Paper Products Sales Representative

Your day is account-based and relationship-driven — calling on commercial buyers at restaurants, offices, hotels, janitorial services, and healthcare facilities to supply their ongoing paper product needs: napkins, paper towels, toilet tissue, facial tissue, and packaging paper. These are consumable necessities that every account needs to reorder regularly, which means the sales model is less about winning new decisions and more about maintaining your position and growing within existing accounts.

The work involves regular call cycles, product line reviews, and promotional programs that keep your products visible and your pricing competitive. Buyers in this category are often cost-focused; they're comparing price per unit across suppliers and making pragmatic purchasing decisions. Private-label and house-brand pressure is real — large distributors often have lower-cost alternatives to name brands, and your job is to defend margin position with quality, reliability, and service differentiation.

Distribution channel knowledge matters: some reps sell direct to end users; others work through broadline distributors (Sysco, US Foods, Gordon Food Service) where the buyer is a distribution account manager rather than the end customer. Trade promotions, co-op programs, and pull-through support (helping distributors sell your brand to their customers) are part of the job at larger manufacturers.