Making a Rep Firm Successful in Winning New, Profitable Lines — Most of the Time

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Competing for a line should be a well-planned process designed to win most of the time. There is no reason not to be one of the best, if not the very best, rep firm in your geographic area.

Being a great rep firm requires total discipline and an organized approach to how you conduct business. The key to winning is how you present your firm when talking to prospective new principals.

There is only one thing a prospective manufacturer wants to know about — sales! The business of a rep firm is obtaining and maintaining sales volume for its lines. A carefully structured approach to showing your successes is the critical element in being successful in getting new very profitable lines.

There needs to be a “system,” a methodology, in the rep firm’s approach to sales. This system must be structured for presentation.

Are you going to use PowerPoint? Should you have a company video to be used at a prospective manufacturer meeting?

If you decide to create a video, how should you approach developing the video or the PowerPoint?

Ready, Set, Action

The first thing you need is an experienced copywriter to create the script.

The entire firm has to be prepared to invest time working with the writer to give him or her the elements which will make the video a solid presentation of the rep firm.

What is it that makes your firm effective in the market? What have been your most positive results in the past year? You may not be able to name names or cite actual figures, but you can develop a way to present the results you have obtained for your current principals.

It is important to have people speaking for you. The best is to have sales managers or vice presidents of sales from the best principals speaking on the video. This may not work for them. But perhaps you can get a few of the management people from your biggest, best-known principals speaking through letters or perhaps audio quotes.

The physical endorsement of your firm is a powerful force in your program to present your firm as the one to work with in your territory.

It’s extremely effective when a sales manager says “The Jones Rep Firm has been working with ABC Manufacturer for 10 years. We are very pleased with Jones’ results and work very closely with them to create solid relationships with distributors and dealers and their teams.”

Then, giving a specific example of how you work with your customers adds power to your presentation. Again, verbal endorsements from customers and their sales personnel are extremely valuable.

When you present customer results, you want to get them to be as specific as they can be. For example, when a dealer principal says, “Jones has helped us increase our share of market in the Midwest by 15 percent over the past four years. Jones provides aggressive field support and is instantly responsive to our needs.”

This type of ringing endorsement can go a long way to closing the sale on a big opportunity with a very strong line.

In addition, how does your firm relate to and work with your manufacturers? Getting quotes from customer service and management people at your bigger manufacturers is a great addition to your program and demonstrates that the manufacturer should choose your firm to represent them in the territory.

Finally, presenting your team briefly, but with very carefully selected details about each key individual, is critical to the presentation.

Who are you?
Where did you come from?
What is the industry background and track record of the people who will be providing the engineering and marketing and sales expertise for the new manufacturer in the territory?

The Final Act

The key is to have a clear, concise, highly organized presentation of all of these facts for the prospective manufacturer.

Get it all together. Produce the film. Develop the PowerPoint and get ready to do everything you were doing yesterday, but do it better and develop the presentation that will close the sale.

Last, get all of your team involved in understanding the presentation and your approach to pitching new business.

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