Patrick Thombs: Sales educator

Patrick Thombs never wanted to be a teacher, like his mom and dad. But educate others – such as his distributor partners and end users – on medical products? That works.

In fact, it has worked for more than 20 years for Thombs, Northeast regional sales manager for Clorox Healthcare, and recipient of the Repertoire/HIDA Excellence in Sales Award for a manufacturer rep.

“Patrick is the quintessential manufacturer sales rep,” says Rich Dwyer, senior regional manager, Henry Schein. “He gets in the car with my reps and not only sells his products, but teaches my team how to sell all products better.”

Thombs was born to be an educator, if not a teacher. His late mother, Elizabeth J. Barker, taught middle school and special education for more than 20 years. “She always wanted to be affecting kids’ lives,” not just those of her students, but her five kids and eight grandchildren too, says Thombs, who lives in Wethersfield, Conn.

“She had a zest for life,” he says. She started a legacy garden at one of her schools, spent a year in London as part of a teacher exchange program, and was named Maine State Teacher of the Year.

“My mother was a school teacher who had an electric spirit, and I had never realized the true impact she had had on the world until her funeral. [Ms. Barker died in 2015 of lung cancer.]

“Thousands of people showed up to pay tribute to a woman I had always called ‘mum,’ but to many others, she was so much more. I’ve accomplished a lot in my life, but I’ve never before felt so proud as I was that night to be Liz’s (mum’s) son.

“Her goal was so simple: It was to impact every single person she came in contact with every single day. I am generally a carefree person by nature, but my mother’s spirit has inspired me to stop and smell the roses. I try to have an impact on at least one single person’s life each day with a laugh, a smile, by lending an ear, or helping with a problem, and I have incorporated that into my career on ride days, at sales meetings and during daily phone calls. Life is too short not to make an impact.”

Thombs’ father, William Thombs, has taught at Southern Maine Community College for 30 years. “He’s done everything,” says his son. “He coached football, track, girls basketball; he worked in the guidance department, managed the rifle club.” And he has taught a variety of subjects, including the sciences and now, Early Life Skills.

Football
Thombs grew up in South Portland, Maine, and played football at South Portland High. His coach, John Wolfgram, has the most wins in Maine high school football.

“He strove for excellence in every facet of football and life,” recalls Thombs. “His trademarks were attention to detail and work ethic. He was meticulous in his preparation on and off the field. I have tried to carry and follow those same traits in my professional and personal life.

“I like to tell people he was [New England Patriots coach] Bill Belichick before Bill Belichick,” says Thombs. “This was a guy who, if you cussed during practice, would make you do 25 pushups. Drove you nuts in high school. But he was teaching us discipline without us even knowing it.”

Thombs went to Springfield (Mass.) College on a football grant, and majored in sports management. But he found it difficult to balance school, football and fun. “As a 5-foot-9-inch Division 3 middle linebacker, I knew I wasn’t going to go much further than that anyway,” he adds. So he stopped playing after his freshman year.

He got a taste for sales while working a sports management internship with Spalding Sports Equipment. High school and college coaches would call in to buy the company’s golf balls, primarily Top-Flite, Ben Hogan and Strata products. “I kind of corralled it, put my own stamp on it, to the point where we were getting repeat business. And I knew nothing about golf. I had never played a lick of golf.”

After graduation, he was told Spalding would create a position for him in the fall. “Then my student loans came due,” he says. “I had financed my entire college education myself, and I needed a job – quickly.” So he took a job as an inside sales rep for Raytel Cardiac Services. His job was to sell cardiologists on a service that monitored pacemaker patients telephonically.

He didn’t necessarily love the job, which involved a lot of cold calling, but he realized he could do it, and do it well. “It came pretty natural to me. And I do like the hunt, the rush. I learned how to be relentless, how to be persistent, how not to take ‘No.’”

After Raytel, Thombs joined Moore Medical (now a subsidiary of McKesson Medical-Surgical) in Farmington, Conn., where he did primarily inside sales. “This was when CLIA-waived instruments were starting to take off,” he recalls. “It was a great place to cut my teeth in distribution.”

In 2005, a recruiter called about an opportunity with Jacksonville, Fla.-based HealthLink, a manufacturer of infection control products, most notably, soap. A week later, he was on a plane to Jacksonville to meet with Vice President of Sales and Marketing Gene Dell. “It was a whirlwind of a day, and I was blown away by how methodically everything was executed,” he says. In fact, he was offered the job on his way to the airport that same day. “The fact that [Dell] closed me for the job without me even realizing it made me want to work for him that much more.”

Show up, follow up
For Thombs, excellence in sales means problem-solving, or finding and creating solutions. “People buy from people,” he says. “If you take care of people and their problems, the sales will take care of themselves.”

It’s really pretty simple, he adds. “I had a sales manager once who said, ‘Show up and follow up, and you will always win.’” It’s a formula that has worked for Thombs.

Since Clorox Healthcare acquired HealthLink in 2012, its management team has provided the salesforce greater resources, which in turn has empowered them to find more opportunities and create more solutions, says Thombs.

“The Clorox Healthcare sales team embodies ‘excellence in sales’ through our commitment to providing our customers the best possible experience, whether it’s spending hours in a healthcare facility teaching staff about our products and how to use them, or providing resources to help customers with questions and implementation of our products and services. Our values and integrity shine through to always put the customer first.”

Distribution experience
Thombs believes that his experience in distribution has made him a better manufacturer rep.

“I spent five-plus years as a distributor and I thought the sun rose and set with capital equipment,” he says. “I always took the commodity items for granted. Once I became a manufacturer selling infection control solutions, I had to go back and convince those same types of distributor reps the importance of these products.

“I worked extremely hard to develop relationships with any distributor rep who would give me an opportunity to help them grow their business. My plan was simple: Get to know them, bring them value, teach them something to help them grow their business, or help them solve a problem, and we would win together. Now, 12 years later, I am still doing the same thing because this is truly a ‘relationship’ business, and it is because of the relationships I have cultivated that I am where I am today.”

‘He gets it’
Rich Dwyer of Henry Schein recalls the first time he met Thombs. It was at the bar in the Hyatt Regency in Chicago, where HIDA was holding its annual meeting. “I saw a couple of reps with this guy, who I didn’t know. Turns out it was Patrick. I was managing Connecticut reps at the time, and the guys who dealt with him seemed to love him. It’s not that common to see that kind of relationship with manufacturer reps. But I got to know him. He was engaging, fun, and doing the right things to interact with our salespeople to create relationships.”

Thombs has never been shy about getting in the car and working with Henry Schein reps, adds Dwyer. Those days are often successful for both. “He is part of the team that goes [to the customer’s office]. He keeps everything moving forward. He gets it.”

Up to speed
Mike Harrington, director of sales, physicians, surgery and dental, with Clorox Healthcare, first met Thombs when Clorox Healthcare acquired HealthLink in 2012. “I had just come over to Clorox Healthcare from the consumer side of The Clorox Company to work with the previous owners and help lead the integration of HealthLink,” he recalls.

“Patrick appeared not only to have a high level of expertise in the business, but I could tell he had close relationships with his distributor reps,” says Harrington. “With my being new to the business, Patrick was extremely helpful in getting me up to speed. When we had our initial meetings with the Clorox Healthcare and HealthLink teams, what impressed me most was that Patrick’s peers were drawn to his enthusiasm, optimism, and leadership style.

“Patrick takes personal ownership in every facet of his business. He always demonstrates a ‘people first’ positive attitude in helping both his distributor reps as well as his Clorox Healthcare peers to be successful. This is evident in the significant business growth that his region has experienced since we acquired HealthLink five years ago.

“We are very fortunate to have Patrick on our team.”

Thombs’ wife, Joella, runs her own newborn photography business called Josephine Photography. They have a son, Trevor, who is almost two years old.