What Makes the Single-Person Agency a Challenge?

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Single-person rep agencies face some unique challenges. A check of the MANA membership shows that one-person rep agencies make up just a little over 20 percent of the total. One in five MANA rep businesses is a single-person operation.

A further analysis of the data shows that about 75 percent of these established their businesses in 2006 or later. In other words, they are start-ups, and start-ups by nature tend to be small. Their big challenge is surviving the first few years. The revenues tend to be small and in the first year don’t come close to covering expenses.

They are challenged in finding quality lines to represent. Established manufacturers tend to gravitate towards established rep companies.

Negotiating their first contracts is also challenging; few if any have negotiating skills or experience.

Sounds like a hopeless situation? Not if you are a MANA member. We can help these start-ups find start-up manufacturers who have good products and are well-managed but who will not be able to attract established reps. Since they are new and are without existing business to turn over to the rep, they are candidates for shared territory development fees, and that helps with the rep’s financial situation.

A huge part of the growth and success of the single-person rep firm depends on the rep’s ability to pick the right companies to represent, and MANA just introduced a brand new Special Report which will help reps avoid making the wrong choices. MANA has online training programs that also help the rep with business planning, negotiating and creating contracts as well as marketing the rep firm — not to customers, but to potential and existing principals.

For those reps that choose to stay a one-person agency, there is a final challenge: how do they get out of the business? Multi-person agencies are sold, an option not available to one-person operations.

Education is a major part of MANA’s strategic plan. The resources are there, in many forms — it’s up to you to avail yourself of them. Do that, and these challenges turn into opportunities.