Confessions of a Travelling Sales Rep (S2.3)

What does it really take to build a successful career when your office is the open road? In this episode, we go beyond the sales pitch and into the real stories behind the miles, meetings, and memorable moments. From breaking into the industry to sharing lessons learned along the way Erika offers an honest look at what it takes to earn trust and build lasting relationships. You'll hear travel mishaps, crazy customer stories, surprising career insights, and the experiences that ultimately led her to Boshart. Whether you're in sales, the trades, or just love a good road story, this episode is packed with wisdom, laughs, and behind-the-scenes confessions you won't want to miss.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Okay, Erica, thanks for joining us today. Welcome to Drip Talk. Thank you. It's good to be here. So if you want to just start, maybe tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Um, so my name's Erica. Uh I cover Michigan, New York, and Vermont for Beauchart. Um, I've been in the industry for about nine years. I started with Bochart in December. Um, and I love to travel.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

And yeah, that's a good position to be in that travel.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Yes, yes. I'm I'm doing more, more traveling now, I think, than I've ever done, but I love it. It's it's so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

That's good. Yeah. So maybe dive into a little bit more about how you originally got into the plumbing and water well industry.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Okay. So about you know, eight or nine years ago, I was working for a company um in New York, and they I can't, it's words. Can I start answering that again? I knew it was gonna happen. It's okay. You can keep going. You're good. Oh my god. Okay. So uh I worked for a company that and I got laid off, and um, I got hired at an independent manufacturer's rep in Rochester, and so I've been there, I was there for you know eight and a half years, and that really got me into the industry, and it's it's just been awesome. I'm I'm thankful to be in the industry, and it's it's a great one to be a part of for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Well, what did you say is your like favorite part about the industry?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Um, I think the people, you know, there's just so many great people that are in, you know, mostly plumbing is where I came from, you know, and I know it's a lot more well watered now, but yeah, the wholesalers, the contractors, the the manufacturers, you know, everybody, all the the people that I work with here and people on my team, they're just they're quality, you know, they're they they work hard, you know, they care about what they're doing, and it's a it's a good industry to be in.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah, and they make everyday fun, not feel like a you know, job, right? Definitely, yeah. That's good. So um maybe take us through like, did you face any challenges early in your career being a woman in a traditionally male focused industry?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah, I I think it's it's definitely noticeable how much more women have been are being accepted now than they were in the beginning. Um, I was I was started in inside sales um at first. So I was really in the office. I wasn't out there and kind of it always felt like the assumption was that women should kind of be in the office. That's that's that's what they're good at, that's where they are. And then the guys were outside, you know, doing sales. And um as as I grew with the company and opportunities came up, and I got to kind of go out and start meeting people, like I realized how much fun that is to be face to face, not just calling people and emailing them. And it's a lot more personal when you're meeting like an entire person and not just a voice or a name on a screen. Um, so it's it's I think a lot, a lot more women are doing that now. And I think it's good.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yeah, you know. Yeah, is did that was that the moment that kind of clicked for you that you were like, oh, I want to be in like an outside sales, a traveling salesperson. Is that kind of that moment that clicked for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I think the more that I traveled, the more conferences I got to go to, the more people I got to meet, the more I wanted more of that, you know, because it's something different every day, you know. When you're coming and sitting down at your desk and working on the computer for eight hours, um, it can be draining, you know, and there are different challenges that every day brings, but being out there and you know, I love driving, like being in the car and seeing the sights, and you know, it's it's just a whole nother level of it.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yep, for sure.

unknown 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

So what was your first impression then of Beauchart when you worked as a rep? What would you say was your like first initial thought?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

So it's kind of funny. The first trip to a manufacturer I ever took was to Beauchart. So I started in my job, and you know, a few months later we we came out here, it was like eight years ago. It looked a lot different here then than it does now. And um, everyone that I met was just so nice. And every time that I called for something, I got answers. Um, I I really feel like, and I always felt like Beauchart really cares about our customers, you know. And so when the opportunity arose for me to be a part of that, like I I had to do it, you know, I had to um join, it's just a really high caliber team, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah, for sure. So you kind of said that we were the first manufacturer you visited. So maybe how did working with multiple manufacturers shape your view of sales?

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Um, I think that uh when you work with multiple manufacturers, it can be challenging to uh allot uh the appropriate amount of time to each of those manufacturers because you know you've got all these different agendas and priorities from all these different areas, and they're all important, you know, but you have to kind of prioritize, you've gotta deal with conflicts because sometimes, you know, you're I was repping multiple lines and they would introduce a new product, which you know, one or two others already had. So now I've got three ball valves to sell, and how do you decide? And you know, so it being an independent rep with you know a couple dozen manufacturers, it's just got a lot more of conflict management and prioritization and stuff. Right. Being able to just work for Beauchart, I have one line that I have to worry about. I feel like I can learn more than I ever have been able to about, you know, the products themselves and be able to speak as you know an expert someday, hopefully. Right. Um, so it's it's been I feel like it's been great for my brain because I I just can focus a lot better. Yeah, because I'm not as fractured.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Like when you have to focus on so many different you said multiple manufacturers, right? It's like you it's hard to learn so much about it. We we hear at Bauchard of so many different products, and to even just learn about each of those, it does take quite a bit of time. It does. And I guess you just kind of learn that as you go, right? Like that's the best way to do it. And um, so maybe one thing that surprised you about working at Bouchard, because you did kind of work with Bouchard, but now being on the team, what would you say surprised you the most?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Um, I think kind of like how easy it has been to just get integrated with the team. I mean, I get along with everybody, and you know, it's just like the like the team that I'm on, the Northeast team with Adam and and Sean, and then the the central team I work with because of Michigan. And they're just we just all work really well together. You know, if you if you have a question or a problem, you can easily reach out to numerous people to get help or an answer. Um, I kind of had high expectations before I started, and the fact that like none of them have been let down at all has been delightful. Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

You know, it's really great. So that's good. Um, so let's maybe just shift gears a tiny bit. But do you want to touch on what you think makes a great salesperson in this specific industry?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

I think um having a positive attitude, caring about what you're doing, and following up are like really the keys. Um, you know, your attitude totally drives where your interactions with customers go. Yeah. 100%. Um even if you're having a bad day, like you gotta, you gotta put on a smile, you gotta be positive. Yep. Um, good things happen when you put good out there. I I really believe in.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Do you have maybe any tricks of like if you, you know, you are having a bad day, you need to have a positive attitude. Do you have any tricks about like maybe how you would handle a situation or you know, you're sitting in the car and you gotta give yourself a pep talk?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

How would you honestly music is music is the way for me um when I'm on the road driving between appointments, like I'm pretty sure I'm having a concert in my car, like I'll sing along, whatever. I mean, I definitely have some songs that I can play that really will hype me up and just put me in a great headspace. And, you know, um, some other another way would be, you know, say I'm if I'm in New York driving through the Adirondacks, right? Maybe things are not great. There's so much nature and like beauty in all three of the states that I cover that I could take a little five-minute detour here or there, you know, just be outside for a minute, be near water, like just kind of center myself again, you know, that's another way.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Put yourself back into that head space, and then yeah. Sometimes you need a little bit of that separation, right? A little bit of a reminder or a reset. Yeah, and just like that the pressure is, you know, you just gotta level yourself out, right? And then yeah, and then you can go into a like a situation like that, right? And so that is great. So um maybe what is the most difficult objection you hear regularly?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Um, I feel like I don't know, I feel like the most common objection is pricing, you know, because that's the easiest objection. You know, you can say that a price is too high, but when you get into features and benefits and you start comparing that, it's a lot harder to object to when you have so many reasons, you know, beyond a price that you should buy a product. So I feel like price is the thing that's easiest for them to object with, but not the the best or the most important necessarily. Right. I I can see where that matters in some cases, but right.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

And how would you navigate a conversation like that? Like, do you have a tool that you kind of use to help with that situation?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I think I really just try to focus on the benefit of the product, you know, how it's gonna solve a problem that they've got, the support that I can provide personally, but also Beauchard as a company, you know, our fill rates, how fast we ship, what you know, there's a lot of different um added value that we provide. Right. And I feel like those things can really overcome the price. Because when a customer really thinks about plus like, you know, minimal warranties, like they think about kind of after they place the order, what kind of follow-up is there gonna be? They know that I'm gonna call them back. Right. That could drive it over the line. They might not care about, you know, the 10 cents or whatever it is. Right, you know, show them the Bowchart difference, right? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

What we can do, that's just not the price, like what other things that we can offer. Yeah, yeah, I like that. What's the best sales advice then that you have ever received?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Um, so actually, okay, so when I started my last job, um, my first day, I actually got great advice from my boss, and she said, You're going to fail at some point, you're gonna fail. It might be expensive, but it's okay. Yep. Cause we're we will all fail. You have to fail to like grow, kind of. So by by kind of telling me that right up front, she took all the pressure off of worrying about, you know, am I pricing this right? Am I and and obviously you want to be accurate and it matters, but to know that this is something that other people have done before, it's totally acceptable. We're gonna work through it, we're gonna learn from it, grow from it. It just made it way less pressure. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Is that something that you would share with others, or did you do you find another thing that you would share with somebody first starting out?

SPEAKER_00 11:18

I mean, I would well, I might not share that in the in this situation because that was like inside sales. Um but I don't know, advice. I think my my biggest my biggest piece of advice is to follow up and to pick up the phone. I mean, emailing people is easy. You know, you can send out a hundred emails. Taking the time to make a phone call and talk to somebody provides a lot more of a connection than just an email. And you know that they're receiving the message the way you're saying it versus typing it and they're reading it, and you know, so I it really don't be afraid to pick up the phone and make a phone call or go walk in the door and and meet somebody and and always have an appointment. Yes. Don't show up, have an appointment. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Being personable is a is a huge thing that people really enjoy, right? And they like to talk not just about um products or different things like that. They want to have like a genuine conversation about the weather or the football game or anything like that, right? Yep. They want to have like a genuine conversation, and you can't really get that over email. No, so a phone call in person, definitely. Yeah, for sure. Uh so you mentioned that you travel a lot and you love to do it. How would you say you stay organized when you are doing so much traveling?

SPEAKER_00 12:37

So I I really map out what I'm gonna do in advance. I actually go into Google Maps like every morning and I put in all my stops for the day so that it's just there and I don't have to worry about it. Sometimes if I'm really planning ahead, I'll I'll store them all all the different days right on my phone so I can just hit it and go. Um and it really like using well, R CRM, you know, I use that all the time. I set reminders for myself. I put my notes in there. And that's really like that's really the basics of it. Just figuring out where I'm gonna go and then going there.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

And having one less thing to worry about, right? Definitely. And then when you leave somewhere, you know exactly where you plan to go.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Where I'm going, how long it takes to get there. I build in extra time, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

When can you get food? Bathroom breaks.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Sometimes, you know, the first I'll tell you the first couple trips didn't really think about the whole lunch thing and was like, oh, I guess I'm gonna get fast food. Yeah, I guess so. I mean 12 hours. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yeah. So those are just things I guess that you would never think about until you really start to do it right. And then you kind of figure it out, and then you can plan accordingly. Yep. So um staying on the travel route, can you maybe share with us your craziest travel story that has happened while working in sales? Yeah. One that you can share with us, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Well, I mean, this is not super crazy, but it is one that happened since I started with Bowshark. Yep. Um, I was in El Paso, Texas, um, traveling with one of my coworkers there. And it was the day before I was supposed to go home. And I got a text message from my godmother first thing in the morning, and she went, Oh, I'm so sorry. How long are you gonna be stuck in El Paso? And I went, What? I so like I have no idea what she's talking about. And I said, What are you talking about? And she said, they closed the airspace. It's gonna be closed for a week. And I went, I'm not staying in El Paso for a week. I had I had to get home for another event or something. But I I actually I looked it up, I I found the same thing that she said. I rebooked my hotel, I rented a car, and I rebooked my flights out of Albuquerque because Albuquerque is the closest, because the you know, the next closest airport in Texas is like eight hours away. Yeah Albuquerque was, I think, three hours. So I got to add another state. So it was my first time in Albuquerque. I got to add another state on, and uh, and the drive from El Paso to Albuquerque was amazing. It was so beautiful. It was like the sun was setting near the end of it, it was through mountains. It was just it turned out to be awesome. Yes. Now, right after I rebooked all of it, they reopened the airspace, of course. But uh, I just stuck with my plans because yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, and it turned out to be something kind of cool. You can check that off your list. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yeah, check off New Mexico. I've been there now. Yes, nice.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Um, so then maybe if you could touch on what was the best city for food when you've been traveling for work.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So I would say there are a lot of really good food cities in New York and in Michigan. Um, I'm gonna answer this with a restaurant because there's a place in Michigan called Anna's House. They've got, I think, five restaurants, five or six restaurants kind of in the middle of Michigan. Um, the best orange juice I've ever had in my life, fresh squeezed orange juice, the best pancakes I've ever had in my entire life. Like the golden pancakes that are crispy on the edge and like soft and delicious in the middle. And then they have this stuff called billion dollar bacon. Okay, which is like candied bacon coated in espresso dust. Like, who comes up with this? And I don't like coffee, but it it was amazing. It was delicious. It was really good. Yeah. So every time I'm in Michigan, I try to go to Anna's house for one meal. Okay. You know, while I'm there. Are you a breakfast person? Is that your preferred? Yeah. I mean, I'm a food person, let's be honest, but I definitely love breakfast. Uh, breakfast for dinner, totally acceptable. All times. Love that.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

I love that answer. Uh, so this is a fun one. What's one stereotype about New Yorkers that is completely true?

SPEAKER_00 16:44

All right. So I would say this is a hard question. Okay. One reason is because there are there are definitely different types of New Yorkers. Yep. So the way I'm going to answer this is a safe way, which is that there's one football team in New York, and that's the Buffalo Bills. Go Bills. Go Bills. Go Bills.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

That is a good answer. It's a good answer. You can't argue with it. No, you can't. You can't. Um, okay. So then what would be the most memorable customer interaction you've ever had?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

So about I think it was a month or two ago, I was having a meeting with a customer. I was the first time I I had physically met this person before. I'd talked to them a bunch, but um, one of one of their customers walked in with a cutting board and gave it to the person I was meeting with. And it was a like beautiful handmade cutting board. And he kind of looks at me and is like, What's the good word? I was like, Oh, I'm, you know, talking about Bow Shark. And he reaches in his bag and he pulls out another cutting board and he goes, This is for you. And he gave me a cutting board.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

So I guess he's been a customer for many, many years. I I think he's retired and he makes cutting boards and like just gave me one. It was amazing. It was beautiful. And he carries them around with him. Well, he was bringing them for the customer. Maybe he carries them all the time. Maybe hey, in the all chance he sees somebody that carries it. I'm sure that's what it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

That is a very cool story. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Um, last travel question. Okay. Have you ever gotten completely lost while you've been traveling? No. You're good with a GPS, you're good with travel.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

I mean, I my GPS has cut out before. I have had a moment, moment of panic of like, what am I gonna do? But I I think I know kind of if I know where I am in the state, then I can at least figure out which direction to go to to find like civilization. Um, but also with the the car that I have now, it has the GPS in it. So even if my phone won't do the connecting, it will work. You have a backup. Yeah, yeah. And I have an SOS button.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

So you you you're good.

unknown 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Okay, so as we slowly wrap up here, I do have a surprise. We're going to do some rapid fire questions. Oh boy. So these are really tough questions for you. Those are super tough. Um, I have a really special envelope I'm gonna be handed here. Okay. Uh so quick, quick thinking, quick answers. Fast. See, here's my very special top secret envelope here. I love everything about that envelope.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Look at it, it almost matches my name.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yeah, it does. We plan that accordingly. It's beautiful. Um, okay. Here we go. So you already kind of mentioned this, so I probably can guess this answer, but coffee or energy drink? Energy drink. Early morning or late night flight. Early morning. Phone calls or emails? Phone calls, trade show or location visits. Ooh. That's a tough question. I like both, but you can say both. Okay, both music or podcasts? Music. Favorite state to visit for work? Uh Michigan, because of the orange. Yeah, probably. That's a good point. Yeah. This is a tough one. Buffalo Bills or Green Bay Packers. I'm not even gonna answer that because it's offensive. I know. I told her that was. Window. Barbecue or pizza? Barbecue. Ooh. Most used app on your phone. Oh boy. It's probably Facebook. Facebook?

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Instagram too, though. I love Instagram. Yep. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah. Favorite road trip snack?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Oh man. Probably Pringles.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Good one. Yeah, that's a good one. Bucket hat or ball cap?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

I don't really wear either, but if I if I had a pick one, it would probably be a ball cap.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Okay. Sandals with or without socks. No. I sometimes wear socks. No, it's fine. Just not for me. I'm in Canada. I get cold sometimes. New York gets cold too. Yeah, that's fair. That's very good. A virtual meeting or in-person meeting. In person. Cat or dog? Dog.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Summer or winter traveling? Traveling summer. Traveling. But season winter. Okay. Because I'd rather be cold than hot. That's fair. And that's when the Bills play. The Bills, yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

So that's worse.

unknown 21:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Okay. Well, that's it. Erica, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. Awesome.