MANA members, just as other businesspeople throughout the country, are gradually emerging from a tumultuous year. While the challenges for many have been daunting, a remarkable number of association members report that they have weathered the business, economic and Covid-related storms quite well. As a matter of fact, several reps report that by making specific changes in how they conduct business, they have enjoyed record or near-record years.

In an effort to pass along some success stories, late last year in the course of a MANA panel discussion, three MANA reps reported on changes that have proved positive for them.

Art Taylor, whose agency has been a MANA member for more than 50 years, maintains that “While we’re operating much the same as we did prior to the pandemic, we have made several changes.”

Taylor, who heads L&B Worldwide, a Division of Landfear & Brophy, Inc., Mendon, New York, noted something that reps already know when he said, “As reps we’re familiar with working from home and are certainly accustomed to that. As a result, one thing we focused on was passing on to others what we already know.”

Taylor, whose agency focuses on selling high-quality, competitively valued custom engineered components to the largest OEMs in the world, explained that “As a rep firm, our goal is to add value every day. Looking back over the past year and half, it was evident that we were going to be spending a good deal of our time working from home. As a result, we pivoted a bit from how we sell to customers to how we were selling ourselves to principals.

“We did a bit of a group think and put out a how-to PDF on how to employ effective communications via audio and video conferencing. We actually conducted a digital audit of ourselves, and together with our principals, we figured out how to navigate what we were facing from a digital perspective.”

Among the steps the agency took were these:

• Looked at LinkedIn in an effort to learn how to better connect with principals.
• Consulted with principals on the possibility of conducting virtual plant tours.
• Hosted a number of tech showcases and “lunch and learns.”
• Took steps to become consultants to principals on how to become more effective digitally.

Hardly forgetting its customers, Taylor emphasized, “We employed a number of touch-points when it came to our customers. We made it a point to regularly check in with them to inquire how they were doing as they managed their businesses. We delivered product samples to their homes, conducted a lot of giveaways, sponsored golf outings and did a lot of branding.

“In addition, when it came to developing new business, instead of being ‘hunters,’ we pivoted to becoming farmers by spending time with our existing accounts. We concentrated on learning what else can we sell them, and what other divisions we could sell into. I say this at the same time that we certainly didn’t lose sight of the importance of getting new customers. Rather, we employed an internal focus of how we could sell better, and how we could conduct our agenda in serving our customers and principals better.

“What resulted was that it was a matter of ‘all hands on deck’ and we strived to create as many touch-points as possible to better serve our customers and principals.”

Improving on Good Times

Explaining that the products his agency sells — largely electrical — may not be appropriate to many other reps, Ray Wilson, Techni-Reps, Inc., Greensboro, North Carolina, said that his agency focused on several things, some of which it was doing prior to the pandemic, but all of which it continued with during the past several months.

Techni-Reps, a MANA member since 1980, was established in 1979 and offers solutions for industrial enclosures, electrical motor controls, control panel components, enclosure thermal management, transformers and power quality product lines.

According to Wilson, “I have to be considered an ‘SOB,’ that is a ‘Son of the Boss.’ My father started the agency in 1979 and I joined in 1999. We’ve enjoyed a pretty good last four or five years. In 2020, prior to the pandemic, we implemented activity tracking (i.e., CRM), but we’re not using it full force yet. Our goal was to simply keep track of our opportunities, and that’s what we’ve done.” He added that implementing CRM also allowed the agency to “backsell” to its manufacturers, letting them know that the agency was working on their behalf.

“During the course of the pandemic we wanted to keep on top of our reasonable activities, whether that meant continuing with our phone calls/emails to customers or conducting Zoom meetings and webinars. We also did some branding with our line card and website.”

From an operational standpoint, “We became part of a networking group of 8-10 other non-competitive reps from other parts of the country. We met quarterly and talked through issues and shared ideas.”

One outgrowth of these networking meetings occurred when “One of the group’s leaders negotiated a reasonable rate with ZoomInfo that allowed us all to share a database of contacts. (ZoomInfo Technologies Inc. is an American subscription-based software service company based in Vancouver, Washington, that sells access to its database of information about businesspeople and companies to sales, marketing and recruiting professionals.)

Wilson explained that ZoomInfo is “similar to other industry databases, but it’s a bit pricey if you go in on your own. It allows you to extract data and slice and dice it any way you want. It lets you do some powerful targeted marketing.”

On the subject of being — or not being — on the road calling on customers, Wilson noted, “We felt it was very important to stay in touch with our customers. So instead of just emailing them, we made it a point to simply pick up the phone and regularly talk to them. We’ve always had good relations with our customers, and this allowed us to experience good growth with our best customers.”

Like so many other reps, Techni-Rep got valuable experience with virtual sales calls. As Wilson explained, “We had two or three of our principals who were very good when it came to virtual sales calls. I think this is a great tool moving forward. The calls are short and to the point and often include a video demonstration of a product. We took advantage of many of these virtual opportunities to stay in front of our customers. I will say that eventually, however, customers were getting a little overwhelmed with the number of virtual calls.”

Something else that Wilson and his agency got involved with during the pandemic was the stocking and resale of local inventory. “Historically this isn’t something we’ve done a lot with, but in the last six years or so, we began to bring in some stock for a customer. It really began as meeting a need more than anything else. We started slowly, getting one in and selling it, bringing in two and selling them to a core customer who we knew would buy it. It’s not something we really intended to do but we wanted to solve some issues for a customer where we didn’t have local distribution. Eventually this grew over the last 18 months and became very profitable for us.”

On a final note, Wilson referred to something the agency did that Agency Sales covered in its January issue this year. The agency makes use of two Ford Transit product vans that have served as in-demand marketing tools in the North and South Carolina and Virginia territories in which it operates.

CRM and Backselling

The benefits of using CRM and backselling were prominent in the presentation by Doug D’Ewart, D’Ewart Representatives, LLC, Bothell, Washington.

According to D’Ewart, “You have to backsell to your manufacturers. That’s why letting the factory know what you’re doing via the information you put into CRM is so important. You have to let the manufacturer know that as a rep you’re not just sitting on your thumbs.”

D’Ewart Representatives is a non-stocking agency that serves customers that have large communications and electrical power needs. The agency’s efforts are directed toward these customers composed of end-users, contractors, consultants and distributors. Markets served include: energy utilities, industrial, commercial, military, government agencies (municipalities, counties, DOTs, states and federal).

D’Ewart explained, “There are 13 of us serving a large geographical area that includes Salt Lake City, Portland, Seattle and Spokane. In serving that area we make wide use of CRM to track all of our opportunities and to let our manufacturers know what our activities are.”

He continued that once all of the pertinent information is entered into the system, it’s easy to set the schedule for sales calls and phone calls. “While it may not be perfect, it does remain a very powerful tool.”

As he and his agency navigated the months of the pandemic, D’Ewart noted that “There have been a great deal of retirements among our customers and that resulted in a lot of new people coming into those positions. In addition, there are a great deal of younger people who have shown they don’t really want contact with sales personnel.” To counter that development and the fact that you couldn’t get into the office to see people, he noted that the agency has conducted a good number of remote Zoom and Microsoft Team meetings. “When we scheduled these meetings, we asked our contacts to bring other people. What we encountered then was that we’d have sales meetings with 30-40 people in attendance. The benefit then was that you had a larger number of people available.” He added that the effectiveness of the Zoom and Team meetings caught him a bit by surprise.

D’Ewart added that the agency also made use of Zoom and Team meetings to conduct their agency staff meetings during the pandemic.

In conclusion, D’Ewart made the point that “The more times you can touch your customer, the better. Our goal has always been that we want to be the first to respond to the customers and principals that we serve.”

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