Professional Sales Associates serves its customers and employees well. To its manufacturer clients, PSA offers a collaborative, streamlined alternative to expensive in-house sales teams. To its employees, PSA allows them the opportunity to take ownership in the company.

The dental industry is a specialized market in health care-capital equipment for dental offices, which consists of everything from utility room equipment and operatory equipment to high-tech imaging equipment. PSA serves as sales representatives for five non-competing manufacturers. Its clients are full-service dental distributors.

Begun in 1969, PSA started with four people. Today, the company has 30 people who cover all 50 states, while living in 20 states. PSA President Ed Zehfuss and two staff members operate from its Colorado headquarters.

PSA currently is the largest independent representative organization in the industry, Zehfuss notes. As such, it's good reputation is well known.

PSA employees stay with the company a long time. Zehfuss has been there since 1972. A vacancy typically opens up only when someone retires, he says. "We're in a very fortunate position, many of our applicants are from within our industry.

"Part of the attraction is that after a year of working at PSA, you can buy into the company," he explains. "All salespeople are stockholders in the company. It's unique.

"When everybody takes ownership, there's very little turnover."

With the sales force also being the owners, a different atmosphere is created than a typical corporation. "We answer to our manufacturers as well as ourselves. There's flexibility," Zehfuss says. "It's like a fraternity. We're all friends."

The overarching goal for all PSA salespeople is to do well for every manufacturer that the company represents. "We take care of all the manufacturers across the board," he says. "We have great relationships with our manufacturers, some of whom have been with us since 1969."

If the manufacturers had to set up their own sales teams, it would be expensive, particularly in the small dental industry. Zehfuss says the end-of-the-line potential customers total about 120,000 dentists in the United States.

Unlike most of the health care industry, dentists are not becoming "corporatized" or joining large conglomerates to continue practicing. Almost all dentists operate privately, according to the American Dental Association. About 80 percent are sole proprietors and 13 percent work in a partnership, according to ADA research.

"Dentists are the last vestige of the family practice health care businesses," Zehfuss says.

PSA offers an independent, cost-effective way for manufacturers to sell their products. The only time the manufacturer pays is when PSA sells a product.

"We work on 100-percent commission," he says.

But even an independent sales team, 30 people living and working in 20 states while representing the entire country, can present its own challenges. However, technology has helped out a lot in the last decade or two.

"Over the years, the ability to communicate has become less of a challenge," Zehfuss says.

When he entered the business in 1967 and would be on the road during the day, he says he often ended up in the same Holiday Inn lobby to call his customers or manufacturers. "You had to get off the road to make a call," he says.

If he was on a long business trip, his wife would become a message taker (answering machines weren't an option) and he may have checked in with her a couple times. Sometimes, clients would mail a letter, simply saying, "Call me."

"Then, if you got back within three days, they thought you were a hero. Today, if you do not respond right away they ask where have you been," Zehfuss says.

He estimates that he writes only about 10 percent of the letters he did when e-mail and cell phones weren't available.

In addition, the constant communication avenues mean that PSA is better able to serve the customer. If there's a problem with the product as it's installed in an office, instant contact is available to help resolve whatever issues exist. "It's on-the-spot service," Zehfuss says.

Technology also has changed the products that PSA sells. For example, film for X-rays have to be processed chemically in a more time-consuming, more costly manner. Today, digital scanners are being used as images can be received quickly and scanned for reviewing.

When everything is considered, Zehfuss says the most important thing to remember is that PSA is in the relationship business.

"It's good manufacturers, good products," he says, in combination with a sales force dedicated to the mission.

He says that dedication that began more than 30 years ago remains. The PSA group worked hard together to achieve today's success.

"We struggled 10 to 12 years to build the business, it didn't happen overnight," Zehfuss says. e

PSA has been a client of the Leading Edge Alliance firm, Carlin, Charron & Rosen LLP for 36 years. The firm provides PSA with business consulting, financial statement review and tax services.