Earlier this year, MANA addressed the subject of conducting more effective sales meetings for its manufacturer members.

At the outset of a MANAchat moderated by MANA President and CEO Charley Cohon, it was emphasized how an effective sales meeting can go a long way in creating an environment where a rep will truly want to work with a manufacturer and devote more time to a line than might be justified by the commission paid.

“What it comes down to,” according to one chat participant, “is that you’re competing for your rep’s mind share, and effective sales meetings can help you achieve mind share.”

He continued by posing the following: “What you want to happen is that when your rep gets up in the morning, you want to be the principal that he’s thinking about. Then, when he only gets about 40 minutes of face time with a customer, and he’s talking about three or four products, you want to be the one he spends the most time on. How do you achieve that goal? What this emphasizes is that every manufacturer wants a disproportionate amount of his rep’s time.”

The discussion that followed stressed that well-crafted sales meetings can help achieve that mind share. “If the manufacturer has been able to create a meaningful sales meeting, reps will walk out of the meeting well educated about the product line and feeling enthusiastic about the company and its product line. Then there’s the rapport you can build between company personnel and your reps that can only be created via personal contact achieved during sales meetings.”

With that as a starting point, a number of additional topics related to the stated subject were raised during a discussion by chat participants over a two-day period.

When manufacturers dialed in to the MANAchat, there was general agreement on a couple of important points:

• Manufacturers are fortunate that they are able to work with a network of independent manufacturers’ reps who serve as their eyes and ears in the field.
• The most important purpose of manufacturer-conducted sales meetings is to make reps feel connected. At the same time, manufacturers have to be sure to take advantage of sales meetings to communicate all the information they can that will allow reps to serve their customers better.
• Sales meetings should be viewed as a collaborative effort between the manufacturer and their sales force out in the field.
• You can never over communicate with your reps; but having said that, when scheduling meetings, manufacturers should be sure to always be respectful of their reps’ time.

Valuing the Rep’s Time

That last point was especially important to the manufacturers in that they all voiced concern and appreciation for the time their reps devote to their respective lines. Typical comments on the subject included:

• “Our reps used to visit us every two years and that was it. I originally wanted a more formal structure and perhaps have meetings monthly, but from all I hear, that would be excessive.”
• “I’ve been told that if I try to bring our reps into the factory any more than annually, they’d all balk at the effort.”

Since those last comments relate to the amount of time a rep might be willing to devote to a given line, the conversation turned to the subject of how a manufacturer can keep his line uppermost in a rep’s mind. The point was made that “every manufacturer wants a disproportionate amount of the rep’s time in the field.

If sales meetings can pave the way for creating closer relationships between reps and manufacturers, time and effort should be invested by manufacturers to make those meetings beneficial. It was emphasized that “allowing reps to spend time face-to-face with manufacturer personnel that they usually only engage with over the phone is especially beneficial. A relatively low-cost event (i.e., a sales meeting) can make a tremendous amount of difference in how much time and attention a rep will pay to your line.”

No conversation devoted to relationships between manufacturers and their reps is conducted today without consideration for the impact the pandemic has had on those relationships. So too with the effectiveness of sales meetings as was emphasized in one exchange. In response to the question, “How has the current environment impacted the effectiveness of sales meetings and how they are conducted?” one manufacturer explained, “As I look back pre-Covid, our goal has always been to include some brainstorming time devoted to emerging markets. We’d also be sure to pull in someone from operations to give our reps an update on any major manufacturing changes. This was all done with the goal of getting information out there that would benefit our reps and customers. These are all staples we’ve traditionally baked into our meetings.”

He continued that those kinds of in-person sales meetings appear to be at least a year away. But to keep the communication’s momentum going with his reps “We did conduct a remote sales meeting last September. Our challenge obviously was to maintain our reps’ attention throughout. In order to achieve that goal ahead of time we sent out a box filled with a variety of five-minute-long activities — all to ensure no one got bored.”

Keeping the Reps’ Attention

Maintaining the attention of reps during virtual sales meetings remains a challenge as described by another rep: “One thing that disappointed us with our Zoom meetings was that there is really no strong evidence that our reps understood what we presented and will move forward with it. We’re going to continue to have the Zoom meetings and our hope is that we’ll be better able to arm them with the tools they need to move forward.”

It was volunteered that one benefit of Zoom meetings is that they can be recorded. “Sure, there’s frustration with maintaining their attention, but at least when we record the meeting, we know they can watch it over and over and rewind as needed.

“We also had one of our plant managers who used an iPad to demonstrate the new technology at one of our facilities. That was probably the most engaging part of the session. All of this was geared to conduct a meeting differently and not to just have someone reading words off a screen.”

Following that meeting, according to the manufacturer, reps were asked to complete a survey asking how effective they thought the meeting was and what they thought could be done differently and more effectively.

In addition to virtual meetings one manufacturer noted, “We’ve been able to maximize the type of information we include on our web page. Since our reps aren’t necessarily engineers, we’ve kept our information fairly simple for the non-engineer. They’re using what we provide them more than ever before and not contacting our engineers with a variety of questions.”

Another manufacturer offered that his company made use of the Microsoft Team format in conducting two one-hour sales meeting sessions. “We enjoyed full cooperation from our reps, and everyone agreed the sessions worked out well.”

A Hidden Benefit

The possibility that pandemic protocols could have resulted in some benefits concerning sales meetings was suggested as follows: “Historically when manufacturers and their reps meet personally in the traditional sales meeting, the rep is invited to travel to the factory or some other location. As a result, you’re bound to get some complaints along the lines of ‘If I’m making the effort to attend this meeting, there had better be plenty of substance to the meeting, not to mention some golf and entertainment.’ Maybe now, with the advent of technological tools, there’s a bit of a silver lining in that if the manufacturer has an hour’s worth of valuable content, that content can be presented virtually and then the reps can quickly go back to their normal lives. Having the opportunity to present information to reps in such a quasi-sales meeting format, very few will complain about the time they have to devote to the gathering. Perhaps a new hybrid type of meeting can better suit the needs of manufacturers and reps.”

Input from Rep Councils

In preparing for sales meetings, a suggestion was made that manufacturers should consider the use of their rep councils when it comes to addressing important subjects. The observation was made that “Several manufacturers have found that their rep councils can be beneficial in getting the most out of their reps during a sales meeting. For instance, they can provide input from what the majority of reps want to be hearing during the sales meetings. There’s an obvious upside in making use of the council’s input in that what’s coming from them is a joint recommendation. If there’s a report from the council, it might result in the manufacturer hearing information that they ordinarily would not hear.”

At one point in the MANAchat, a participating manufacturer described how his company had embraced the practice of conducting “Level 10” or “L10” meetings. Broadly defined these meetings are a check-in meeting with an organization’s leadership team. During these sessions attendees develop a strategy that allows them to hold themselves and their team accountable for actions. They are principally dedicated to solving issues and creating an issue list of items that require attention.

The manufacturer emphasized that his company’s meetings with reps “allowed us to remove many of the barriers that frequently crop up in manufacturer-rep sales meetings. This is especially valuable for us in that our products are customer engineered. We don’t sell the same product line to every customer. Rather, we are able to leverage our relationships with key purchasing contacts. Our meetings allow us to concentrate on key strategic initiatives and important touch points that have to be addressed.”

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