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We have long advocated for independent manufacturers’ representatives to be completely honest with their principals when it comes to letting them know that they’ve taken on a new line. However, the fact remains that often reps will be reluctant to pass that information along because they fear that some of their principals would view an additional line as something that would allow the rep to allocate less time on their own line.

When this scenario was laid out for one medium-sized manufacturer, he responded that he’d always want to be kept in the loop regarding activities of his reps. “I want my reps to grow. They had better grow because they can hardly make a living off just my line. Whenever I can, I’ll take the step of referring other non-competitive principals to my reps. This not only helps them gain profitable lines, but also lets them know that I truly value them and want them to succeed. Since they know I follow this practice, they’ve always doubled their efforts on my behalf.”

Putting the Best Team Together

Over the past several months, Agency Sales has been interviewing and profiling a variety of manufacturers that work with an outsourced sales force. Without exception, the manufacturers that we’ve spoken with maintain they’ve got the best rep networks because they’ve done all the necessary work prior to signing on with an agency. Here’s how one manufacturer described his efforts: “From day one, I did all the necessary things such as checking references, face-to-face meetings, etc. But more to the point, I carefully defined the work that we expected from the reps and I let them know in detail just how we should work together. We’re not all that different from other manufacturers in our industry, but one thing I’m really proud of is the fact that everyone who works for us and with us understands our mission and by extension, they understand their own mission. When everyone knows this ahead of time, we’re firmly on the same page and can move forward together.”

Seeking Rep Council Members

When one manufacturer complained to another about his lack of luck in getting some of his top-performing reps to serve on a rep council, the second manufacturer — who boasted of a lengthy tenure of successful rep council meetings — urged him not to give up on the effort. Here’s what the manufacturer had to say: “Listening to others, I’m certainly aware of the fact that putting a rep council together isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Here’s what I’d advise — rather than working overtime to convince an unwilling rep to participate, contact others and get the council up and running. That way, you’ve at least started the ball rolling. Once you’ve done that, you’ll probably find that those original first choices who were reluctant to participate will probably see that they’ve made a mistake. Chances are that when they see what you’re actually getting done, they’ll want to jump in and help. At least, that’s been my experience.”

Keeping an Open Mind

One manufacturer admitted that he was more than a little surprised when totally out of the blue he had a rep call him with a request to represent him in what the manufacturer thought was a territory that had virtually no prospects. “I and my sales team were proud of the fact that we had put together a solid team of reps covering all the prominent areas of the country. As a result, when this rep contacted me my first thought was what have I got to lose?”

The rep never raised the subject of receiving a pioneering fee and he would sign on a commission basis. “Here’s what I didn’t know, however. Because of his long tenure and relationships in the territory, the rep knew that a major manufacturer was scheduled to move into the area and that represented a tremendous potential for our product line. When the company ultimately made the move about a year later, the rep was solidly positioned. What has happened is that we’ve both benefitted. He’s become one of my top reps.

“What I learned here is that it’s important to keep an open mind, even if I think I’ve got all my bases covered.”

Flexibility Key to Rep Success

One manufacturer points with pride to his more than two-decade commitment to working with an outsourced sales staff. “When we opened our doors more than 20 years ago, we were a relatively small operation. While we’ve grown over the years and serve a nationwide customer base, we’re still anything but a medium-sized business. That’s why from day one we made the decision to work with reps. We couldn’t afford a direct sales staff that would provide us with the coverage reps do. So instead of employing direct salespeople, we put our effort in an inside staff that provides excellent backup for our reps.

“That brings me to a decision we made years ago to better serve our reps and it’s a decision that’s paid off handsomely for us. Since we sell in all the time zones of the country, we’ve found that our reps in various locations have needs at different times of the day. We instituted a flexible work schedule for our inside people that ensures there will always be someone here to help our reps. What that means is that no call for assistance is ever ignored.”

Lifting the Load

It’s not unusual for independent manufacturers’ representatives to report that as their principals continue to downsize, any number of tasks that were once performed by the manufacturer have now been moved over to the rep. That’s why it was so refreshing to hear this recently from one manufacturer: “From the very beginning of working with reps, it’s been our expectation that the rep’s job is to get us in the customers’ door. That’s why we’ve made every effort to steer our reps away from conflict resolution and away from chasing down problems. Here are some of the steps we’ve taken:

• “Whenever there’s a backorder, someone from our organization calls the customer and explains the situation. We don’t expect the rep to do that.”
• “If a product is backordered, we’ll take five percent off the price of the order.”
• “We ship all orders within 24 hours. If we fail to do that, we’ll take five percent off the price of the order.”
• “We’ve made it a practice to e-mail all of our customers with an electronic copy of their packing slip, complete with a hyperlink to our site and to UPS for tracking purposes.”

This manufacturer is the first to admit that “I’m not sure that this approach will work for other manufacturers, but our reps are more than happy with what we’ve done. On top of that, if we were to judge from their sales performance, it’s a practice that works well for us, the rep, and our customers.”

The Value of Looking in the Mirror

At a meeting of reps and manufacturers early this winter, one manufacturer admitted that after several failed efforts in forging successful relationships with reps, a process of self-appraisal let him know what had gone wrong.

According to the manufacturer, “We weren’t getting what we expected out of our reps in several key territories. We had let the situation fester for more than a year when finally I decided it was time for us to take a look in the mirror and examine what went wrong. Here’s what I saw: To a large extent the problem was that we simply weren’t putting the proper effort into the process of choosing the reps that we go to market with. It got so bad that on some occasions if someone simply knocked on our door and expressed an interest in working with us we’d sign them up.

“We compounded our errors by not fully communicating with them what our expectations are for their performance. Thankfully, we had one of our reps that had really done a good job, who felt secure enough to let us know that we had done such a poor job of jointly agreeing on performance goals with our reps. We listened carefully to him and one of the first things we did was to make sure we’ve done all we can on the front end with it comes to signing new reps.”

Continued Emphasis on Training

If there’s one thing that reps agree on it’s how important new product training is to them. That’s why a fairly novel approach to training was especially welcomed by reps who work with one manufacturer. That manufacturer began his description of the process by emphasizing that “We’ve always been firm believers in constant training. We’ll have all of our reps to the factory annually to make sure they’re up to date on our offerings.” But to complement that factory visit, the manufacturer has taken their training a step further.

“When we have a new product or even new approach to an application for an existing product, we’ll contact our reps and pay for their travel to and from a job site so they can watch hands-on demonstrations and testing of the product. These presentations are usually conducted by our own engineers. That ensures that our reps are familiar with them and receptive to what’s being done. Believe me, we’re entirely aware of the time constraints reps work under and we know they pays a price for being out of the territory. That’s why we make every effort to guarantee the sessions add to our reps’ body of knowledge.”

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].