POSTED ON June 3, 2026

The Proven Journey to Finding Your Medical Sales Path

In this solo episode of the Medical Sales Podcast, Samuel Adeyinka breaks down the four career pathways that shape long term success in medical sales. Drawing from years of helping professionals break into and grow within the industry, Samuel explains why getting into medical sales is only the beginning, and why the real career defining decisions come after. He walks through the architect, the climber, the entrepreneur, and the forever route, showing how each path rewards different behaviors, skills, relationships, and career moves. Samuel also explains why early decisions around mentors, sponsors, territory performance, cross functional experience, leadership visibility, and customer relationships can compound into completely different outcomes over time. This episode is a must listen for anyone in medical sales or trying to break in who wants to stop drifting, choose a smarter path, and build a career with more intention, freedom, and long term opportunity.

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Transcription:

Samuel Adeyinka (Host):
The goal is not to choose a path if you don’t have any idea.

The goal is to know that these paths exist so that when things start to happen, you can jump into the path that makes the most sense for you and recognize that it’s happening.

Hello and welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast.

I’m your host, Samuel, founder of a revolutionary medical sales training and mentorship program called the Medical Sales Career Builder.

And I’m also host of the Medical Sales Podcast.

In this podcast, I interview top medical sales reps and leading medical sales executives across the entire world.

It doesn’t matter what medical sales industry, from medical device to pharmaceutical, to genetic testing and diagnostic lab, you name it.

You will learn how to either break into the industry, be a top 10 percent performer within your role, or climb the corporate ladder.

Welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast.

And remember, I am a medical sales expert sharing my own opinion about this amazing industry and how it can change your life.

Welcome to another episode of the Medical Sales Podcast.

Today, we are going to talk about four careers in medical sales.

Most of you who are not in medical sales think that getting into medical sales is the biggest decision, and which space you get into is the biggest decision.

And it’s true.

Getting into medical sales, deciding to be in that space, is a huge decision.

And deciding which space you’re going to be in is also a huge decision.

But the biggest decision is not getting into medical sales or what industry you’re going to be in.

The big decision actually comes after.

What people don’t tell you is there are four pathways in medical sales.

You either drift into and in between those four pathways, you intentionally drive into one of those pathways, or you drift without even being aware that they exist and just float in medical sales.

And because there is so much money and so much opportunity in this industry, not knowing these four pathways and using them as a foundation for your career is actually one of the most expensive mistakes you can make when it comes to medical sales.

So today, we’re going to get into the four pathways of medical sales, what life looks like inside each one of these pathways, and which one you should align yourself to and drive yourself forward.

I’ve watched hundreds of people break into medical sales and have thriving medical sales careers.

And I’ve watched a number of people break into medical sales and not have thriving medical sales careers.

Some people built incredible careers where they hit seven-figure net worths, attained leadership positions, truly built ownership, and got to live a lifestyle that was really free from their schedule.

Others never even came close.

They were tied to the fence almost.

Not bottom of the barrel, but they really had no say in their livelihood, no say in their schedule, and they just had to do what they were told and grind and grind.

And what’s interesting is that a lot of these people with these different trajectories had the same background.

They were both hungry.

They both had the same level of ambition.

And we can argue they had the same work ethic.

Yet 10 years later, their lives looked completely different.

So why does this happen?

It’s because the decisions you make in the first few years of a medical sales career actually compound.

And people don’t really talk about this.

From the accounts you choose, to the mentors you choose to follow, to the skills you choose to build, to the opportunities that are presented to you that you say yes or no to, all of these decisions compound into really big outcomes.

That’s why these four paths I’m talking about are so important to understand.

It truly matters to understand why you need to know these paths because these paths reward specific behaviors.

And if you don’t know where you’re going, it’s easy to spend years climbing the wrong ladder.

So with all that being said, let’s talk about path number one.

Path number one is the architect.

The architect is found in every specialty.

Pharma, device, diagnostics, dental, medical supplies.

It is defined by the behavior, not by the product category.

The core belief of the architect is that the company is a pool of resources to take lateral and vertical steps.

The organization is a tool to take these lateral and vertical steps.

Architects, and this goes for all paths, have to perform in their territory.

The key to entry for any of these ladders, for any of these pathways, is that you have to perform in your territory.

So you’re given a territory.

You get into the medical sales space.

You’re given a territory.

You have to be a killer in your territory and perform.

As soon as you get there, within the first three years of being in that territory, you have to knock out stellar performance.

With the architect, they’re also immediately developing relationships.

And this should be for anyone, but architects are a little extra when it comes to finding a mentor and a sponsor.

A sponsor is someone who is two levels above your role.

They are like a mentor, but what they do in addition to advising you is when you’re not in the room and you go for some other position, project, or opportunity, they are singing your high praises from an executive leadership level.

That’s a sponsor.

And then a mentor, of course, is someone who is one level above you, or even a colleague at your level, who can advise you and mentor you because they know more about what you’re trying to do.

So everyone should have a mentor sales rep.

You should have a mentor manager.

And you should have at least one or two sponsors.

Architects get three or four.

They’ll have three or four sponsors, three or four mentors, and they’ll be dialed in when it comes to visibility within their organization.

Architects are also big on cross-functional experience.

So an architect, as opposed to becoming a sales rep and then going straight into becoming a sales manager after performing well and trying to lead people, would become a sales rep and then maybe do a rotation as a trainer, a rotation as a marketer, or a rotation in operations.

They’ll learn another function of the business to have a different perspective outside of their sales rep perspective.

Then they’ll take that.

They’ll do a sales rep role.

They’ll do a rotation.

They’ll learn a different perspective.

And they’ll take that back into the field and come back as a senior sales rep or come back as a manager.

That is an architect.

And they’re doing these kinds of moves their entire career.

So it’s not vertical.

It’s more lateral and vertical moves.

Think of it this way.

Sales rep.

Different perspective in operations, training, commercial, insurance, or something along those lines.

Then back into a leadership role.

Then they perform in a leadership role.

Then another rotation.

Then back into a leadership role.

And they’re doing this in and out throughout their careers.

The cool thing about an architect is that you truly get a real picture of everything that goes into the business.

And if you really want those much higher third-line leader roles later on in your career, you become a much more obvious choice to other people because you bring all these other experiences to the table.

This is the architect.

An architect would say, “My path forward in my career was sideways and up, as opposed to just up.”

And again, those sideways opportunities are training, marketing, operations, payer markets, special projects, or any in-house rotation.

They look like detours to other people, but the architect knows what they’re doing.

They’re using this to accelerate their trajectory in their career.

A great example of an architect is actually a guest we had on the podcast, Darren Leathers, a pharmaceutical phenom.

Now he’s a regional business director.

So he’s second-line leadership.

He was a top-performing rep.

He started off as a top-performing rep, wanted leadership, became a regional trainer, performed in that aspect, and got to see how people are trained and what leadership looks like from a training perspective.

Then he moved into a national trainer role.

So think about that.

Sales rep.

Regional trainer.

National trainer.

Now he’s training the entire sales force.

Then that allowed him to take a sales manager role, perform in that space, and ultimately get himself into a VP-adjacent or district manager role, which he actually turned down because he wanted to stay in this national training role.

Then he went into regional business development and ultimately became a second-line leader.

This doesn’t all have to happen at one company.

Normally, you’re not going through more than two to three companies.

He did a lot of this in the first company, and then he did the final role in a second company.

But because of all these lateral moves, as opposed to just becoming a sales rep and then a sales manager, because of all these lateral moves and different experiences, he was primed to be a regional business director.

And he became an obvious choice for an entirely different company because of all the experience he developed.

Another example is another guest on the podcast, Terry Couture Lucius.

He did something similar.

He started off as a rep.

He mastered his territory.

He felt really comfortable.

He wanted a bigger perspective.

He relocated across the country and took a marketing rotation.

And in that marketing rotation, he learned a whole different perspective of the business.

Then he went back to the field, got into management, and did those types of moves until he ultimately started to lead at a VP level, with a massive book of business in a huge company, Siemens.

He was running things.

He eventually became a division head because of those early experiences.

So this is the architect pathway.

Again, you can go to the podcast page and look up Terry’s episode.

It’s really perspective over promotion.

That’s the tagline of the architect.

So let’s summarize the architect.

The architect builds organizational trust.

The architect is very open to lateral moves in different parts of the business outside of sales after they’ve proven themselves in the field.

The currency they’re using is reputation, visibility, relationships, and leadership credibility.

They become the people leadership is really eager to promote.

And these are the kinds of things you should be thinking about.

If you’re listening to this right now and thinking, “I’ve done these kinds of things. I’m absolutely on this track,” then you’re probably an architect.

Or if you’re a sales rep and you’re thinking, “I really want to do something in marketing. I need to understand. I want to do something in payer markets. I need to understand,” if you start talking like that, you’re most likely an architect.

It’s good to understand that this is the pathway of an architect because if you become intentional about these moves, instead of just blindly taking on a rotation, you can say, “I’m going to take this rotation so I can understand this part of the business and bring this value. Then I want to leverage this into this kind of move.”

Now you’re truly operating like an architect, and you can lock in and really advance your career.

Let’s talk about the next path.

The second path is the climber.

And this also exists in every specialty.

This is defined by direction.

And it’s exactly what it sounds like.

A climber is someone who just goes straight up in the commercial hierarchy of an organization.

Commercial is sales.

So they start off as a rep.

They prove themselves.

They go to manager.

They prove themselves.

They go to a regional leader, which is typically a second-line leader.

They prove themselves.

They get to a VP level.

They prove themselves.

Then executive leadership.

They keep proving themselves at every level.

Architects move sideways to get perspective.

Climbers move upward with the sole focus of not necessarily asking for, but presenting themselves as someone who can handle more responsibility.

Bigger teams.

Bigger revenue numbers.

Bigger territories.

Bigger decisions.

Bigger expectations.

This is the essence of someone who is a climber.

And notice I said they don’t really ask.

A climber is aware of the differences.

For example, as a rep, you have to understand the business.

You have to know how to sell to your customers.

You have to know how to master your territory.

As a first-line leader, you have to understand how to drive people.

Different personalities.

Different attitudes.

How to motivate people.

How to get them to do your bidding for the company under your tutelage and see you as their North Star and someone they ultimately respect and want to work hard for.

And it’s the same when you get to second-line leader.

Now you have a group of leaders that you have to manage, and the same thing applies.

Then you get to executive leadership.

Now you have a group of second-line leaders, and it goes on and on.

The whole time, more responsibility and more capability.

The core belief of the climber is the ceiling of your current role is not a place you rest.

It’s always a signal to expand and do more.

Climbers are also always constantly preparing for the next level before anyone ever asks them to.

A great example of a climber on our podcast, and I encourage you to listen to this episode, is Andre Ledet.

He’s an amazing example of a climber.

He worked and did this in multiple companies, I think four companies overall.

But he started off as a rep, became an amazing manager, managed second-line leaders, then third-line leaders.

He took it all the way to the top.

Now he’s head of U.S. sales for DePuy Synthes.

Amazing career.

And if you listen to his episode, he goes into the details of how to think so you can ascend at each level.

When Andre talks about it, he says that in year one, he learned you have to be visible.

If you’re going to be a climber, you have to be seen.

And let’s just be frank.

Being seen means performing.

But it also means that when you become a performer, you’re going to be asked to come into rooms, and your opinion is going to be asked.

So it’s knowing when to talk.

It’s knowing not to talk too much.

It’s knowing that when you do talk, you’re adding value as opposed to just trying to be heard.

And you’re always prepared because your moment is going to come.

Someone is going to call on you or put you on something.

The best thing you can do for yourself is just be prepared for that opportunity.

Being comfortable doing things that other people won’t do and solving problems that are outside your scope of responsibility is huge with climbers.

When you’re seen as the person who solves problems just because you’re next to them, as opposed to needing to be on them, people see you as the go-to.

And climbers are often the go-to.

They’re always connected.

They’re comfortable making introductions.

And they consistently create value without being asked.

The climber mindset is this.

You can’t focus on what you’ve done.

Focus on what’s coming and what you’re going to do.

You’re always thinking ahead.

You’re always operating one level above your role.

As a rep, if you’re performing, you’re going beyond.

You’re thinking, “What is my manager focused on? How can I be an asset to my manager in a much bigger way than I am now, outside of my performance?”

When you get to manager, it becomes, “What is my second-line leader focused on? How can I be an asset?”

You’re always thinking in that vein, long before you’re considered for a promotion, before you get the title, and of course, before anyone gives you permission.

Climbers really build trust before they get official authority.

They’re always operating at the next level.

What’s often common with climbers is you’ll see a rep who is almost acting like a manager.

They’re supporting all their teammates.

Of course, you have to perform.

Performance is the key to entry.

They’re performing while supporting their teammates.

Their teammates are calling on them for advice, assistance, and support.

If you were to ask their teammates, “Hey, besides your manager, who else could you see leading the team?” they’re all pointing to that person.

That person is a climber.

You want to keep climbing until you’re exactly where you want to be.

Sometimes climbers know their exact destination.

Sometimes climbers just want to keep climbing.

If this sounds like you, if you’ve found yourself being very methodical in moving to the next level up, or you find yourself almost being treated as if you’re already at the next level up, then you might be a climber.

I hope you’re enjoying today’s episode.

I want to let you know our programs cover the entire career of a medical sales professional, from getting into the medical sales industry, to training on how to be a top performer in the medical sales industry, to masterfully navigating your career to executive-level leadership.

These programs are personalized and customized for your specific career and background, and trained by over 50 experts, including surgeons.

Our results speak for ourselves, and we’re landing positions for our candidates in less than 120 days in top medical technology companies like Stryker, Medtronic, Merck, Abbott, you name it.

Would you run an Ironman race without training and a strategy?

You wouldn’t.

So why are you trying to do the same with a medical sales position?

You need training.

You need a strategy.

And you need to visit EvolveYourSuccess.com, fill out the application, schedule some time with one of our account executives, and let’s get you into the position you’ve always dreamed of.

All right.

Now the third path is the entrepreneur.

The architect is in every specialty.

The climber is in every specialty.

The entrepreneur, you could argue, is in every specialty, but I think where the entrepreneur is really clearly defined is in medical device sales.

And not just any medical device sales.

Procedure-based medical device sales.

That’s where the entrepreneur is the most clearly defined.

And I’ll name one to be really specific so you can actually picture what I’m talking about.

Think about your spine sales rep.

That’s an opportunity to be on the entrepreneur pathway.

Again, it’s most common in medical device sales, in something like spine, and it’s driven by deep relationships with a very specific audience.

In spine sales, it’s driven by deep relationships with surgeons.

What makes this path very different?

The architect builds organizational equity.

The climber builds leadership equity.

Entrepreneurs build relationship equity.

Their asset is not the company and its tools.

Their asset is trust with surgeons, hospitals, and customers.

They own those relationships.

The core belief of an entrepreneur is that surgeons trust people, not logos.

Not companies.

People.

They trust people.

And over time, relationships become portable.

Meaning, because you represent a product, that surgeon is going to use that product because you represent it.

Not because of the company.

Not because of the product itself.

But because you are behind that product.

That is eventually what allows the solo rep to become a distributorship, become their own business, and turn themselves into an entrepreneur.

This is a longer game in some spaces, but it’s a really cool game.

I’ve talked to amazing guests where they started off as spine reps.

They were just killers in their territory.

They worked for a lot of the common companies.

They got really good with their territory, developed deep relationships, became their own 1099 LLC, and had a suite of products to choose from.

Because of the relationships they established, they were able to go on and literally hire their own sales reps and turn themselves into a business, a company, to the point where they have their own W2 sales reps.

Now they’re really doing something.

That’s amazing.

That’s the entrepreneur.

There are some amazing examples of this.

It usually requires years in the OR.

Years building fantastic credibility.

Years earning trust.

You can’t shortcut it.

You can’t force it.

It’s something that is truly developed.

And it’s almost like you have to earn the right to be the independent player.

A good example of this is Daniel Tai.

He’s another guest on the Medical Sales Podcast.

He was a great example.

He was thinking like an entrepreneur even before he got into medical sales.

But when he got into medical sales, he started off as a rep.

He met a spine distributor manager, offered to help him transport equipment that had nothing to do with him, and drove an hour away.

This is what gave him his first job.

One thing Daniel says is that preparedness meets luck and opportunity.

Entrepreneurs create opportunities before they need them.

They show up where there is a reward before there is commission and before there is a territory.

That’s exactly what he did.

He was able to leverage that into a position.

Then he just conquered relationships in that position.

One of the cool stories he talks about is that there was a surgeon who was having trouble in their practice.

Long story short, he helped that surgeon get on a broadcast to announce what they do and brought all this business to that surgeon, which became his leg up into becoming his own 1099 force and developing his company, which ultimately turned him into the entrepreneur he is today.

Very cool stuff.

Very innovative thinking.

Again, spine is an easy place to define the entrepreneur, but the entrepreneur can be in other medical sales specialties too.

It’s someone whose true value is the amazing relationships that allow them to go wherever they want.

And those relationships are so strong that they can become their own entity because whatever they bring to the table, their customers will use it because it’s them.

A vendor becomes a trusted partner.

An employee becomes a business owner.

A product representative becomes a relationship owner.

That is the entrepreneur pathway.

Entrepreneurs build commercial freedom one relationship at a time, one case at a time, one act of service at a time.

The goal isn’t just to sell.

It’s to own the relationship you have with these people that can allow you to go anywhere.

Some of you are probably listening to this thinking, “Oh my gosh, I’m living this life.”

It might be on your radar.

It might not.

But I’ll never forget, there was one guest I was talking to, and he was like, “Samuel, when I realized that I could get 100 percent of what I sell under a company and only get 10 percent, I knew I had to make the move.”

He went from being a rep making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to an entity making $2 million a year, which required him to hire staff, hire his own reps, and hire business units to drive his own organization.

So some of you in these kinds of spaces are listening to this and thinking, “Oh my gosh, I think that’s me.”

Decide.

Don’t let this be something you stumble on or maybe one day pursue.

Let this be something you get intentional about now.

And if you’re listening to this and thinking, “I would love to live that kind of life,” start building it right now.

I think the beauty of 2026, and 2027, 2028, and 2029, the beauty of where we are today, is that you no longer have to sit and wonder about these things or hope they happen to you.

You can design the pathway.

And the entrepreneur pathway is a very cool pathway, especially if you’re in medical device, you’re in an OR procedure-based role, and you really want to own your future.

You want to decide, as opposed to working for an organization and living under their terms.

You want to own your future.

You want that independence.

You can handle that independence.

And you’re gifted at driving relationships.

Then the entrepreneur pathway might be for you.

Okay.

And this brings us to our last pathway.

So we talked about the architect.

We talked about the climber.

We talked about the entrepreneur.

And now we’re going to talk about the forever rep.

What?

The forever rep?

What is Samuel talking about?

Okay.

The forever rep, I think, is a misunderstood path.

Some of you are listening to that and thinking, “I don’t even know what he’s talking about. I’ve never heard this.”

And when I say forever rep, I’m not talking stuck.

I’m not talking plateaued.

I’m not talking about someone who couldn’t get promoted.

That is not a forever rep.

What’s cool about the forever rep is this.

The architect builds organizational influence.

The climber builds leadership responsibility.

The entrepreneur builds their own ownership.

The forever rep builds specialization.

The core belief of the forever rep is that the more rare and specialized my knowledge becomes, the more I get paid.

The more specialized I become, the more valuable I am to any company and the more difficult it is to replace me.

And that is the facts.

The forever rep usually starts off in a broad space.

Medical devices, pharmaceutical, you name it.

And they stay a rep.

They don’t want the leadership responsibility that comes with management.

They don’t want to get different perspectives of the business.

They might, but they still want to be a rep.

They’re happy as a rep, and they want to continue to hone their craft as a rep and hone their knowledge and depth with specialization.

So think of it this way.

A good example is a pharma rep.

You’re a general pharma rep.

You start off general.

You perform well.

You’re killing it.

Then you become a specialty rep.

Now you’re in a very specific disease state.

You go deep into that disease state.

You destroy it.

You’re a territory conqueror.

And then you get into a rare sliver of that disease state.

Now you’re in rare disease.

You’re in biotech.

Something very specific.

And the same thing happens.

You apply your specialized knowledge.

With the forever rep, because you’re doing so well and you’re a performer and you understand how to perform, you go deep in the clinical knowledge.

You can talk like a pharmacist.

You can talk with the best of physicians because you truly understand your sliver of the space and everything that happens in that space.

So you can hang with the best of them.

You’ll see a forever rep hang with the medical science liaisons in any company.

Really hang with the scientists because they truly understand the latest studies, the latest innovations, the latest data about the biology, and what’s going on in that space.

And what happens is they do very well in their territory.

Then they get promoted, like senior rep or something similar, or they just get a raise.

And usually that raise looks like a huge bump in salary with even more commission to attain.

Then when they get more specialized, it continues.

So you go from making $120,000 to making $180,000 to making $250,000.

And it continues.

You continue to raise your salary while getting more and more commissions as you become more specialized.

This can happen if your company is really innovative and cutting edge, but often it looks like a couple of different companies.

For all of these pathways, usually two to four companies is the span.

You don’t want too many companies because then it gets fragmented.

You don’t have enough time to compound your efforts.

One company can happen, but that can take a very long time.

So usually it’s two to four companies.

And this forever rep is joining companies that are cutting edge.

They’re joining companies that are on the verge of launching something really exciting that is going to change the game of whatever space they’re in.

And they’re driving the effort of launching that device, that drug, or that drug-device product.

Then they’re going to have to do it again in a different company.

And they’re doing it again and again.

The beautiful thing about this pathway is not only does your base salary continue to increase, and it can be significant, but if you’ve worked at company A and you launched this product and did exceptionally well, then company B wants to launch another product and they see you did exceptionally well, they’re going to want to poach you.

And they’ll be happy to pay you $50,000 to $80,000 more than what you were making to get you.

So then you get into this newer company, and you do it there again.

And the same thing happens.

Now, $50,000 to $80,000 is high.

Usually it’s $30,000 to $50,000, but still, a $50,000 bump in your base is great.

And because it’s a launch, the incentives are ridiculous.

It’s much more than your average commission structure of any given medical sales career.

It’s an aggressive commission structure.

That’s the launch of a product.

So think of this.

You’re bouncing, but you’re strategically changing companies based on the product that is being launched, and you’re driving success each time you join a launch.

While your base pay is increasing, your commissions are very aggressive.

So instead of a $50,000 commission, you’re talking $100,000 to $200,000, and in some cases, $300,000 commission in a year.

And on top of that, you’re getting stock offers with these companies.

And when you perform in medical sales with a large enough company or with a secure enough company, they award you more stock.

So all of these career paths lead to the millionaires, the titans of industry in medical sales, including the forever rep.

That’s why I say it’s probably the most misunderstood and least discussed.

Because you have these reps who have been in the game 15 or 20 years and are literally multimillionaires.

They love what they do.

They’re exceptionally gifted.

Their knowledge is second to none.

They are living their best life because they love being a rep.

They love interacting with customers.

They know exactly what they’re doing.

They are the kind of person you can put in front of a good product in any company that is launching something, and they’ll take it to success.

And I love the forever rep.

I think it’s a cool space to be in.

It offers a unique level of flexibility.

I think what people don’t talk about, or might not think about enough, is that when you rise the ranks in any organization, your flexibility actually becomes less than.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode.

And remember, I have a customized and personalized program that gets you into the medical technology industry as a sales professional, or any type of role for that matter.

Become a top performer in your position and masterfully navigate your career to executive-level leadership.

Check out these programs and learn more by visiting our site.

Fill out an application, schedule some time with one of our account executives, and allow us to get you where you need to be.

Stay tuned for more awesome content with amazing interviews on the Medical Sales Podcast.