An outsourced sales force works if you make it work.

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There is only one product that a rep sells — sales!

With a focus on this reality, what can you do to make your rep sales team better?

Planning is the first step to making a rep firm better. There needs to be a plan for every line you represent. How can you work with your manufacturers to plan your work for that manufacturer in your territory?

How strong is the marketing plan for each manufacturer? What can you add to that plan to position that line to get an increasing market share and more profitable sales? Start by analyzing your business on that line with each company that buys the line.

• Who does each customer sell the line to?
• Why is a customer successful with the line?
• How successful are they?
• How successful could they be with their customers?
• What can you and the manufacturer do to make the line more attractive to the customer and their customers?

These are big questions that take work to answer. Making time to plan in depth takes time and discipline. Many rep firms say, “Do you want me to sell or plan?”

This is a self-defeating question. Without planning your rep firm cannot find the answers. Taking the time to work on your business rather than “in” your business is not easy, but it is absolutely essential if you are going to grow and prosper.

Another key element of your sales success is backselling.

The process of selling your activities, plans and services back up the channel to your manufacturers has to be a process that you work at religiously. It should be an everyday activity. Making backselling a major management tool for your rep firm takes a conscious effort. What do you do to keep your manufacturers informed and up to date on your activities for their line in your territory? How often do you communicate with a manufacturer, by phone, by email, by report?

All reps hate paperwork. Many reps previously worked for manufacturers and they hate paperwork. Many reps feel that they escaped the corporate world to avoid paperwork. The problem is that manufacturers need information. Furthermore, manufacturers need to be told what is going on and how your rep firm is working for them. Many people at a manufacturer do not appreciate the role of the rep and many — especially finance people — think the reps make too much money for doing very little.

The only way to combat the lack of trust and lack of appreciation at the manufacturer level is to communicate.

If a manufacturer wants a report, what do you do? Obviously, you should do the report, but how do you approach it and how do you make your reports stand out among the reports they receive?

The first thing is to make the report interesting. What does it take to be interesting? The first thing is to tell them things they do not know, second get the report in on time as requested. Taking the time to do a report will take your team away from seeing customers, yes. But, keeping your manufacturers happy is fundamentally more important than keeping customers happy. The manufacturer is your “life blood,” never forget it.

Being the rep firm that communicates clearly and concisely on time will protect your rep firm from having members of the manufacturer’s team saying “We never hear from those guys.” This can be fatal. Organizing your team to respond to requests and developing ways to communicate in an unsolicited way is a very important part of backselling.

Having a very strong backselling program that is very active is a key part of running your business successfully.

Good luck and good selling and backselling.

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