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In this episode of the Science of Selling STEM, I’ll be talking to Rick Barnett, The Founder and President of Rep-Lite, a company that helps medical manufacturers build qualified sales and service teams through a proven talent management model that revolutionizes healthcare. Rick is responsible for spearheading a strategic development process that allows manufacturers to experience maximized potential with limited resources. He has initiated and instituted his process to allow several manufacturers to experience exponential growth within the division that it was applied to. With over 30 years of experience, Rick serves a diverse range of clients seeking cost-effective solutions that increase efficiency, build customer loyalty, and improve operational models. 

He is experienced in minimally invasive surgical procedures, management, technology, manufacturing operations, quality, finance, customer support, and strategic planning. As a participative executive, he thrives on improving performance through innovative, strategic thinking and engaging individuals in the success of the business. Join us as Rick shares his wealth of experience on how every business can instill customer success, strengthen operational capabilities, and build strong, talented individuals and teams that contribute to long-term success.

On Today’s Episode of the Science of Selling STEM:

• A long journey in sales starting out with insurance sales (01:43)
• Building a growth-oriented team and succeeding in servant leadership (05:02)
• Why every business should define the WHY behind their daily activities (07:50)
• Balancing the tactical side of STEM sales with the human element side of it (10:30)
• The inspiration behind starting Rep-Lite (12:10)
• How having a minor league sales team helps their customers (16:01)
• The time it takes for a new technical sales rep to become autonomous (18:38)
• What to do to start developing a junior sales rep team internally (20:43)
• Fulfillment from helping junior sales reps to achieve long and successful sales careers (23:54)

Connect with Wesleyne Greer:

• Wesleyne’s Website
• Wesleyne on LinkedIn
• Wesleyne on Facebook
• Wesleyne on Twitter
• Email Her at wesleyne@transformedsales.com

Connect with Rick Barnett:

• Rick on LinkedIn
• Visit Rep-Lite
• Email Him at info@Rep-Lite.com

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Thanks for tuning into The Science of Selling STEM! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn even more about what it takes to transform your sales, don’t forget to tune into our other episodes and share your favorite episodes on social media!

Join The Science of Selling STEM community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and visit my website for even more content, information, and resources.

As a sales manager, you are judged by the

performance of your team, and you're praised when they do

well. But one thing that you've not been able to figure out is

how to get everyone on your team consistently hitting quota every

single month. On the Snack size sales podcast, we discuss the

science of selling stem sales leadership in the science,

technology, engineering and manufacturing fields is

difficult. You will learn from sales managers just like you

that will give you actionable insights and tips on how to

develop as a leader and achieve your revenue targets every

single month. So pop your headphones in and get ready to

listen to my guest today. They will give you information and

inspiration to ensure that you have actionable insights that

you can put into place today. Hello, and welcome to another

episode of the science of selling stem. Today I have Mr.

Rick Barnett. How are you, Rick? Awesome. Thank you. Mr. Barnett,

currently serves as founder of rep light. He's responsible for

spearheading a strategic development process that allows

manufacturers to experience maximize potential with limited

resources, Mr. Burnett has initiated and instituted his

process to allow several manufacturers to experience

exponential growth within the division that it was applied.

Okay, growth manufactured. Tell us about how did you start your

career? And how did you come to have this amazing company?

Yeah, well, thank you first, for having me, I

appreciate it. So as you can tell, I've got a lot of tenure

and experience. So my career's a long journey, I really started

in sales, believe it or not in insurance sales. And did that

for a little bit. And then just decided that there was something

else in life that I wanted to do so went back and ended up

becoming a first assistant in surgery. So I've switched into a

clinical role did that for a few years. And then really, because

of the way that technology was evolving, a sign made for

basically people to help support technology in and around the

operating room. So I created that inside of a hospital. That

was a team within the the LR, and I had one of my clients

actually come to me and say, you know, when we sell things into

this hospital, we sell our technology into it, things just

work. And we're not having to send a rep in, we're not having

to support it. And they're like, so how was this happening here?

So I explained to them what I had seen and the need that I

had, and they said, Well, can you come to the industry and do

it with us. So that was many years ago, I went to work for

Stryker, I was employed one on one, and Stryker has a huge

medical device company. And we were basically in charge of

building a junior sales team, if you will. And so started there.

If you fast forward, then about 14 years later, there's about

800 of us. So grew it from one to 100. I was recruited by

another medical device company called Intuitive Surgical

intuitives, known for their DaVinci Robot. They had kind of

seen what happened at Stryker, they said, Hey, we've got

disruptive technology that's in the LR, we spent a lot of time

supporting it. Do you think that it's applicable for us to put a

junior rep program together and really the the junior rep

programs kind of look like a minor league baseball team to

their Major League affiliate? Right. So we started that

intuitive, I did that for four or five years, grew that from

employee, one to one to about 120. And then just decided that

what we were doing for those companies, we could really

expand out and go to many different companies. So about

eight years ago, obviously saw a need, and we started reply. And

basically what we do is we create modeling teams for our

clients. We're a contract sales service company. And so we

primarily play in the medical space, medical devices,

pharmaceuticals, although we do some work in the business, the

business, just plan out there. Anyway. So that's about a 30

year journey.

Wow. So I really want to kind of rewind and go

back to going from one to 800. Because there are a lot of

people that are in either that beginning stage or the middle

stage. Right. And I think that the beginning, I'm not gonna say

it's easy, but it's like, okay, we see a vision, we see growth,

but then you start getting these people and the growing pains,

right? So it's like when you get from 50 to 100 or 100 to 300.

Right. So talk to us about those growing pains when you guys were

experiencing that rapid growth and really, what things did you

do to ensure that the team everybody who came on was on

boarded the same way that you had the team camaraderie that

you needed? to really help sustain the culture?

Yeah, it's a great question I would tell you that

Stryker as an organization has, has a great culture. I mean,

it's they pride themselves on. I think for us early on, as we

started the growth of ethic, you're right, when you got a new

concept grows kind of easy. It's, you know, you, I will tell

you, the first 75, people are probably fairly easy. But when

you do start to scale, there are some complexities. And I think

the key takeaway for me was, and still is, you know, I think a

lot of people talk about servant leadership. But I do think that

if you're leading an organization, or you're about to

grow, or skill and organization, we certainly believe in here

that the folks that you work with, your job is to serve not

only your client, but also the people that you work with. And I

think if you go about it, in the mind frame of, you know, my job

is to serve the people that work here with a set rep life, that

is why I come to work every morning to do and that's what I

leave here every evening intending to do is to basically,

I want my body of work to be so that I am setting people up to

be able to thrive and have success. And that's just kind of

the nature that I took in the mid 90s. And it still seems to

be a good method for success.

So how do you really help the internal

stakeholders understand that, hey, customers are important,

but your colleagues are also important. We're here to serve

each other. If I asked you to expedite this is not just

because I want to do it for my health. It's because there's

somebody else down the chain that actually may need that.

Yeah, I think it's about being bought into the

mission, right? You know, there's times that we talk about

the why, okay, and I'm gonna give you an illustration, so

let's just use a medical device company, okay? If they create,

you know, a new device, right, they've got this great new pen.

And, you know, they put that out to the Salesforce and say, Hey,

this pens really cool. Go sell a lot of them. I think that only

drives those cells to a certain point. I think if you take that

new device, we'll call it our PN as an example. And you really

articulate to the team, how this pins going to improve the lives

of patients that are actually you this pins is used for, I

think that sets a different tone through the organization. So

it's not a product and trying to hit a number hit your quota and

grow the revenue. It's why are we doing what we're doing? And

how, what's the outcome of that? So you kind of you know, I hate

to say, use a cliche, you know, start with the end in mind. But

you certainly need to know the why behind your daily activity.

The why I love that, how do you as the

president, the CEO of the company, define the why.

So here, you know, when we start an engagement with

the client, and they tell us their needs, you know, they want

to build a sales team, or they want to grow a different

division of their sales team, we kind of take a deeper dive and

ask, what are they trying to accomplish with this? Right? Is

it launching a new product? Is it support for a different

division? Or, you know, what is it because I think for us, we

need to get an alignment with what they're wanting. So that

helps us build that why, for each particular client, because

every clients different, and their Why is different, what we

really don't waver on here, we have a couple just pillars of

things that that we just, we look for people who have strong

moral compass or have integrity, they have to have that they

certainly have to have energy. And they have to have bandwidth

or intelligence because, you know, in the medical space, or

whatever space we're in, we feel like those three things are just

core pillars that they need before we can move forward. And

I think what happens when you find people like that, if it had

those three things, then it it really brings the chasm of

alignment really tight. So you can really start to build that

why and that culture around what you're trying to accomplish.

How has understanding your Why are

really developing this? Why how has that helped you see this

tremendous growth that you've talked about throughout your

career?

I think it goes back to the fact that, you know,

I believe that the work that I get to do, you know, I love the

statement, find what you love to do and call it work. Right? I

love that statement. And I think it's it goes back to what I said

earlier, if you really go about your your body of work with a

servant mentality, I think is when I would use I mean, you can

call it whatever you want. But really, I think I'm serving the

why. Right? And that means whether it's people technology

processes, my job is to serve and support the why of the

organization, whether it's our client or its rep life, either

one.

So I love this. I'm serving the why and I think

that so often when people within our field, these technical

fields of STEM sales, they're so focused on the tactical aspects,

right? They forget the human element of sales of selling of

business. So how are you able to really bridge that gap? Because

to be successful in this field, you have to be doing some of the

tactical stuff. But you're so focused on that human element?

How can you really bring those together?

Well, it's, I think, you know, I'm sounding

redundant here. But I think, you know, again, if there are

things, you know, let's just use technical sales, right? There's,

there's aspects of things that that you have to know and be

knowledgeable on, right. And those, you have to know your

product, you have to know the industry or whatever it is. But

I think it goes back to that les bond, a common mission

statement, let's find what we're trying to do that really

resonates with people, because those technical things, I think,

are a part of learning. I think that if you take someone who has

a strong desire to succeed, and is willing to apply themselves,

we can teach them, the technical aspects of it. But the thing

that I can't, I can't really teach is the motivation to go,

you know, for whatever you're wanting, I can't teach you that

motivation, there has to be internal. But if you have that

internal motivation for success, and you have a desire, and we

marry that with the why, and educate, then you've got a

pretty good recipe for success.

Hmm, I love that. I just don't understand

why everybody wants they, I love calling them the competitors

rejects. And they won't just find the strong salespeople. And

what you just defined was really a recipe to identify a strong

sales person, teach them the technology, help them to be

propelled, and then really allow them to take off. And when you

started red light, I feel like you there was something in the

industry that you said something is broken, and I want to fix it.

How did you really even decide eight years ago to start the

company? So

I'm going to be a little bit corny here and go

back to a sports analogy, right. So if you look at major league

baseball, okay, Major League Baseball, which I got to put in

a plug, we're in Atlanta, so Go Braves just have to put that

plug in their

revenue in revenue.

It's been a long time since we've been to the

show. So we have a 26 year drought thing. But here's what I

know about baseball, and this may be a hell. So if you look at

the this past World Series, both teams had players that were

called from the minor leagues and actually got the start or

play in the World Series. That's only because they had modeling

teams that are affiliated with each organization. So if you

think about naming the company, or whatever, but look at a major

league organization, so all these major league teams, they

have these modeling affiliates in these little small towns

around the US, right? If a player gets hurt, or something

happens to a player, they can have a replacement player within

a day on that major league team. Now, it's truly for the most

part, a plug and play player, because they've been in the

organization. They know the playbook. They know the offense.

They know the strategy, because they've been in a part of the

organization. The thing that I noticed that years ago is is

that in, especially in the medical and the pharmaceutical,

we don't have a modeling team. And when I started socializing

this and asking why the two things that are hard most often

was, well, we can't afford a second layer. And then I would

hear something like, we need people to be provide value or

provide revenue. So again, let's go back to this modeling concept

in Major League Baseball. All of those minor league teams are

developing players day in and day out, they're getting ready

for that major league opportunity. They are supporting

local communities with entertainment and revenue. So

it's no different in sales. If you don't have a junior sales

program that you are nurturing, developing. Anytime you lose a

rep, a rep quits, a rep gets fired, you've got a vacant

territory, for however long it takes you to field. And I can

tell you in our field, depending on the product segment, we say

that an empty territory, cost anywhere from 150,000 to

500,000. Just an open territory. So I don't know how you can not

afford to be developing a modeling team for your

organization.

This I mean when I heard about what you did, I

was like oh my goodness, it's genius. Because the problem is

and I'm not sure if it is the same in your industry, but in

industries that I touched manufacturing petrochemical, you

know those heavy industrial size the workforce is aging. So it's

not even that somebody is gonna quit, they're gonna retire. And

once they retire, they taking 1015 20 years of product

knowledge, customer knowledge with them. And you don't start

to think about the replacement until the person says, Oh, I'm

retiring at the end of the year, and you're like, oh, it's June

or July, it's gonna take me three months to find somebody.

And then I only have three months of overlap. And like you

said, the problem is that the empty territory is not

producing, right, so you run out the pipeline. But after the

pipeline is run out, there's nobody backfilling it, and it

takes people time to learn. And so really having that I love the

analogy, even though you had to rub them raise my face, I'll

accept it. Because when the Astros won the World Series, we

celebrated that probably for like two or five years, we've

just not even stopped celebrating. Yeah, right. So I

get that tells me with this minor league sales team that you

guys work with and develop in half are your customers, how has

that help them?

So I'll give you an example. So we have a client

that's in the cardiac space, and medical devices, and they were

experiencing, and when, when a rep leaves, it's not only the

loss of productivity in the sales, right, but it's

competitive threats, it's employs around that territory,

they're having to pitch and so it's burnout, there's a lot of

things that go into when a rep either retires, or, or leaves or

whatever. And what they were experiencing was, you know, it's

our current client, when a rep left, HR then got engaged, it

took them anywhere from three to six months to find a candidate,

which that's normal, and especially in today's job

market, right. But the problem is, is they had $250,000, of

missed opportunity during that timeframe. So when they engaged

us three or four years ago, the VP of sales is like, Okay, we

need to stop this bleeding, this revenue, you know, even if you

have a normal rate of attrition, right, call it 10 to 15%, which

is kind of normal out out in the space you're talking about, it

comes up into the millions of dollars every year that you're

losing. So what they did is they engaged us, and we basically put

25 territory associates around the country, these territory

associates, young, bright professionals with no knowledge

of cardiac equipment, but they bring them in and they attach

them to a senior rep. And so they're developing these people.

And what happens is, our program says our model says that anytime

after 12 months in our engagement, you can take a

person directly, right. So that's part of our value

proposition. So what happens now is, when they lose a rep, they

refill it within days, because they call me and say, Hey,

you're employed this working on contract with us, your territory

associate has been with us on contract for 18 months, they're

knowledgeable, they understand the process, they've been with a

really good senior rep. So bam, they plug the position in days,

not weeks, not months.

I love that. And while we're on this topic, I

would really like you to help me dispel this, I would have a

misnomer from the audience. Because people have a very

unrealistic view of what it takes, or how long it takes for

a new technical sales rep to really become autonomous. Give

me some stats based on what your experience is for them to really

understand and learn the business and be able to do it on

their own.

I think the fastest out there is probably 90

days. And I think that's an exception, I think you're

probably looking at more like 180 days to 12 months. And now

I'm saying that's when they are, you know, as autonomous as that

can be from an organizational standpoint. But it's rare that

anyone in a highly technical field can produce on their own,

I would say six months to a year.

I love it. It's right on target with what I tell

people I say six to 18 months, right? Because sometimes you

have these really complex products, and it takes a little

bit longer, but six to 18 months. So you cannot expect a

person that you hire to come in and get rid of them in 60 days

because they haven't closed the deal. I mean, come on people.

Let's give people a chance to learn the business. And the

thing is, even if they come from a similar industry, or your

competitor, your products are a little bit different. Your

processes are a little bit different. Your customers are

different. We have to allow people to learn

and whoa, you know, if we don't sell it rep

like we don't need either, right like but here's what I will tell

you. I think as leaders, we need to not forget the development

piece for people. Every person needs to be developed and you

can't expect someone to be Mr. Magic Man or girl, right? It's

just it man or lady. It's just not there. So that's the reason

I use this baseball analogy. So Well, every night in the summer,

the Houston Astros is the Atlanta Braves and some small

town are developing their future all stars. And I think as

important as hitting revenue is as important as you know,

hitting your quota or whatever your KPIs are, what your KPIs

should be certainly developing the next gen. But just I think

you're missing a few not.

So if there's someone and they're like, Okay,

I think I want to get started, I want to dabble my toe in this,

what is the first thing that they need to do to start

developing their minor league team internally?

Oh, call us.

Okay, okay, we will let since you're such an

excellent salesperson, tell me why they would call you instead

of trying to do it themselves? Well,

that's, and thank you for that question. Because

that's a question I get asked all the time. And it's lovely to

have it. So one of the things that companies can do when

trying to embark on this is you can really drown your resources.

I mean, you're asking HR to take on a whole new thing. You're

asking your talent acquisition people, you're asking your field

management to really take on, call it a separate division, if

you will. I mean, that's not really what it is. And you're

asking them to do that with a current workload. So it's not

like they're just sitting around named stuff to do, they're

blasted, you know, 60 hours a week already. So why would you

not get the best of both worlds when you can have a partner like

us, we go through all the interview process, we do all of

that. We hand them to our client for one final interview, they

say, yep, we like them. We onboard them. And then the day

that they're supposed to start, they show up ready to go. So I

think it's having a trusted partner that has done it has

done it with, you know, fortune 50 companies down to the two

guys in a garage or two girls garage, right? I mean, it's

we've done it with all kinds. And so I think it's about

efficiency, it's about de risking, too, one of the things

that we tell people all the time is, when you go to build a

junior Salesforce or you go to build a Salesforce, there's a

ton of risk in that, right? It cost a lot of money. And you

hope that everyone works out with us, we removed that risk

for you, because it's up to us to make sure that they work out,

it's up to us to make sure that we hire good people. So I would

say anytime you start a new venture like that, you try to

find a partner that can remove as much risk to your business as

you can.

I love it. You know, I like to say I tell

people, you're an expert at what you do, you might be an expert

at Field Sales, outside sales, whatever you want to call it.

But when you're doing something like this, the amount of time

research effort is going to take for you to figure it out when

you don't have to be I like to say no need to be a jack of all

trades and the Master of None find someone a trusted resource

that you can really use to help feel this somebody who's done

it. And like Rick said, you know, hey, they have done it.

They do it all the time. And they have great success with it.

So I guess the first step is to, I would say the first step I

would recommend would be to do an inventory of your internal

resources. And once you realize that you don't have the

bandwidth for this, but you choleric

That's good advice. But I would I think that

the folks who are listening to this will probably do in that

interview interview process or the internal review, I don't

think many of them are going to find that they've got the

resources to do it. Because everyone's running hard and run

it fast right now. Absolutely. It's, that's that's the reason

we're in business.

So tell us about give us a success story, you

gave us some little nuggets of some things that have happened

throughout your career, but give us something that you're really

proud of accomplishing.

You know, it's kind of a humbling thing. But I

think from a professional standpoint, obviously from a

personal, you know, my family, my faith, that's what I'm really

proud of. But from a professional standpoint, I think

the thing that that really motivates me is there's people

that I have hired 25 plus years ago, that I still speak with

weekly on the phone, and they are either CEOs or VPs of sales

and a higher demand and a entry level junior position. And I

still communicate with so many of those folks, right? And

people asked me so you know what gets you fired up when we hire a

young professional or when we extend an offer to a young

professional and they sign our offer letter. That's when I feel

success. Because I know if they apply themselves they're going

to have that long 10 year run have been successful you know

it'd been fruitful being good for their family and their

lives. So it sounds a little maybe a little cheeky ish but I

love when someone signs an OP letter from us because it I know

what the I know what's gonna happen,

huh? That's good. And I love that what you

said you're most proud of, it's not you know, the big sales that

you've won, or the big teams that you've created. It's each

person's life that you're impacting, because we know how a

career in sales can really change your trajectory of your

life, change your family history, change your legacy. And

so really, like he said, that first signature on a paper or

knowing that somebody who you hired in an entry level, you

know, Grant sales person is now a VP of sales or a CEO.

So I do want to give you one example of this.

And I think this just illustrates it, and it doesn't

happen with everyone. But we hired a young lady into one of

these territories. So she had roles, you know, low entry

level, so let's say 60,000, a year, right compensation. And

she got in with one of our clients, and she just, she done

things that were asked for a ride, she learned, she, you

know, worked hard, fast forward about 19 months, and our client

took her own directly, because she had gotten to the point you

and I talked about, right where she was, she knew what to do.

Fast forward about two months after that, she calls me and

she's in tears. And he's like, Oh, my gosh, what's going on,

and she goes, I'm gonna make over $250,000 this year, and

you've, you've changed my life, and my family's life. And

that's, that's our wife. But that's what we do what we do,

because we give people that opportunity, really cool,

awesome, amazing in two years to go from 60,000

to 250. And you know, there are so many people that are scared

of sales, or they think sales is this or that. But really, sales

is one of the only careers that the amount of effort you put in

directly impacts the output, the sales, your commission, how much

money you make, right. And so that is one of the most exciting

things about a career in sales.

That's the only profession I know that you're in

charge your raises.

Absolutely. I like to say you work as hard or

as little as you want to, and your income, your output is

directly correlated to that if you work 100 hours a week, that

means you're gonna close more sales if you're doing the right

thing. Now. If you're doing the right thing, you're gonna close

more sales, like you said, one of the only careers that you can

actually control how much money you make you control your

income, you control your destiny. Yeah, that's true. So

Rick, this conversation has been amazing. I am curious, I know

that there are going to be people who are going to be like,

Okay, well, I listened to what Wesleyne says, and she said, do

my inventory. Alright, so what is the best way for people to

get in contact with you?

I mean, obviously come to our website, it's RP

hyphen, li te so rep hyphen lytx.com. You can also send an

email at info inf o at rep rip hyphen Li te.com I think those

are probably the two of the easiest ways to get in touch

with us. If you go to the website, there's a contact form

you can fill it out, you will be responded to in under 24 hours.

Unless you do it on Saturday night at 10 o'clock then it

might be Monday but for the most part you will be responded to

within 24 hours but we look any of your audience we'd love to

help them if what we talked about today is something that

they believe could serve you know their customers well, we'd

love to be a part of their their journey.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I thank you so

much for providing your insight on how you're really able to

help companies grow those minor league sales teams and really

expand and show how you started from one person to 100 person

team I mean if nothing else that kind of shows your experience.

So thank you so much again for joining me today.

You're so welcome. Thank you for having me again. I

really appreciate it.

And guys, that was a another episode of the

science of selling stem please leave us a review drop me a note

W Greer at transform sales comm let me know how do you like the

guest? Is this resonating with you and remember in all that you

do transform your sales. Until next time.

Thank you for joining us today on the snack sized

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