A recent survey of MANA’s associate members (principals) showed that MANA has been only partially successful in its manufacturer education program. This does not come as a surprise, and looking at this from the standpoint of the glass being half full, I was somewhat encouraged by the results. But we have more work to do together.

Understand this: We’ll never convince every principal that treating reps as “Partners in Profits” (PIP) is beneficial to profitability. But we will keep trying with your help. How can you help? Get your principals to join MANA and attend one of our seminars for manufacturing executives where PIP is the theme. We call it Effective Rep Sales Force Management, and reps whose principals take the course report improved relationships!

We had over 90 principals take courses in March, and there are seven other classes every year. We’ll also bring this class into the factory starting this year.

It would be non-productive to insist manufacturers take a seminar before joining MANA. Currently they sign our Code of Ethics and are then exposed through various educational resources to the PIP philosophy. Eventually many come to share our thinking. Some of our members want to restrict associate membership to those who take a seminar program and pass some kind of screening. Yet they register with all the free websites such as “We Are Reps and Stuff,” allowing themselves to be contacted by any “manufacturer” that has a lathe in his garage or an import license.

Let’s work on the solution to manufacturer education together. If you will promote MANA associate membership to every prospective principal you know, we’ll keep doing our part to convince them you are professionals. But let’s not prevent principals from joining just because they won’t attend a seminar or require them to submit to some kind of arbitrary rating system.

Some of your fellow members scholarship their principals to our programs. Whether you pay your principal’s tuition or simply sell them on the concept of attending, we sincerely appreciate your help in a taking the PIP concept to the world’s manufacturing community.