By Brian Sullivan, CSP
Smart reps win by showing up, asking questions and staying present when opportunity strikes.
I hear it all the time. “Everyone in this system already has a vendor.” “That IDN has been locked up for years.” “Their current rep is their best friend. There’s no way in.”
I nod. I listen. And then I ask the same question I always ask: “How do you know?”
The answer is almost always silence. Because most reps don’t actually know. They assumed. They drove past the account, saw a competitor’s car in the lot, and wrote it off. They heard the contract was locked. They called once, got a cold reception and quietly decided the territory was full.
Here’s the reality: markets rarely saturate. Salespeople do.
The story reps tell themselves
There’s a mental model that develops over time in medical distribution. A rep comes in, works the territory hard for a year or two, identifies the accounts that feel winnable and then quietly stops pursuing the ones that don’t. The locked accounts. The loyal accounts. The ones where someone else got there first. On the surface, that sounds like smart prioritization. It isn’t. It’s retreat dressed up as strategy.
The problem isn’t that those accounts are closed. The problem is that the rep stopped asking why – and stopped asking what it would take to change it. Accounts that look impenetrable from the outside are almost never as solid as they appear. Vendors make mistakes. Reps get promoted or leave. New decision-makers come in with zero loyalty to anyone. Contracts expire. Supply chain problems erode trust. Budget pressure forces buyers to rethink everything they’ve taken for granted. The rep who isn’t showing up when those cracks appear isn’t going to get the call. That’s just the reality of this business.
What saturated thinking looks like
I coached a rep last year – talented, experienced, the kind of guy who could charm his way into any room he actually tried to get into. His numbers were fine. Not great. Fine. When we mapped his territory together, I noticed he had a cluster of large health systems marked “no opportunity.” I asked him when he’d last been in contact with any of them. “Some of those? Probably 18 months.” I let that sit for a second, then asked: “And in 18 months, you don’t think anything changed?”
He looked at me like I’d asked him to solve a math problem mid-call. The reality was that two of those systems had gone through leadership transitions, and one had a supply disruption with their current vendor that had the materials director quietly shopping alternatives. He didn’t know any of it – because he had stopped showing up. That’s saturated thinking. Not a saturated market.
The reps who win locked accounts
The best reps I know treat every “closed” account like a slow-moving chess match. They’re not hammering the door every week. But they’re not invisible either. They drop in with something useful – a benchmarking insight, a clinical update, a heads-up about a product change coming down the line. They build relationships one level removed from the decision-maker so that when the door finally opens, they’re already in the building.
They ask questions the current vendor isn’t asking. They surface problems the buyer didn’t know they had. They make the status quo feel slightly less comfortable – not through pressure, but through perspective. And when things shift, which they always do, they’re the first call. That isn’t luck. It’s what consistent presence buys over time.
Three questions worth asking about every “locked” account
Before you write off a territory as saturated, run it through three honest questions:
- First: when was the last time you had a real conversation with someone at this account – not a pitch, an actual conversation?
- Second: do you actually know why they’re staying with their current vendor, or are you assuming?
- Third: if their situation changed tomorrow, would they think to call you?
If the answer to any of those is uncomfortable, the account isn’t locked. You just stopped working it.
The only territory that’s truly saturated
After 35 years in this business, I’ve watched sales teams convince themselves their markets are maxed out right before a competitor walks in and takes 30% of their book. It happens more than people want to admit. The accounts don’t change. The thinking does. The reps who win locked accounts aren’t smarter or more connected. They’re simply the ones who never disappear.
So the next time you look at your territory and feel like there’s nowhere left to go, ask yourself one honest question: is the market really full? Or have you just decided it is? Because those two things feel identical from the inside. And only one of them is true.
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.