Who supports the representative system of selling? MANA, of course, but there are probably more people in that role than you’d expect, from a wide range of industry-specific representative associations to an elite group of representative-savvy attorneys.

How do these executives discover opportunities to collaborate and learn from each other? Often it’s at a MANA-hosted meeting where those executives share the latest innovations and best practices that support the representative system of selling.

Why does MANA host this event? Because the insights from those meetings will benefit MANA representative and manufacturer members for years to come.

The first day of this recent event MANA hosted representative association executives to meet with their peers as members of the Alliance of Manufacturers’ Representative Associations (AMRA). With such a powerful group gathered together, the conversation quickly turned to ways that these associations could collaborate for their representative and manufacturer members’ benefit, enhance member services, and share educational resources.

Sharing their expertise were: Stacey Woldt, AIM/R; Patricia Collins, EMDA; Tess Hill, ERA; Bill Weiner, IHRA; Ray Wright, IPRO; Charles Cohon, MANA; Jerry Leth, MANA; Liz Beerman, MRERF; Ken Hooper, NEMRA; Susan Crolla, PTRA. (My fault that we missed taking a group photo, sorry!)

The second day of this event MANA hosted attorneys who specialize in manufacturer/representative law to meet with their counterparts from across the country as members of the MANA Attorney Forum.

Two examples of how MANA provides backstage support for its agent and manufacturer members are the association’s participation in AMRA and the MANA-sponsored Attorney Forum. Participants in this years’ Attorney Forum are above, back row, left to right: Mark Smith, Adam Glazer, Matt Benson, Tom Kammerait, Barbara Kramer, John Riccione, Dan Beederman, Gerry Newman, Randy Gillary and Charles Cohon. Front row, from left: Jerry Leth, Steve Nelson, Mark Schmidt, Scott Sanders, Doug Andrews, John Anderson and John Rotaris.

What do members of the MANA Attorney Forum discuss? Yes, as you might expect, they discuss how to enforce agreements that have not been honored (almost always with principals who are not MANA members), but they spent just as much time discussing how to write fair agreements to avoid post-termination conflicts.

And there is much more to MANA Attorney Forum members than just representative agreements. The group also discussed how reps can avoid conflicts of interest, ways that alternative compensation like stock options can substitute for commission, and valuation and succession planning for representative firms.

Left to right: Doug Andrews, Steve Nelson, Steve Valentine, and John Riccione participating in an ongoing discussion at the Attorney Forum.

When executives who support the representative system of selling share their expertise, everybody wins. And MANA is a better association for having participated.