfway there. Deciding how, what, and for whom to sell are processes of elimination when you have all the variables in front of you.       

In terms of how you’re wired as a sales professional, territories may require a combination of both hunting and account management, but rarely is one individual a true blend of both roles and personality types, 50/50. You will naturally incline toward one or the other, and utilizing the opposite skill set is a sometimes thing, kind of like eating cake. If you set yourself up in a sales role that requires you to spend more of your time, or most of your time, utilizing the selling skill that isn’t your natural state, you will live in stress and discomfort. That’s a fact. You will hate your job, and your motivation and energy will flag and die in flames. You will have limited success at best if you choose the wrong selling environment or product for yourself. When you truly need to find a job, the decisions won’t feel very clean-cut and easy. Sometimes, we just need to work. As a part of being human, work is good for us. But if you have the time to choose critically, please, please, dear reader, don’t let your desire to be employed override your knowledge of what constitutes a successful selling role with an employer who is well-matched for you. To do so is to wed with divorce in mind. Ouch.

Take the decision to sell for a distributor versus a manufacturer. As lessons in selling go, this is an important one because jumping from manufacturing to distribution, or vice versa, is really difficult once you start down a path in the dental industry, or any healthcare sale, for that matter. It’s not impossible, but it usually takes a year or more to find the right entry point, and both sides are not in a hurry to alienate a partner in business by hiring from them. Manufacturers and distributors need each other. Hiring and firing are expensive for everyone involved. In short, it’s complicated to make the leap in either direction. A sales professional who thrives in distribution is not the same as one who thrives in manufacturing—how you sell a product or service is markedly different in these two environments.

I remember noting in my first years in dental the trend was for reps to move toward a distribution role, as they were highly coveted. I maintain launching a dental distribution territory from scratch is the most difficult selling role in the industry. As opinions go, I’m sure that one won’t win me many fans on the manufacturing side, but it's based in data on turnover and time-to-profit among distributors across the dental industry that I’ve been measuring since 2007. This role deserves its place among highly coveted positions. But today, as distributors work to accommodate the way dentists like to buy products—on the internet—the trend is reversed and more reps are asking about manufacturing opportunities.

There are definitely products that lend themselves best to those who are wired to be account managers and who may enjoy a sales career in distribution: we call them consumables, or supplies, and that category of product renews its value as a sale on a regular and predictable basis. In distribution, the products being sold are to a large degree consumable, and clients need them week after week, month after month. Every rep likes to have consumables in the bag. The client with a consumable, or renewable need, requires account management because the needs are so constant, and also because, due to the consistency of reps visiting the practice, consumable sales tend to be most easily lost. Thus, the hand-holding and frequent visits.

By contrast, a product your clinician may only purchase once in a while, perhaps yearly or once every few years, requires a sales professional who is wired to be a hunter, and not only that. This hunter needs to enjoy a longer sales cycle. Finding the brand new buyer is what brings a hunter renewed energy and motivation, short sales cycle or long.

While there are definitely products sold by dental distributors that fit this category, most hunter-focused products and services are found on the manufacturing side of the house. Manufacturing tends to be the preferred destination of reps who want to sell a smaller bag of products in order to specialize, or who don’t enjoy the hand-holding that comes with account management. You can, however, find account management-oriented selling roles at both manufacturers and distributors, consumables in both arenas, and hunting is a skill no successful sales professional ever totally sets down.

The dental industry is varied enough to have many options on both sides of the house, and clinicians have regular needs for both. As far as clients go, dentists are good like that. Still, the distribution rep sees the fullest possible picture of the business their clinicians run. They’re also the ones who tend to get the closest to their customer because they see them more often than other reps do. This sales professional is ideally a consultative partner to the dentist, and one trained to understand how the business of dentistry actually works. To date, most dental schools don’t teach future clinicians how to run successful businesses. To a clinician who desperately needs this training, or who would prefer to practice dentistry rather than run the business, the distribution rep can be a lifesaver, or business-saver, as the case may be. The distribution rep has the car that all the manufacturing reps who sell through distribution want to ride in.

The exception to this is the manufacturing rep who sells direct to the dentist. Sans-distributor rep has become a popular way to sell in recent years, as many manufacturing reps I talk with prefer not to have to work through other sales reps to get their products into the dentist’s hands.

The phrase herding cats comes to mind. The manufacturing rep also needs to be selling consultatively and tends to be more hunter-focused on the whole. Any successful sales professional always hunts for new business. (Please read that last sentence twice.) But as a distribution territory grows, account management becomes a more focal need and there is simply less time for hunting and cold-calling. If you don’t prefer the hand-holding involved in account management to the pace of hunting, you may want to aim for a manufacturing role that sells direct to the dentist.

Manufacturers sell either through distribution, direct, or both. If you want to see your clinicians more often, and truly enjoy the hand-holding, distribution may be ideal for you. Or you may want to select an employer that manufactures consumables primarily. When you sell as a distributor, you are the specialist who offers choices. When you sell as a manufacturer, you are the specialist on your product. Smaller bag, tighter specialization, but fewer choices. You’d better believe in your company and product offering whole-heartedly if you hire on with a dental manufacturer. The time you spend analyzing what type of sales professional you naturally are, and which kind of selling you’re drawn to will be well worth it. Remember, once you hire on, it’s difficult to switch sides.

Emerging technologies, start-ups, and restart-ups are launching all over the dental industry and bringing change with them that could just as easily be a flash in the pan as alter the dental industry permanently. Not every product you come across in your investigation of the industry has staying power. Not every new technology will present a viable value proposition.

Some products do and will, but the company who first brings them to market might fail for lack of a sustainable company culture or inadequate funding. Company culture is fluid in the early stages of a start-up, which adds to the risk inherent in working for one. Start-ups are generally disruptive to existing methods, practices, and ideals, and it takes a certain type of risk-loving, highly adaptable person to sell in a start-up environment and challenge status-quo, particularly in dental.

But that’s what being part of a start-up is all about. It’s big risk, high stakes, and no manual. Sometimes I have the good fortune of working with a sales candidate who knows they want a strong, well-known brand to represent, and a product that isn’t going out of style any time soon. A sales rep who knows they thrive in disruptive environments with products few have heard of or seen before is also fun to work with. These are clear preferences articulated by experienced sales reps who know how they work best. The point isn’t which side of the spectrum they land on, it’s that they know themselves that makes a successful job search possible. You’re either well-suited to sell in a start-up environment or you’re not. It isn’t something you learn to be, and most people are not well-suited to usher in disruption. For those of you who are avidly seeking the thrill of a start-up experience, here are three things to keep in mind while you watch for the opportunities:

1.  Expect chaos. No matter what. Chaos in the job description, in the role itself, and in every nook and cranny of the start-up organization. I can't emphasize this enough: if you're looking to work for a start-up that's well-organized and behaves like a mature company, you aren't ready for any start-ups. Chaos is the name of the game in the beginning years of every start-up. It's not a sign of a poorly baked idea, nor of a sketchy leadership team. Building something from nothing only works flawlessly if you're God.

2.  Company culture is fluid in the beginning. Think of a start-up as a brand-new baby, human or animal. They throw up on you, cry, poop, and make you feel amazing—sometimes all at once. The same goes for a start-up. Sleepless nights and long days with your new infant company will feel like a marathon with no end in sight. Your baby company won't take on a solid cultural framework for at least three years because every process, application, and role is new. You'll be able to see the company take shape over time, but change in the early years is such a constant that to measure a company's culture while it's in start-up mode is akin to predicting adult features at the time of birth: you'll have informed guesses, but nothing's guaranteed.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of parenting, human or animal, you can also think of it like baking a cake. The beginning of the process looks nothing like the end, especially when you’ve done it right. It’s a mixture made up of multiple ingredients in a state of chemical change right up until it’s fully baked. Forget a crucial aspect of the process, and your cake falls flat. Like building a company from scratch, it’s a delicate process which you affect with the addition of each ingredient. But you won’t know specifically what you've created until it's fully baked and cooled.

3.  Commitment equals 150%. Plan to invest yourself in raising the baby, or the cake, and know that there is no such thing as "work-life balance" in a start-up. You will work harder, longer hours, and with less pay in the early years. That's normal, and to be expected. Kiss your vacations goodbye, at least for the first few years of the company's life, and expect the infant creation to take over your world.

These lessons are absolute in a start-up company regardless of the role you're in and the work you're accountable for. If this scares you away from start-ups, good. Just like having a baby, no one is ever truly ready. But if you're expecting the poop and the barf, you'll also be there for the joy. It's just going to be a long haul. Count on it.

Questions to ask yourself:

Do you prefer a shorter sales cycle or a longer one?                                    

Do you want to spend your time hand-holding or prospecting?                    

Do you enjoy “windshield time,” or flights, and how often?                            

Do you want to be home in your own bed most nights, or are you a road warrior?                                                                                                          

Do you like to sell products at the best price or the premium products?       

Do you like to sell products that no one has ever heard of before and buck the system? Or do you prefer to sell with a strong brand?                            

Larger salary and smaller commission, or lower salary and uncapped commission potential?                                                                                  

 Stable and somewhat predictable or start-up? Risky or less risky? Presumably, you’ve decided on a sales career, and no sales career is completely without risk. But there are definitely degrees of risk to consider.

If you’re an experienced sales professional, more than likely you’ve figured out the answers to some of these questions along the path of your career. But if you are new to professional sales, you may not even have known the questions existed. Your ability to identify which type of sales professional you are, the products and services you will be most successful selling, and the type of client relationships you want will aid you in finding the professional sales role that matches you. Point being, your career match will take time and effort to identify. Furthermore, time and life will change you, and your preferences for how and what you like to sell will change with you.

As with the choice between manufacturing and distribution, it’s crucial to understand your nature on these topics as well, and to pay attention as time passes. Figure out what type of sales pro you are, how you sell the best, as well as what products and services and sales cycles are in your sweet spot, because your selling success depends in large part on fully comprehending the choices and choosing well.

I hope it’s starting to become really clear why it’s important to understand as much about your industry and yourself as you possibly can. Here, it’s about knowing dental and being able to pinpoint exactly where you can step into it for maximum success in your career.