The new regional manager for my best line is a recent grad from a well‑respected business school. Our first meeting consisted of me explaining the rep function. Repeatedly.

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Why don’t they learn about reps in business school?” asked one rep. MANA is working on that! MANA’s outreach to raise the visibility of reps in business schools recently connected us with Professor Craig Wortmann of the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business MBA program, a school that consistently earns top‑10 rankings in every major business school listing. Wortmann is a superstar on Chicago Booth’s faculty, where Inc. magazine rated his Entrepreneurial Selling class among The 10 Best Entrepreneurship Courses of 2011.

Wortmann agreed to a MANA video interview that is now posted on MANA’s YouTube site, www.youtube.com/MANAspeaks.

In the video, Wortmann notes that reps “are entrepreneurial — meaning they go out and create opportunities for businesses,” and they bring a distinct advantage over direct sales forces. “Manufacturers’ reps by definition bring more solutions to the table so they are able to not just talk about one thing but line up complementary products or services around each of those things, have a broader conversation, and look for opportunities.” That’s very different, he notes, from a manufacturer who is trying to sell one particular product and is “trying to find a very specific instance to solve this customer’s pain with this particular thing.” Because reps bring a line-card-based set of solutions to the table, says Wortmann, “once they engage in that conversation, it tends to be a broader, richer, conversation.”

Wortmann also acknowledges the question facing principals who need to recruit the right rep: “How do you look for and determine the skill and discipline that a certain group of manufacturers’ reps or manufacturers’ agents brings to the table?” But skill and discipline are not enough, says Wortmann. A principal’s due diligence also needs to include questions like: “Are they domain experts? Do they come from the right associations? Do they belong to the trade associations where you are doing business…like the Manufacturers’ Agents National Association (MANA)?” Skills and discipline, and belonging to trade associations like MANA “go sort of hand in glove,” says Wortmann.

If you have strong ties to a business school, MANA can help you reach out to its faculty so they can learn more about reps. Call MANA at (877) 626-2776 or write to us at [email protected].