hello everyone!
I am a recent college graduate with a bachelors in equine science. I am trying to figure out my next move. I think I want a career
in either nutrition sales or pharmaceutical sales. Does anyone have any experience in either of these. Any advice or help would
be extremely appreciated!!! Thank you!!!’
I worked in equine nutrition sales for many years, and did well financially as well as had great benefits. I do have a coworker who became a close friend, and she moved on to pharma. Pharma blows equine nutrition out of the water as far as compensation, benefits, bonuses, etc. There is pressure to perform in both fields, but pharma has better pay by far.
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I was in pharma sales for over 15 years. I totally agree with Cutter99. I also did veterinary pharma sales for 4 years which I enjoyed the most, but it was a 60 hour per week job and lots of travel. I put 40-45,000 miles per year on the company car. Considering that my territory was most of NJ, that was a lot of driving for a densely populated area.
Pharma tends to have smaller territories (depending on where you live). Access to physicians was difficult in my area because there were so many reps from the same company with the same products calling on the same doctor. The offices got burned out on seeing reps and it became very difficult to get face to face time. The industry has done a lot of restructuring since I have left (2008), so it may be better now.
Everyone I know in pharma sales of any kind is working hard, but doing very well.
Why not try that first?
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How does one get into these types of careers? These are honestly something I had never heard/ thought of in regards to equine related job fields.
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Kaya-in response to your question, usually you need to have a successful track record in sales to be considered for a sales position. Therein lies the rub!
I started out selling dog food for a small boutique company and worked my butt off. After a year, I had a proven track record that I could parlay into another position. I also had a BS in Animal Science so it was a natural progression to sell in a science related field.
I enjoyed science related sales. It is competitive, but the training and what you learn about disease states is very interesting. Try to find a company that has a stellar training program as that will give you much confidence in your product knowledge.
If you are a hard worker, organized and goal oriented, it is a career that can mesh well with having horses.
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The pharma sales force has been reducing for years. As mkevent said, you need to have experience selling to be considered for a sales position in pharma. Selling is hard work, too. Nutritional supplements and feed are not nearly as tightly regulated or competitive as are pharma sales. There are far fewer pharma sales jobs on the animal side, primarily because the number of vets are lower than the number of physicians. Also vets will sell the drugs to clients, so they are looking for prices that allow mark-up. If you want to get into this field, then an outside sales jobs is your first step.
In animal agriculture salesmen also sell directly to feed stores and producers, not just to vets.
All products that are not under prescription, like biologicals, vaccines and such, are sold to veterinarians, feed stores and producers directly.
Many under prescription are sold to producers directly with consulting vets handling the prescripting and supervision.
The reps come by to fill supply storage and the producers pay them.
One reason, there are no veterinary pharmacies, like in human medicine.
Also, some vets are reps for some companies.
One of ours is a rep for a big pharma company, along with handling his busy vet clinic.
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this isn’t knock on you OP… but for others reading this thread… start looking for the career before you graduate and do not stop looking after you have “that career” as you are always one step away from needing the next job
When the current position vanishes it is comforting to just pull the file from the drawer of other interested parties rather than the go into a panic attack of what do I do now
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I sort of backed into sales in the feed industry. I had sales and customer service experience, and have been a lifetime horse owner. I had moved to a new area and was not working when a neighbor asked me to work in a feed store she was opening. I worked for her for 3 years, and went on to manage another store after the first business closed. I worked closely with manufacturer’s sales reps and that led to offers from a couple different feed companies.
Many people get into it from two avenues- 1) they have a degree in Animal Science, and 2) they have a business degree. I have seen people become successful with both. Although they are certainly not essential, they do help.
I do not have a college degree, but had sales experience and a background in horses. My equine background is diverse, and I have a lot of experience with care, husbandry and safety, and all those things helped immensely to make me a well-rounded sales person. I have no issues with public speaking, and can be friendly enough to man a booth at trade shows to draw people in and talk with them about our products.
I learned that just plain hard work, and building relationships pays off. At one point I had between 70-80 dealers, as well as calling on outside farms and individual owners. I had one account that took me 8 hours to get to just to driving door to door. I probably averaged a 50 hour work week, and some weeks were much longer. I did anywhere from 10-15 overnights per month, depending on what time of year it was and what events were going on. I drove about 35,000-45,000 miles per year.
Another thing to keep in mind is the equine industry has not rebounded to where it was before the economy tanked around 2007-2008. I have friends, still in the industry, who have experienced the down side of this. Because of this, you are expected to sell for all species, like dog and cat food, bird feeds, chicken feeds, and other “companion” or small farm animals like sheep and goats. The industry itself is not necessarily growing, and there are not many “new” customers out there. You are usually calling on people who are buying from someone else and you are attempting to switch them to your product line. Since there is no new business, there is a strong fight to keep what you have and people go out of their way to keep customers. Chain stores like Tractor Supply have also changed the industry, as they have driven out many of the independent stores for various reasons.
As I said before, I have a friend who went from the feed industry into veterinary pharma. She travels overnight very infrequently, usually just for company sales meetings, and her territory is only a few counties, unlike a territory of entire states or multiple states in the feed industry. Her salary and bonus structure, as well as other compensation is also better than that in feed sales. She does have sales quotas to hit, as far as how many accounts she needs to see in a day, and her company car does have a tracker in it so there is an accountability due to that.
There are veterinary pharmacies.
i would not go into pharma right now at all. Great reps I know are being laid off left and right, transitioned into new positions, and Fighting for their jobs. The industry has changed drastically, mostly for the better, due to regulations as to what reps and companies can and cannot do. There are still issues, but it’s better.
Healthcare in general, on the other hand, is a great way to go.
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You’re a newly collge graduate? Take whichever you can get!
Apply to both types of jobs. Equine jobs are few and far between and all over the geographic map (where do you want to live?).
Either is a good career and once you have experience in one, you can transition to the other, and you’ll have a better resume for it.
It is very hard, almost impossible, to get an outside sales job in medical, feed, pharma without sales experience. I think one of the best places to get sales experience is retail, particularly specialty stores like independent feed stores, tack stores. If you like outdoor sports look at ski shops, hiking/camping/hunting shops. Get two years under your belt. You may find that sales isn’t for you, or you may find it is a natural fit.
I was the first of two women hired into a sales force of 400 men in 1977 (thank you Affirmative Action) in medical/surgical sales. I had a college degree, and five years of part-time retail sales (weekends and summers) in sports shops. After 3 years at this company I left and went into sales in the health food industry in 1980, and I am still in sales (albeit for my own company).
Being a sales rep is not for the faint of heart. There is a lot of pressure on performance, meeting quota, exceeding quota, getting new accounts, getting new facings in. It is very competitive within each company with the other sales reps, everyone wanting to be number one: that can either be inspiring or demotivating.
You need a thick skin. It’s a little like being an actor: you get a lot of no’s. You get a lot of rejection.
But when you get a big order, or you get a new product into the store, or you open a new account, or you start exceeding quota every month, or your territory starts rising in the rankings, the personal highs that result are unbelievable: huge adrenalin rush 
