Matt McCroskey founded McCrosco, Inc., in 1993.

While Matt McCroskey was raised and educated in Ohio, his family had deep roots in California, and that’s where he built and continues to grow his more than 30-year career as an independent manufacturers’ rep.

According to McCroskey, his great grandparents bought property in Southern California more than 100 years ago. As a result, following his graduation from Ohio State University, he had someplace other than Ohio to follow his career dreams. And, oddly enough, those dreams of sales began with selling cardboard boxes.

According to McCroskey, “One summer two friends and I got a job selling cardboard boxes, and there couldn’t have been a better training start to my career. You’ve got to realize that there aren’t that many features and benefits to tout when you’re talking about boxes. All you can really talk about is the weight of cardboard and how the box is going to hold up to use. You’ve simply got to learn how to sell the product. That’s what I did and that was my start in sales.”

McCroskey has long ago graduated from selling boxes, and today he heads the single-man operation McCrosco, Inc. (www.mccrosco.com), in San Clemente, California. The agency sells fluid handling products and related equipment throughout the Pacific Southwest territory of California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii.

It wasn’t long after selling boxes that he moved on to a job in sales with a manufacturer. Shortly after joining that company the owner became ill and sold out to a supply company. Then, as so often happens in cases like that, everyone, including McCroskey, who served as the company’s sales manager, was laid off. After sending out resumes in search of a new position, he notes, “Luckily my resume was seen by the partner of a rep group. Now, I was a sales rep. A short time later, armed with a couple of lines, he went off on his own, became incorporated as an S corporation, and hung out his shingle as an independent sales rep.

Looking back over more than three decades in the business, McCroskey recalls that there weren’t many surprises at the beginning other than one all reps have to face — the existence of the 30-day termination clause in the rep principal contract.

Finding Lines

From day one he was blessed with a handful of lines, but just as other reps, he’s had to deal with the task of finding new principals over the years. “MANA has been a huge help when it comes to locating manufacturers to work with. I’ve been a member of the association for a long time and always will be. Thankfully I always get inquiries from manufacturers, and I’ve made it a habit to place an ad in the online “Lines Wanted” section at least once a year. An additional aid when it comes to locating principals is my attendance at trade shows. I’d say I attend 15 or more annually. They are great opportunities to network and meet with prospective principals.”

During the process of networking and meeting with prospective principals McCroskey explains that an important part of his initial conversation with a manufacturer is that of introducing the concept of a “fee for services.” He maintains that “When there’s an opportunity to work with a manufacturer, but there’s no existing business in the territory, it’s going to cost me about $2,000 monthly to work for them. I’m hardly in the business of paying to work for someone else. As a result, I require a monthly fee of $2,500 in such circumstances. Keep in mind I drive a car that gets about 17 miles to the gallon, and I’ve got other expenses to take care of. If there’s a reluctance on the part of the manufacturer to pay such a fee, I’m not reluctant to walk away. During the course of our negotiations, in an effort to educate them, I make it a habit to introduce them to MANA and its Code of Ethics and let them know what the association has to say about such situations.”

Related to the requirement that manufacturers pay for services, McCroskey adds, “It’s important that we as reps let manufacturers know what we do in terms of building relationships with customers. I’ve had experiences over the years where I’ve made millions of dollars for manufacturers. Then the next generation of ownership comes along, and they don’t really seem to appreciate all the work that’s been done previously on their behalf. The first thing they want to do is to make changes in the principal-rep relationship.”

McCroskey regularly attends trade shows and events to support his principals.

Staying in Touch

One thing McCroskey is a big believer in when it comes to strengthening relationships between himself and his principals is to stay in constant communication with them. “I’ve found that it’s much more cost-effective to stay in constant touch with your principals as opposed to devoting time to sitting around in the office filling out reports for them. What I’ve always done is to make sure I let them know what’s going on the territory and I always blind copy them on any communication I have with important customers.”

In addition to the never-ending challenge of finding and then signing with principals, McCroskey explains that there are other ongoing concerns that he — just as other reps — has to face. One of the more prominent concerns is that of being able to get face-to-face with customers. “I can recall that in the old days you didn’t really need an appointment to see a customer. On a regular basis you could just pop in and see any number of decision makers on a given day. Not so today. The entire structure of getting in front of a customer has changed. I’d say that’s probably an offshoot of the impact of technology. It seems like everyone is making use of voicemail, text messages, and LinkedIn. It’s not unusual that today I can call and leave 10 messages with people I want to connect with — and I’ll only get a few, if any, responses. Thankfully, over the years I’ve been able to develop great relationships with my customers. As a result, they know that when they need me, they can reach out and I’ll take care of their needs.”

As McCroskey explains it, the problem of getting face-to-face with customers was exacerbated more than a bit during Covid even though the industry he serves — water filtration — was considered a mandatory business. “Here in California, we were locked down hard — probably harder than other parts of the country. We couldn’t go visit customers and they couldn’t come to see me. It was only in an emergency that I was able to drop off a product when needed.” He adds however, that one thing he experienced that some other reps have also reported: “My profitability increased during Covid. I didn’t have to pay for travel and expenses and my margins increased.”

Why MANA?

When McCroskey is asked how he found and ultimately joined MANA all those years ago, he recalls, “I was visiting with a rep friend who was a member of MANA and it was at a time when he had just lost his biggest pump line. As was his habit, he was working on the day after Thanksgiving, and he got a call from another manufacturer that wanted to work with him. The manufacturer let him know that he had seen his ad in Agency Sales magazine and that’s how he found him.”

McCroskey adds that when this transpired, his friend “made me promise that I’d always work the day after Thanksgiving and that I’d always be a member of MANA.” As he reflects on that promise, McCroskey notes, “While I can’t say I’ve always worked the day after Thanksgiving (there is such a thing as call forwarding and I’m always available 24/7), but I have been and always will be a member of MANA.”

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