Brian Taylor
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Our First Impression
Welcome to the premiere issue of First Impressions. We are excited to launch this quarterly magazine, which you will find is focused on dental sales professionals. While our company publishes two other healthcare magazines, it’s important to know that our professional background is in healthcare sales rather than publishing. I was raised on the medical sales side of the business and spent more than 20 years working with distributor sales reps on a daily basis trying to grow our mutual business with healthcare providers.
As we dip our toes into the dental sales arena, it’s interesting to observe both the similarities and differences between the medical and dental sales worlds. That being said, the formula for success seems consistent. The qualities that make top performers are universal. Great reps seek to serve their customers by providing products, services, insight and advice that enhance their customers’ practice. It’s about owning the relationship, which isn’t always easy to do. I have found that the most successful reps are those that use the "tools of the trade" to their advantage.
Over the years, the old cliché of "making a good first impression" resonated more with me, which ultimately spawned the title of this publication. Because for me, I always admired the top performers and observed how they operated and conducted themselves. They were the most resourceful. They knew their products well, they knew their internal systems well, they knew how to use their suppliers’ expertise to their advantage, and they knew their customers’ business better than their competitors did. And most importantly, they used those "tools of the trade" to support their ability to establish a trusting and loyal relationship with their customers.
One of my favorite characters was a very successful medical rep who had been at it for a number of years. I worked with him on numerous occasions and he started each day wearing a little flower in his lapel that at the end of the day he would give to a nurse in that last call’s office. It always brought a smile, and it became his trademark. He was one of the most well-liked sales people I have ever known. He told me that his guiding philosophy was that he treated every sales call as if it were his first and thus he tried to create a great first impression with even his oldest and most loyal customers. It’s a winning philosophy that only requires a good memory that you can jog prior to each and every call you make.
Our magazine is aimed at providing information that will enable dental distributor reps to do their jobs better. We have assembled a rep council of your peers to help steer us in the direction of writing about topics and issues that are important to you and your customers. We want to be a resource that you will use to complement the knowledge, training and expertise that you all receive from the companies for whom you work.
Our role has always been as a champion of salespeople, no matter what they sell or to whom. And it is our goal to provide a forum that you can access to air your views, share your successes (and failures), read about industry trends, hear differing opinions and hopefully feel a sense of community as you strive to get better at what you do.
We value and welcome your ideas, suggestions, and comments. Please feel free to contact me at the numbers on the Contents page. I look forward to hearing from you!
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