Response to “Surviving a Change in Management,” October 2019

This article could be about a company we have represented for almost 36 years that has gone through a couple of buyouts by investment groups. Each time this happened, our commission was cut, territory taken away, and increased reporting became a necessary nightmare. The management that has come and gone neither embraces the manufacturers’ representative model nor understands the power of compatible products.

This has been personally hurtful, since we were responsible for the original family-owned business moving from direct sales to manufacturers’ representative agencies, and also for a 10-year period 26 percent of their business in the U.S. came through our office.  It was our agency and many others that had the technical know-how and complementary products that propelled them forward so the company would even be seen as a positive going concern to sell when the owner retired.

The investment companies buying these concerns and their thirst for short-term results at the expense of their employees, their sales force, and their customers, as well as  long-term successful growth is a sad thing to see.

Comments from an Industrial Rep in the Midwest