Nine years of inside sales were invaluable training for Brian Van Beek’s transition to the field

Maybe it was being with all those cows, hogs and chickens growing up on the family farm. Or maybe it was just the ethic of hard work that he learned as a kid. Maybe it was the nine years he spent doing inside sales for a vet distributor in Sioux Center, Iowa. Or maybe it’s just … him. Whatever the reason, just a couple of years after joining MWI Veterinary Supply as an outside sales rep, Brian Van Beek
has been that company’s Food Animal Rep of the Year for the past two years. “He’s a young, hard-working rep who has a great work ethic and a very good understanding of the animal health distribution system,” says Eric Scott, Central States regional manager for MWI.

Van Beek was born 36 years ago in Iowa. Shortly after he was born, the family moved to a farm near Rushmore, Minn., in the southwestern part of the state. Farming is in his blood. Both his parents were raised on farms, and several uncles are still in the business.

Van Beek graduated from Dordt College in Sioux Center, with a degree in business administration. “I did think about farming,” he says. “But my dad was never a big promoter of it. In fact, he tried to steer us in other directions. It’s a hard life, with a lot of ups and downs. He thought there was something better for us.”

Inside sales
After graduation, he worked for a short time for a farm-equipment manufacturer, and then for a plumbing and heating distributor. Then, in 1997, he joined Vet Pharm, a Sioux Center-based veterinary distributor, as an inside sales rep. (The company has since been acquired by Lextron.)

“It was a good place to develop my confidence,” says Van Beek, speaking of Vet Pharm. The company put a lot of focus on its inside reps, and offered them plenty of product and sales-skills training. But being just a few steps away from the warehouse and the back office functions was perhaps an even richer education, which would prove valuable in his transition to outside sales.

“It was an opportunity to learn the ins and outs of distribution, because you were right there,” he says. “It allowed me to be a much better team member with the inside salespeople, who are just as important [to a distributor] as the outside reps. If a veterinarian doesn’t want to talk to that inside person, he won’t buy from you.”

In 2006, Van Beek made a big move - to MWI and outside sales. The company was just entering Iowa, so he knew he would have to deal with customers’ questions about a company they knew little to nothing about. But he had some other questions too.

Face to face
True, he had learned much about customer relations and sales in his nine years as an inside rep. “But that phone is your in-between, your protector,” he says. When thinking about making the transition to the field, “you worry about how you’ll handle situations face to face.” He knew too that as an outside rep, he’d probably deal directly with a lot more vets than he did on the phone, when he often dealt with purchasers.

What’s more, he wondered to what extent his personality would match his new role. “I always had the perception that to be a really good salesperson, you had to be a flamboyant, story-telling, get-along-with-everybody type of person,” he says. “That’s not really me at all.”

The majority of Van Beek’s customers are large-animal vets and clinics. Perhaps that’s no surprise, given his territory - northern Iowa, southwest Minnesota and a few accounts in Wisconsin. But the demographics are changing. “Twelve or 15 years ago, it would have been easy to call on a number of practices that just did large animals,” he says. “Now, as I look across my territory, I don’t think I have even a handful of accounts that don’t do any small animal [work], or that consider themselves 100 percent large animal.”

The rise of the corporate farm - 2,000-cow dairies instead of 50-cow operations, for example - is partly responsible. There simply are fewer farms to call on today. What’s more, producers are more knowledgeable about their animals’ healthcare needs, and they’re capable of providing a great deal of non-emergency care on their own, without the intervention of a veterinarian.

In addition, towns such as Sioux Center have grown, and with that growth has come a rise in the pet population. People tend to spend more on their pets today than they did 10 or 15 years ago. “The opportunities just might not have been there before” for small-animal vets in the Midwest farmland, he says.

Van Beek has noticed other changes among his customer base, all of which have affected his approach to sales. For one, the typical practice has gotten bigger. It is far more likely to employ an office manager than practices of 10 or 15 years ago. “These clinics have come to realize they’re running a big business themselves,” just like the producers they serve, he says. Producers are pursuing more direct-buy opportunities, and that’s forcing clinics to tread more cautiously as well. “You talk a lot more about pricing and business today,” says Van Beek. “You have more conversations about how the clinic can expand its business or compete with OTC pressure.”

The current economic recession has made Midwestern clinic customers leery of certain promotions, says Van Beek. “They’re less apt to buy six months of inventory because it looks like a good deal. That’s because they’re worried that that 1,200-cow dairy might not be in business two months from now.” That said, farmers are used to economic ups and downs, perhaps even more so than the general public, he says. “There are times when the overall U.S. economy is really strong, but a segment of the ag industry is struggling - hog or dairy prices may be really bad. So maybe we’re a bit more used to it.”

Lessons learned
At 36, Van Beek has a full career ahead of him. But already, with close to 13 years in veterinary products sales (as an inside and outside sales rep), he’s learned a few things about selling.

First, success calls for work - hard work. “Working hard was something that was instilled in me from an early age, and I’m proud of that,” he says. “At the end of the day, if you survey your customers, what’s important to them is how hard their rep works for them.”

Second, follow-through is important. “Something might seem insignificant to you; the clinic might not even need an answer for two weeks. But I never take that for granted. You can impress people by your response - the quicker the better.”

Third, you can never know enough. “Listening has taken me a long way. I’m always trying to learn and get better.”

And fourth, it’s important to balance work and family. Van Beek is usually gone one or two nights a week. With three young kids, he doesn’t want to be out much more than that. “You have to try to juggle sales with what you have going on and what your family needs are. They have to work hand in hand. If your home life isn’t good, you won’t be successful on the road.”