Being responsive makes you valuable. But if all you do is answer questions, track shipments, and solve problems, you are not growing the territory – you’re maintaining it.
By Brian Sullivan, CSP
Congratulations. You answered 47 emails, tracked down three missing shipments, fixed a pricing issue, found a substitute product and sat through two internal meetings that could have been emails.
You were incredibly busy. You may have also sold absolutely nothing.
Welcome to one of the most dangerous traps in medical distribution: becoming a customer service representative who happens to carry a sales quota. Service matters, especially in healthcare. Great reps do not disappear when things get messy. But service and selling are not the same thing, and trouble starts when today’s problems eat the whole week.
The busy rep’s favorite hiding place
Reactive work feels productive because people thank you for it. Customers tell your manager how helpful you are. You end the day exhausted, convinced you gave everything.
Maybe you did. But exhaustion is not a sales metric.
There is a reason this work is so easy to sink into. Service pays immediately, and it pays in appreciation. Find a case of product nobody else could find and a materials manager tells you that you saved her week.
Service work is guaranteed applause. People take the applause every time, and then call it putting the customer first.
Meanwhile, nobody thanks you for a prospecting call. Growth work is slow to pay and carries a real chance of rejection.
I asked a veteran rep where his next big opportunity was coming from. He gave me an update on two backorders, a credit issue and a customer who needed samples by Thursday.
I asked again. “Where is your next piece of new business coming from?”
He stared at me like I had switched languages. He wasn’t dodging me. He simply hadn’t thought about it in months because nothing in his week had forced him to. He was working hard. He just wasn’t selling.
That is how the trap works. Urgent work replaces important work, and because the urgent stuff is visible and appreciated, nobody notices the territory has stopped growing until the pipeline looks like an abandoned mall.
Service the business. Grow the business. Find new business.
Every rep has three jobs. Service the business: solve problems and take care of the customers already buying. Grow the business: ask better questions inside existing accounts and find the categories and problems you can solve. Find new business: prospect, open doors and start conversations with people who are not buying today.
Most reps are excellent at the first. Some do the second occasionally. Far too many avoid the third like it requires a medical procedure and no anesthesia, then they wonder why the territory is flat.
Service keeps the business healthy. Growth keeps your career healthy.
Turn service moments into sales moments
You do not need to be pushy or turn every backorder into a hostage negotiation. The customer called for help, so help them. Then stay curious.
“I’ll get that shipment issue handled. While I have you, how are you managing shortages in the other departments?”
“I’ll take care of the pricing correction. Before we hang up, has anything changed in your procedure volume this quarter?”
That is not a cheesy upsell. It is professional curiosity. Service earns access; questions turn access into opportunity. The rep who solves the problem gets appreciated. The rep who brings back an idea becomes indispensable.
Audit the calendar, not the intentions
Open last week’s calendar and mark every block:
- M is for maintenance: anything a competent coordinator could have handled – tracking, quoting, problem solving, meetings about problems.
- G is for growth: anything that could create revenue that does not exist today.
- A prospecting call. A conversation about a line an existing customer has never bought.
When you are unsure, mark it M. Most reps land between 80% and 90% maintenance. If your growth number is under 20%, your pipeline will eventually expose it.
Block the growth time before the service emergencies arrive. Small is fine. Inconsistent is not.
Customer service is the floor, not the ceiling
Your customers deserve fast responses, fixed problems and follow-through. That is the price of admission, not the achievement. Your company did not hand you a territory to protect yesterday’s orders. It hired you to create tomorrow’s.
Do all of it. Just do not confuse being needed with growing the territory.
Your customers may love you. Your manager may praise you. But eventually, somebody is going to ask where the growth is coming from.
And “I’ve been really busy” is going to sound exactly as weak as it is.
Brian Sullivan, CSP, is the founder of PRECISE Selling and author of “PRECISE Selling: 20 Days to the Top”. With 35 years of experience in healthcare and medical distribution sales, he delivers keynotes, bootcamps, and outsourced sales development for companies nationwide. Contact him at preciseselling.com.
Key Takeaways
- Busywork can feel productive, but excessive service tasks can prevent reps from creating new sales opportunities.
- Successful reps balance customer service, account growth, and new business development responsibilities.
- Service interactions create opportunities when reps ask thoughtful questions and uncover customer needs.
- Reps should audit calendars and protect dedicated time for growth activities and prospecting.