Brakke Consulting's latest viewpoint argues that despite all the industry noise around channel management, digital tools, and consolidation, the animal-health business still comes down to one thing: the relationship between a veterinarian and a salesperson.
The research number that cuts through the strategy deck
Brakke's own sales-force-effectiveness research shows trust is the most important factor when veterinarians choose a supplier. Not the product pipeline. Not the digital portal. Not the rebate structure. Trust.
Paul, writing in this week's Brakke viewpoint, frames it as a "just fly the plane" principle, a concept he heard from Sarah Furness, a former British Army combat helicopter pilot, at a recent company event. In a crisis in the pilot's seat, Furness said, you focus on the most basic important operation you're trained to do. For the animal-health industry, Paul argues, that means managing the veterinarian relationship well, and good things follow.
The contrarian read: every supplier deck talks about trust, but the ones who actually build it are doing something most reps skip, they're treating the relationship as the primary operation, not the vehicle for moving SKUs.
What this changes in the exam room
If you're an associate DVM two years out, this is the filter for which rep calls you take. The one who opens with "here's what we're working on, here's the timeline we're hearing, here's how it might fit your practice" is doing relationship work. The one who opens with a close is running a call list.
If you own the practice, this is the math behind your formulary decisions when three launches ship the same week and you have to pick one. The supplier whose rep has been flying the plane, managing the basic relationship consistently, is the one you'll give the slot to, because you trust they'll still be answering the phone when the product has a supply hiccup or a client has a question your staff can't field.
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The retail-pharmacy backdrop that makes trust expensive to lose
Brakke's reader poll last week asked whether retail pharmacies would become meaningful competitors to veterinary practices within the next three years. 77% of respondents said yes.
That's the context for every supplier conversation now. If a client can pick up the same active ingredient at a retail pharmacy, the trust equation shifts, not just between you and the client, but between you and the supplier whose rep you're giving twenty minutes and a corner of the treatment-area counter.
The practices that weather that shift are the ones where the supplier relationship was built on something other than inertia. A product mention six months before launch, a heads-up on a supply constraint, a straight answer about a backorder, those are low-stakes tests of whether your rep is managing a relationship or just working a territory.
What changes Monday
Nothing on the shelf. But the next time a rep walks in, you know what you're testing for. Are they flying the plane, keeping the basic relationship operation running no matter what else is breaking, or are they pitching?
The supplier research says trust is the deciding factor. The question is whether the rep in your treatment area this week knows that, or whether they think the product deck is doing the work.
The ones who get it right are the ones you'll pick up the phone for when you actually need an answer. That's the trust that gets built or lost one call at a time, long before any formulary decision lands.