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Knowledge is power. In the rep business knowledge is many faceted. The rep needs to gather knowledge about the best customers and have it organized for current and future use.

What Kind of Operation?

What is the customer’s business all about? How does the customer approach the market? What do the customer’s customers think of the company selling to them? What do their employees think of them? What do customers think of this individual salesperson and the firm that this salesperson represents?

Self-evaluation is critical to this in-depth penetration of the customer. The salesperson and the sales manager need to approach this assignment with absolute honesty and candor.

A Note on Sales Management for Rep Firms

Most rep firms are relatively small. Most firms do not have a dedicated sales manager who does not manage customer accounts. It is not important how sales management is structured or perceived. The key is having a well-defined sales management system. Sales management responsibilities and focus should be well defined in writing for everyone in the company to read and understand.

What Are the Vital Few Questions?

As a salesperson for a rep firm the critical questions are:

• Who runs the customer’s business?
• How is the customer positioned in its market?
• Who does the customer compete with? Can the rep guesstimate size and shares of market for the key companies in the market? Note: How to get this information is up for discussion between the sales manager, supervisor of the individual rep and the rep. No matter how difficult to obtain, this information is vital.
• How important are the rep firm’s lines to the overall profitability of the customer’s business?
• How would you rate the overall relationship with the customer?

Pro-Active Relationship With the Customer

This is the most important part of marketing and sales evaluation of customers and the market for the rep firm with the customer.

If the rep firm is not proactive there is no point in considering the customer to be a customer. The key is having a dynamic, very intense, very busy relationship with each of the key customers in each territory.

Let Customers Know They Are Important

Meeting with top customers in each territory should allow the principal of the rep firm to touch customers who represent 90 percent of total volume. This deep penetration by salespeople and rep principals pays off in multiple ways. It definitely helps generate more business. It also helps solve problems when they occur.

If this level of pro-active penetration is achieved on a 12-month basis, the rep firm will be able to avoid surprises.

At the same time, the rep firm will be able to work with the individual customer to plan and organize a program to increase sales and value of the relationship by a minimum 10 percent annually.

Build a Comprehensive Forecast

After involvement with each significant customer the rep team will be able to project sales by customer by line for the next 6-12 months.

Optimism Is Good, but Realism Is Better

Taking a cold, hard look at each customer and each line with the rep firm management is critical to the process.

Bottom-Line

This type of in-depth work can make the difference between success and failure in the marketplace. Reps who really know their customers are reps who find ways to get the customer to buy more and more from them each year. Customers who concentrate their business with “the right” rep firms will find that the reps can do much more for them besides sell them products.

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