The Trust Factor

How Midwest Veterinary Supply’s Sarah Harnish has turned four decades of honesty, hard work and heart into some of the strongest relationships in veterinary distribution.

For Sarah Harnish, inside sales representative for Midwest Veterinary Supply, the veterinary industry runs through nearly every part of her life. Between training hunting dogs, working with a 15-pound dachshund she’s developing into a deer blood-tracking dog, riding horses for nearly five decades, and adding cattle to her growing menagerie of animals, Harnish brings a depth of firsthand animal experience to her work that goes well beyond the client calls.

That authenticity is what she wants industry stakeholders to understand most about her story.

“I think it’s important to know that I genuinely care about the industry itself,” Harnish said. “I’m very invested in the animal world… People appreciate that because they know this industry isn’t just my job. It’s my life.”

That lived experience shapes how Harnish approaches her role at Midwest Veterinary Supply, giving her a perspective that resonates with veterinary professionals who can tell the difference between someone who simply sells to the industry and someone who is truly part of it.

Crafting positive experiences

Harnish’s love of animals started early. She spent a lot of time as a kid on a farm with her horse and later studied animal husbandry at Delaware Valley College, focusing on large animals. Her early career included dairy-related work, sampling milk for PA DHIA and milking on local farms, followed by a stint at Atlantic Breeders. She then worked for a horse veterinarian and a small animal practice, which led her into veterinary distribution sales. From there, she spent her first 20 years in the industry working across sales, purchasing and warehousing.

Over the years, those varied experiences gave Harnish a firsthand understanding of the pressures veterinary practices face every day, from product shortages and price increases to urgent same-day product needs. Harnish sees these moments as opportunities. “Challenges can turn into very positive experiences if you can help a clinic through a situation and find an answer to their needs,” she said.

Harnish has worked with some of her clinics for 40 years, and she believes longevity in the field has built a level of confidence that goes beyond face-to-face interaction. “I don’t feel you have to be face to face as long as you always have their best interests in mind and are willing to help in any way that you can,” she said.

For Harnish, success comes down to one thing: customer service. “My job is to make their job easier and basically to be an extension of their practice, helping in any way that I can,” she said. That means keeping clinics informed about industry changes, pending price increases and potential backorders or shortages, so they’re never caught off guard.

She also credits the variety of her work for keeping the job engaging. No two days look the same, and she wouldn’t want it any other way.

But for Harnish, the clearest measure of success is longevity. She has worked with some clinics for 40 years, now partnering with the children of veterinarians she first met decades ago. Many of those relationships have grown into genuine friendships. Referrals mean just as much to her. When a clinic recommends her to a colleague, she sees it as a sign of the trust she’s built over a career spent putting people first.

A family first organization

Since joining Midwest Veterinary Supply in 2006, Harnish has watched the industry shift dramatically, most notably through corporate consolidation and the rise of purchasing platforms.

“When I first started, I literally had a call book. Every customer had a scheduled time every week when we’d talk,” she said. “Those days are gone. People are stretched so thin and wearing so many hats that they don’t have time for those regular conversations anymore.”

That shift has made relationships more important, not less, Harnish said. She stays attentive to changes in her clients’ businesses and proactively checks in, asking what she can adjust to keep the partnership strong. She’s also candid about the downside of corporate ownership, noting that some programs steer clinics toward decisions that don’t always serve their best interests.

What keeps Harnish loyal to Midwest, though, goes beyond the business side. She recalls former president Jeff Burkhamer, who first called her on a Sunday night to introduce himself. When she explained her young son was ill, he told her, “Family comes first. You call me whenever you’re ready.” Weeks later, he met with her and her husband, treating the hire as a family decision rather than just a business one. Over dinner, he simply asked, “Do you want a job?” Her answer was yes, and nearly two decades later, she still describes Midwest as family.

Love and loyalty

“Customer” is too small a word for the relationships Harnish has built over 40 years. “They are family. These folks are absolutely family,” she said.

That bond has been tested and proven in personal ways. When her son, now in veterinary school, needed a place to stay during an internship, a longtime customer and close friend welcomed him into her home. More recently, one of her biggest accounts told her to stay over while picking up her son’s dog in Virginia. “Just bring the dog. You know where your bedroom is. You know where the key is,” the client told her.

Harnish credits trust and consistency for relationships that run that deep. “It comes from the amount of time I’ve worked with them, and they know they can trust me. When I make a commitment, they know I’m going to follow through,” she said. “I’m always 100% honest, and I think that’s absolutely what has gotten me to where I am.”

That trust flows both ways. Years ago, a veterinarian she’d worked with for a long time sold her one of his puppies, now her first and favorite hunting dog. The two still talk often, swapping advice on hunting dogs and life.

Harnish is genuinely invested in the health and well-being of her customers. She knows where her clients’ kids go to school, what their spouses do for work and she still sends handwritten notes to celebrate the good moments in their lives. She sees herself as an extension of every clinic she works with, monitoring their accounts behind the scenes so nothing slips through the cracks.

Harnish said it all comes back to one simple philosophy. “It’s all about service. It’s about caring about your accounts,” she said. “You can read all the sales books you want, but at the end of the day, it’s about being human and understanding what your customers go through every day.”

That passion, Harnish believes, has created a genuine connection built over decades. “I think a lot of it is because I’ve done it for so long, and I’m truly friends with many of these people,” she said.

What she finds most interesting is that the vast majority of those friendships exist without ever having met in person. “What’s funny is that I’ve never actually met 99% of them. If they walked in here, I probably wouldn’t recognize them,” she said. In a way, she appreciates that distance. It’s kept her focused on who people are rather than how they look.

“I love my accounts, and I think it shows in their loyalty,” she said.