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It was a little bit like a self-fulfilling prophecy when one manufacturer described the difficulty he continually faced when it came to filling direct sales positions in a number of his territories.

According to the manufacturer, “It seems as if they (the factory direct salespeople) can’t wait to get out the door. We just get them trained and attuned to developing relationships in the territory and then they either take another position in our company or leave the company entirely. It’s like being on a merry-go-round that keeps spinning people off.”

This manufacturer is hardly alone in facing this problem. This has long been one of the most compelling reasons recommending the rep way of going to market. Among the major reasons that MANA and other rep associations maintain that reps serve the territory more cost-efficiently than a direct sales force is that they’re married to their territory. It’s no secret that the direct salesperson is often looking at where his next position will be. Not so with the rep. The rep is intent upon building his own business and establishing and nurturing his relationships in the territory. The manufacturer in question might do well to take a look at reps as a good opportunity to jump off that merry-go-round.

Following Up Leads

After a manufacturer asked a group of his reps how best to get them to provide follow-up to leads that are developed at trade shows, there was no shortage of responses from his audience. In a few words, here is the manufacturer’s problem: “As a principal, we often send out an Excel spreadsheet following attendance at trade shows. We request that the rep fill in certain fields (date and a few notes) in order to keep us aware of lead follow-up. Sometimes the reps respond; often, they do not. We’re now planning to ask reps to also keep us aware of follow-up of non-trade show leads via a separate spreadsheet that we’ll format and send. What can we do better to encourage our reps to complete these items?”

Thankfully, some of the responses she received allowed her to solve the problem. Perhaps other manufacturers will find segments of the discussion that followed to be helpful:

• “As an independent rep with more than 15 years of experience, I’ll admit that this issue will always be present. For your information, I make it a practice to follow up on leads and report back to the factory That being the case, the bottom line question is, ‘Is your rep producing?’ If you want control, then you need to hire a factory rep and pay the price. The reason manufacturers hire independent reps is to save on compensation and benefits. I have 10 lines to represent. I can’t complete reports for every line — no one can.”

• “I’m not aware of the type of questions that you are asking in your questionnaire, but it seems to me that it might be better for you to arrange a time to phone the rep in order to go over the status of the leads you sent them and for you to write the notes in yourself from your conversation. Since you spent the money to acquire the leads for the rep, you have every right to ensure that they are being followed up. However, I would suggest that you try to switch from the ‘fill out my form’ strategy and implement instead the ‘let’s go over the leads I sent you’ strategy. If your rep does not want to provide any feedback on leads that you send them, then I would suggest a new rep; however, I hope it never comes to that.”

• “As an optimist, and more importantly as a rep, I look forward to receiving Excel spreadsheets full of sales leads. However, many — probably most — of the ‘leads’ prove to be non-customers of various descriptions. Sometimes we can identify these before we waste any time on them, but other times it takes a bit of work before we realize it is a dead end. Some of the ‘customers’ can’t be reached, or can’t be found, prove to be low-potential, or are already known to be low-potential. In the interest of using everyone’s time wisely, we usually only report back on the leads with real potential. In reality, only a small percentage of trade show leads prove to be of any value. It is a waste of everybody’s time, including the principal’s, to report on the ‘leads’ which have been eliminated.”

The Effective Joint Sales Call

A manufacturer who boasts that he has long been an advocate for the effectiveness of joint sales calls offered the view that most salespeople, whether reps or factory-direct, are seldom able to penetrate their customer’s organization beyond the level of the individuals who buy or use the product they sell.

According to the manufacturer, “We all know how helpful it can be for salespeople to at least be on friendly terms with those in general management at upper levels. A few years ago, however, we came up with an approach that works well for us. Our joint calls with agents aren’t only made with our top marketing people, but they often include key top management, including our CEOs. Needless to say, these calls are planned very carefully to provide the customer the opportunity to bring in his top people. Actually, they seem to want to do this. Some are somewhat intimidated without having their key people with them. I guess you have to have the kind of CEO that we have who knows that nothing happens until someone sells something.”

Updating the Training Program

Instead of simply believing what he was being told by many of his reps as to the reason why they couldn’t or wouldn’t attend any of his regularly scheduled training sessions, one manufacturer decided to turn a critical eye on what he was offering to his outsourced sales force. And when he did that, he soon realized the inherent value of keeping his training program up to date.

According to the manufacturer, “For years I’ve been having my reps travel to the factory regularly in an effort to bring them up to speed with our newest products and applications and to provide all of us with an opportunity to compare marketing intelligence. This year, however, more and more of my reps are letting me know that with the economy as challenging as it is, they really can’t afford the time out of the territory. I had convinced myself that what I was offering was truly of value to both of us. As the excuses continued to mount, I thought I had better do something about it and take steps to correct the situation.”

His next step was to ask several of the reps who refused to attend the last session to be totally honest with him. “In almost one voice they said that what I was doing for them was simply outdated. When I let myself be completely objective, I had to agree with them. All we were doing was repackaging the same stuff year after year. I can’t blame them when they said it really turned them off. In order to make a change, I pulled my team together and completely revamped what we were providing them. When I let our reps know of our new program, they were all enthusiastic. As a matter of fact, we’ve got complete sign-ups for our next scheduled session.”

Identifying the Reason to Visit the Territory

One manufacturer related his philosophy concerning field visits with his reps. According to the manufacturer, “There really has to be a reason for me to travel in the field, and in saying that I mean you’ve got to do much more than just look at the calendar, say ‘I haven’t been there in a while,’ and decide to make a trip. Rather, I follow a practice of ahead of time considering what the value-add is — not only for the rep but also for the customer. Gone are the days when a trip to the field is just a ride-along and a chance to shake a few hands. The savvy principal has to have much more on his mind than that.”

He continued that his field trips are not as frequent as they used to be: “I’m largely dependent upon my reps when it comes to making a trip. What usually happens is that they’ll contact me and let me know that there’s a definite purpose in seeing a specific customer, or customers. But at the end of the day, when the rep leaves me at the airport for my trip back to the factory, I didn’t have to be convinced there was a purpose for the visit. Did I waste his time or did we get something done? Based on the feedback I usually receive, more and more of my reps are valuing my time in the field more than ever.”

Making Full Use of the Website

A good number of manufacturers have established separate areas of their websites where their reps can log in, obtain training, learn about new products and promotions, company news, and other communications. A side benefit of this is that manufacturers are able to track which of their reps regularly log in and how often they do so. “According to one manufacturer, “Here’s how this benefits us. First, we can point to our top-performing reps as the ones who constantly deliver for us in front of the customer. Sales figures bear this out. Second, we can communicate the benefits of the website to our other reps who don’t log in to see what they should be learning.

“We’ve invested a considerable amount of our time and money in our website. We know it can benefit us, our reps and our customers. That’s why we made such an investment. Since we’ve taken the first step, we’d like our rep to take the second step — and we expect them to.”

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