how to break in to Animal health rep

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shantel22

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I am new to this forum, was wondering if anyone could give me advise. I am a licensed veterinary technician have worked in general practice and 15 years in ophthalmology and dermatology specialties. I have heard that you HAVE to have a 4 year degree to even be looked at for a animal health sales rep position, is this true? working in specialty medicine I have alot of networking connections with surrounding states/clinics/staff and I also do alot of teaching and public speaking. Is there any hope to break in to this field? And if so where to start? Also any thoughts on Pharm. sales certification?? Thank you for your help.
 
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More important than the college degree thing- because yes, Abbott has hired people with your kind of background in the past- this job is SELLING- while having an expertise in certain clinical areas is helpful, you have to be a self starting, accomplishment driven, sales person, willing to do what it takes to make the number and not take rejection personally.

In my experience in sales in pharma, whether it was a vet tech transitioning to vet sales or a nurse transitioning to human pharma, they all had poor results and eventually left after 6 months to a year in the business, because the skill sets they had really do not coincide with what it takes to be successful and enjoy working in this business.

My advice, stay where you are and look for areas to improve and expand your skills and value in your current field. You would probably find that, if you did get hired into vet sales somewhere, that you would eventually be dis-satisfied with your experience and regret having disrupted your life for 6 months.
 






Are you kidding me? You can certainly be a great sales person and having the veterinary technician background which is a huge advantage.
#1 you can talk the talk
#2 you may more respected (especially if you come from a highly respected practice),
#3 you know how a practice runs and how veterinarians can provide more services/products to their to their clients as you have probably done it yourself which in turn results in higher sales. All the technicians that I have hired including myself have been TOP sales reps so dont let anyone with less background experience ever discourage you. You can have bad reps that are not techs just as well. More than likely you will need a 4 yr degree to join a manufacturer. I believe Abaxis only requires a 2 yr and they like to hire techs. I would suggest contacting one of your reps and riding with them to make sure this is what you want to do and the GO FOR IT!
 






Anonymous said:
Are you kidding me? You can certainly be a great sales person and having the veterinary technician background which is a huge advantage.
#1 you can talk the talk
#2 you may more respected (especially if you come from a highly respected practice),
#3 you know how a practice runs and how veterinarians can provide more services/products to their to their clients as you have probably done it yourself which in turn results in higher sales. All the technicians that I have hired including myself have been TOP sales reps so dont let anyone with less background experience ever discourage you. You can have bad reps that are not techs just as well. More than likely you will need a 4 yr degree to join a manufacturer. I believe Abaxis only requires a 2 yr and they like to hire techs. I would suggest contacting one of your reps and riding with them to make sure this is what you want to do and the GO FOR IT!
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+1

This is very sound advice.
 






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