October 22, 2026- Last spring I spent a day riding with a rep named Dale. Fifteen years in, he knew everybody – the kind of guy who gets waved past the front desk without breaking stride.
He told me about his best account, a multi-site clinic group he’d had for eight years. I asked what the group spent annually across all the categories he sells. He guessed. Then I asked what he sold them last year. That number he knew cold, down to the dollar.
The two numbers weren’t close.
That’s when I said something I’ve repeated ever since: You won some business. That doesn’t mean you won the account.
The competitor inside “your” account
A clinic may buy exam gloves from you and wound care from somebody else. A surgery center may use your disposables while another company owns the equipment business. In a hospital system, you may have a fantastic relationship in one department while a competitor three floors away is quietly building a much bigger one. That doesn’t make the account disloyal. It means you never owned the whole account in the first place.
And this is where longtime relationships can actually work against salespeople. Once we feel secure, we stop looking. We know our contact, know the ordering pattern, know when they like to meet, and eventually we start confusing familiarity with market share. Meanwhile, somebody else is prospecting the customer you think you already won. That should bother you.
Continue Reading in the latest issue of Repertoire Magazine.