For Tim Kinsley, family vacations were state veterinary conventions

Nights can get pretty cold in Murdo, S.D. Tim Kinsley recalls some grumbling when, as a kid, his father – Clifford Kinsley, DVM – would be awakened for emergency calving calls. Still, young Kinsley was attracted to veterinary medicine. Though he didn’t choose to pursue a career as a DVM, he did the next best thing: He became a veterinary products rep for Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Nelson Laboratories.
Kinsley’s father, Clifford, knew he wanted to be a veterinarian since he was in high school. “I can’t recall specifically why,” he says. “It just drew my attention. I leaned that way.” Born and raised on a farm in Murdo, the elder Kinsley graduated from veterinary school at Iowa State University in 1968. For a short time, he operated a practice in Winner, S.D., about 100 miles from Murdo. But then a practice became vacant in Murdo, so he returned home. That was October 1969. He and his wife, Jean, have operated the practice ever since.
Tim was raised on the family farm about five miles out of town. It was more of a hobby farm, he says, with a couple dozen head of cattle, a handful of sheep and dogs. He attended South Dakota State University in Brookings, and graduated in 2007 with a major in animal science and journalism. Though he considered a career in veterinary medicine, it didn’t work out. And by the time he graduated, he had decided against pursuing journalism as well.
“I started looking for a job, and I talked to my dad about what might be available in the veterinary profession. He recommended veterinary sales.”
The idea struck a chord with Tim Kinsley. “I wanted to stay in the veterinary world. I enjoyed it, loved it. I thought sales was a pretty good opportunity.”
Kinsley sent his resume to Nelson Laboratories, and got a job, serving primarily production animal veterinarians in western Iowa. At the time, he lived in Sioux Falls. But later, he and his wife, Allyssa, moved to Hull, where she’s from, about an hour’s drive from Sioux Falls.

Street cred“It was a little rocky when I first started,” he says. The fact that his father was a veterinarian helped. After all, he knew veterinary medicine. When he was a kid, family vacations centered around state veterinary conventions in places like Rapid City or Sioux Falls. And he recalls on occasion sitting in the back of his father’s clinic watching him perform a cesarean section.
He also had product knowledge. “I’d seen a lot of the products already. I had an idea what was used and when, and at what time of year.” And the fact that he knew the history of many veterinary products and the companies that first produced them – names that have come and gone following one merger or another – gave him credibility in the field.
What he didn’t have was sales training. But two years later, he feels he’s mastering that side as well.
For his part, Dr. Kinsley says his son always had what it takes to make a good rep. “He’s a good communicator,” he says. “He has a broad education. And he’s a service person; he takes great pride in providing anybody with what he feels they want. And along with that, he makes himself knowledgeable.”
To Dr. Kinsley, these are the most important traits of a successful sales rep. What he values most from his reps are two things: accurate, reliable information; and service. “That’s what builds confidence,” he says. He understands that today’s reps carry many more products than their predecessors of 40 years ago. They can’t be masters of all of them. “It gets a lot more complicated for reps today,” he says.
The last thing he wants from his reps is to hear them badmouthing their competitors.
“When I started selling, I asked my father, ‘What do you expect out of a good sales rep?’” recalls Tim Kinsley. “His big thing was consistency, and the ability to come in with knowledge of new things going on.”