Encouragement and education fuel a legacy of development for Henry Schein’s Eddie Garro.
Henry Schein’s Eddie Garro is a big believer in lifting others up. That’s why he has embraced the moniker of “Encouragement Champion.”
“I think we all need to be encouraged regardless of our role and years of service,” said Garro. “We all need to have a champion who says, ‘You know what? I see you. You’re doing a great job. You are making change happen.’”
Garro, MHRD, Sales Onboarding and Training Manager for Henry Schein’s Distribution Group in North America, recently celebrated 24 years with the company. Over the years, he’s been fortunate to witness individuals flourish within the company, progressing from training programs at entry-level positions to successful territory managers and even senior leadership roles.
Now, more than ever, Garro wants to deliver training resources that can help reps grow into, and beyond, their current roles. Indeed, training is critical for sales reps to take on a challenging marketplace.
“I think in a time when things are rapidly changing, education is key,” he said. “We want to make sure that our sales professionals have the knowledge needed to go to their accounts and talk to doctors – the people who are helping the communities. We also want to make sure that the manufacturers are pulled in and that we’re all on the same page with what’s going on, and how the machinery and products work. Education and training are vital. And thankfully, we work for an organization that acknowledges that.”
“Our Team Schein Members are the organization’s greatest asset,” Garro said. “If they’re not trained and comfortable with promoting, talking about and selling the services that we offer, then that’s something we need to look at internally.”
Training also solidifies the relationship with manufacturers and vendors. Indeed, these partners are entrusting distributors to sell and provide their services into the community.
“We owe it to the manufacturers and the vendors,” he said. “They’re relying on us to make sure that we have trained our sales reps to best represent their products. If we don’t have our reps trained in a manner in which they can confidently go in, talk about that product, talk to the decision maker, and then ultimately have the product available for the community, what are we doing?”
New platforms
Though many of the skills are the same, the methods in which sales reps are trained have changed over the years. When Garro started at Henry Schein, training was done in a conference room. Garro would sit beside a printer to create binders for each trainee. Today, the organization has blended training opportunities between the traditional classroom style, learning management systems, and online programs such as Education OnLine (EOL). “We encourage folks to do their research and participate in blended trainings, in-person and virtually. We conduct webinars where we train Team Schein Members on how to implement the applications that they’re going to use to sell virtually.”
“Newer reps are very adaptive to what the training team throws at them. Veterans are too, but often want to know the ‘why’ behind a training technique or program,” Garro said. “What I find works best is explaining why they need to know it, why they need to understand it, and then connecting it to the end result. It’s magical.”
Data dumps, though, are not. Ineffective training usually happens when a lot of content is thrown at the trainee with little to no explanation of its importance. “Here’s a 45-page PDF – let me know if you have any questions – that doesn’t work,” Garro said. “I know for me personally; I don’t learn well that way because now I’m just reading stuff that I don’t know how I would apply it.”
Henry Schein’s trainers want to explain the ‘why.’ This is why you need to understand how to use the tools that we have. “If you explain the ‘why’ and how it’s going to benefit Team Schein, the customer, and the patient, then it’s a classroom full of excitement.”
Sense of belonging
Henry Schein’s success in internal development is no accident. An emphasis on training has always come from the top. Garro said Brad Connett, Henry Schein’s Senior Advisor and former CEO of the North America Distribution Group, has been one of the training team’s greatest champions over the years. “He’s been in the industry for years and knows what the need is,” Garro said.
Connett has also been something of a mentor and encourager to Garro, who first met Connett years ago when he relocated to Greenville, S.C. “[Connett] is very distinguished and one of the nicest people that you will ever meet,” Garro said. During their first meeting, Connett hugged Garro and welcomed him into the office, saying “I’m glad to be working with you.”
Ty Ford, Vice President and General Manager of U.S. Medical Sales at Henry Schein, has also made a lasting impact in Garro’s career. Ford has a sense of empathy and compassion. Plus, he’s motivated and understands sales both as a salesperson and a sales leader. “He’s a double threat,” Garro said. “He gets it.” The landscape in healthcare is changing. The business acumen is also changing every day with tariffs, inflation, and supply chain disruptions. Yet Ford maintains a level headedness through it all, Garro said. “He’s a resource and a great person to go to.”
Kristen Meszaros, Director, North American Sales Training and Development at Henry Schein, has been “a lifesaver” to Garro. He said he was at a point in his career a few years ago where he wasn’t sure whether to stay at Henry Schein or move on to something else. Meszaros allowed Garro to reinvent himself in his role.
“She allowed me to tell my story,” Garro said. “She sees me. She gives me a complete sense of belonging. The company overall sees everybody, and everybody has a sense of belonging, which is wonderful. But when you have a leader who takes the time to speak to you, not at you, and understand what your journey was intended to be, what you want it to be, that reinvigorates you and then makes you want to log back in the next morning and do even better than you did the day before.”
A continual journey
Garro said for reps to get the most out of their training opportunities, it’s critical for them to ask lots of questions. “I am a big believer in continuing education because to me, education is not something that anyone can ever take away from you,” he said. “I’m a big believer in EOL. We’re in the 95% range of compliance.”
He is also a big believer in doing your research and taking advantage of opportunities to self-improve. Personally, Garro does a lot of LinkedIn learning modules because he sees value in them. “It’s not always about a particular product, it’s how to talk to folks in the C-suite,” he said. “It’s how to talk to the gatekeeper. It’s how to talk to your team members.” He encourages people to sign up and take as many training modules as possible, because “if you’re not doing it for anyone else, you’re doing it for yourself.”
For instance, during COVID, Garro studied and earned a master’s degree in human resource development online from Clemson University. “No one told me to, but I thought, why not prepare myself to be as valuable as I can be to the teams that I support?”
In the coming weeks and months, Garro and his team will play a pivotal role in Henry Schein’s new website rollout. He is excited about the project and anticipates a lot of attention, raised hands, and questions from both his team and the organization as they work collaboratively. “What excites me about being involved with that is to be able to help as many people as I can to understand how to best use the application,” he said. “I think when you are a believer in servant leadership, the idea of helping people is your fuel. And to me, if I can help people, if I can encourage someone, if I can make them realize, ‘I can do it,’ then I’m in the right space.”