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We have said it many times, but every experience with successful independent manufacturers’ representatives causes a repeat — you have to work on the business!
Getting outside the everyday “stuff” is absolutely critical. Knowing that you are going to have 5-10 hours a month to work on the business is vital. Being sure that those hours are made priceless is key. Nothing else about your life can interfere with your time to think!
Thinking about key elements of your business is the best possible way to keep the business on track and your mind centered on staying successful.
What to think about?
The most important thing to remember is that you have a sales organization. The most important thing that your company does is sell. Therefore, the sales results for the prior month are the number-one priority for you to think about and evaluate.
Sales Results
If you only have one or two people working for you and your manufacturers it should be fairly easy to figure out what is going on in each of your sales territories for each of your key lines. But, when you stop for a couple of hours to conduct your monthly evaluation, do you have all of the necessary data in one place ready for your review? If not, what do you have to do in order to get a clear overview of each of your people’s activity and success for the past few weeks or month?
After you have the data, it is a good idea to review each salesperson by line. You need to know that your firm is doing a good to great sales job for each of the lines that produce five percent or more of your firm’s income.
This is the time to look for red flags — things that could present problems with any of your key lines. Is there a service or credit problem that makes the relationship with that principal tenuous at this time? You are always thinking creatively about your lines, but you must also think defensively. Reps know they are not paranoid — they just know “they” are out to get them!
Field Visits
Field visits by factory personnel are another area that requires constant examination. The more lines you have, the more visitors you are likely to have. If you are in Minnesota in the dead of winter, the demand for visits is not likely to be huge. But if you are in Miami at the same time of year — watch out. Factory people like to escape the cold. You can’t afford too many visits and you must make every visit very productive.
How your firm handles visits and calls with manufacturing personnel on customers is of vital importance to your business. You have to stop and think about upcoming visits to make sure that your team has everything organized for the visits and that your follow-up system properly “backsells” the value of your firm’s services.
Staying in Touch
The third vital factor to be thinking about every month is factory contact — what is the state of your firm’s relationships with each of the key manufacturers at this time? Are there issues with any of the people that you deal with? Do you have a feeling or other real evidence that anyone is unhappy with your firm or with any of your personnel specifically? Are you getting any “vibrations” from your key contacts that there may be issues?
What activities are scheduled with your factories? Is there a rep council meeting, trade show, factory visit or training session planned in the next 30-60-90 days? Do you have to prepare in some way for an activity with the factory?
These three things are three factors that you have to stop and take time to “work on.” If you are not paying attention you will probably get a “surprise”:
- Sales results.
- Field visits.
- Factory contact.
There are no good surprises in the agency business — so forewarned is forearmed. Good luck and good selling.
MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].
