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We often hear that customers are more loyal to manufacturers’ representatives who have been in the same territory for decades than they are to direct factory salespeople who often rotate into a new territory every two to three years.

But there’s more to it than just longevity in the territory. Let me share three stories about reps who went the extra mile for customers.

One rep’s customer ran out of connectors and the rep’s principal was backlogged for six weeks. The principal’s response was, “Sorry, we are bringing in the connectors by boat instead of by air to save money. The connectors are already in the container on their way to the boat and there is nothing we can do.”

Because the rep knew his customers very well, he knew that another one of his customers had an abundant stock of the connector and he was able to borrow enough connectors from one customer to keep the other customer supplied until the principal’s cargo container arrived.

A rep found he had stepped into something unpleasant when his principal shipped defective products to his customer. The principal insisted that the best they had to offer was to have the customer return the defective parts for rework. The customer insisted that they didn’t have time to ship the parts back and wait for them to be returned.

To break that stalemate, the rep went home, grabbed his toolbox, drove to the customer, and reworked the parts himself at the customer’s site.

A rep’s customer complained that the principal’s website was hopelessly difficult to navigate, making it impossible to find the catalogs and drawings the customer used on a routine basis. The rep built a simple web page with links to all of that customer’s most commonly used parts, and posted it on an easy-to-remember domain name so the customer would not have to navigate the principal’s website to find the most commonly used parts.

These are just a few stories of reps who creatively solved problems their customers faced. Do you have a great story to share? Send it to me at [email protected].

Manufacturers and reps both say 2020 looks great for reps, according to MANA’s second annual member survey.

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What do manufacturers say?

• 84% increased or maintained the number of rep firms they used last year.
• 90% plan to increase or maintain the number of rep firms they use next year.

What do reps say?

• 79% increased or maintained the number of lines on their line card last year.
• 90% expect to increase or maintain the number of lines on their line card next year.
• 87% expect to increase or maintain their company’s revenue next year.
• 88% expect to increase or maintain their company’s profits next year.

Will all reps benefit equally?

No, say manufacturers, who report they are increasingly selective when they search for reps. To even get on the list to be interviewed, top manufacturers say reps must:

• Regularly update their MANA member profile.
• List a professional e-mail address in their MANA member profile.
  • AOL, Yahoo, and even Gmail accounts can hurt your chances.
  • E-mail addresses like [email protected] also can hurt your chances. Manufacturers want to contact a specific person, not a department. Anything less than [email protected] may bump you off the list of reps to be contacted.
• List a professionally created website in their MANA member profile.
  • Manufacturers say that websites that do not include the rep’s line card make them assume that rep has something to hide — so that rep won’t be contacted for an interview.

For reps with MANA member profiles that hit the sweet spot manufacturers seek, 2020 looks like a banner year. Want help checking your MANA profile to be sure it sparkles? Contact MANA VP & GM Jerry Leth at [email protected] or me at [email protected]. And grab your share of banner year profits in 2020!

Full details of the survey are available to MANA members. Request a copy at [email protected].

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Rep search technology has been stalled at the Blockbuster Video stage for the last 19 years.

Today we launch smartphone-based rep search that is going to hit old-style rep search like Netflix hit Blockbuster Video. And it’s available exclusively to MANA members.

Let me explain.

Back in August 2000, MANA launched the online rep search to supplement the printed directory that dated back to 1949. And for the next 19 years, the technology manufacturers used to search for reps remained pretty much the same.

• Search the online database for reps from your desktop or laptop computer.
• Download a list of potential candidates.
• Start contacting those reps by phone or e-mail.

Other than rep search, a lot has changed in 19 years. More and more we use smartphone apps instead of our laptops for banking, shopping, and booking travel. Pretty much all the business we use to transact on our laptops can now be done on smartphone apps.

Except rep search. Until we launched the RepFinder® by MANA smartphone app.

Is the RepFinder® app just a way to download the old style list to a smartphone? That would not be good enough! On-the-go Millennials are not content with apps that just let them browse a list. They expect to complete their transactions from smartphone apps. And with some Millennials turning 38 this year, more and more are starting to have rep search responsibility at their manufacturing companies.

Now MANA is making sure that MANA rep members can be found by these smartphone-wielding sales managers.

RepFinder® lets manufacturers use our smartphone app to search for reps, view each candidate’s MANA member-profile, and contact the best candidates right from the app.

That’s right — manufacturers “Swipe Right” if they want to contact that rep and “Swipe Left” if they don’t.

RepFinder® by MANA is now available for download on the Apple App Store and Google Play. It’s the very first rep search app available, and it is exclusively for MANA members.

To read more about the app, turn to page 10 of this issue. Questions or comments? Contact me at [email protected].

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We all know the business reasons to sell through multi-line manufacturers’ reps. Things like these:

• Reps are known and trusted resources for customers in their local territories.
• Reps help manufacturers avoid fixed costs, like salaries and benefits, of direct salespeople.
• Reps tend to remain in their territories and work with the same customers for decades, while direct salespeople tend to relocate every few years.

But here’s a new reason to sell through reps: Multi-line reps are fantastic for the environment!

Let me explain. Multi-line reps tend to cover two to three manufacturers’ products during each sales call. If separate direct single-line salespeople had to be sent to call on those same customers to cover the same topics, it would take two to three times the number of single-line salespeople, each working for a single manufacturer and driving their own vehicle.

What happens if twice the number of salespeople and twice the number of vehicles make those same sales calls? If the average salesperson drives 50,000 miles annually, then every time one multi-line rep is replaced by two single-line direct salespeople, it means an extra 50,000 vehicle miles.

The average passenger vehicle emits 404 grams CO₂ per mile.¹ So, 50,000 extra vehicle miles means 20,200 kilograms more CO₂ in the atmosphere annually.

But there is more! Single-line direct salespeople tend to fly more air miles than multi-line reps, perhaps 20,000 miles a year. So, the two single-line direct salespeople in our example would also add 40,000 air miles that would not be flown by multi-line reps. The average commercial airliner emits 184 grams of CO₂ per passenger mile,² so that’s 7,360 additional kilograms of CO₂ emissions.

Total environmental impact: 27,560 kilograms of CO₂ emissions. That’s 60,760 pounds. Roughly 30 tons. About the same as losing 12 acres of new forest.³

So, selling through reps is not just fiscally responsible, it’s environmentally responsible too! Why would you go to market any other way?

¹ https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle
² http://urbanforestrynetwork.org/benefits/air%20quality.htm
³ https://www.carbonindependent.org/sources_aviation.html

Recently I’ve heard from reps who report hearing a new question during line interviews: “Can you write me a business plan?”

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Eager to outshine other reps competing for the line, these reps pulled out all the stops to be sure that their in-depth business plans proved their knowledge of their territory and market.

Their business plans detailed all the customers they planned to convert to that manufacturer’s product and the competitors’ products those customers were using. To really impress the manufacturer, sometimes they even reported the prices those customers were paying.

It seemed like a good strategy at the time. But when reps who submitted business plans didn’t get the line, they looked back at the process with mixed feelings.

“We wrote a business plan for a product we don’t currently have on our line card, so if the manufacturer uses that information to sell his products, it won’t actually take any money out of our pockets*.”

“At the time we had an internal discussion about asking the manufacturer to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but it would have thrown cold water on our discussions for sure.”

“In retrospect, we showed the manufacturer way too many of our cards way too soon. If I had it to do all over again, I would give a list of prospective customers but not share any information about the current brands they use or the prices they pay. I would give a total of prospective sales in the territory, but not break it out customer by customer. And I would include a polite footnote indicating that I would share granular details after the rep agreement is signed.”

Have you been asked to write a business plan when you were interviewing for a new line? Did you write one? Did it work out well, or would you do things differently next time? Please e-mail [email protected] to let us know!

* Details may have been added, removed, or altered to protect the privacy of those who share their stories with us and to better illustrate the concepts discussed in this article.

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Today a book arrived in the mail. It was written by a “world-renowned sales consultant, coach, speaker, influencer, and best-selling author,” according to the press release that came with the book.

Very quickly, it became obvious that this book illustrated three points worth sharing with MANA members — but not points the author intended.

1. One over-the-top, unsupported claim casts doubt on every other claim you make.

Tony Robbins could claim to be world-renowned without offering supporting evidence. But the author was not Tony Robbins. If you are not a household name and make an unsupported claim to be world-renowned, every other claim you make is tainted.

Reps know that their livelihoods depend on credibility with their customers and principals. We don’t make claims unless we can back them up.

2. Prospective customers don’t appreciate receiving a homework assignment.

A 240-page book and an 8-page press arriving in the mail looks to me like a homework assignment. If the book includes some genuinely unique insights, share a few bullet points in a short note, don’t expect me to search a 240-page book to find them.

Reps know that a brain-dump of all their product’s specifications does not win customers. A short individualized presentation that identifies the specific benefits that particular customer will value is the way reps close orders.

3. You have only seconds to differentiate yourself before losing a prospect’s interest.

I know you have been disappointed by other sales books, but mine is different, claims this author. As claimed by pretty much every other author of every other sales book ever written.

Reps know prospects hear “Our prices are low, our quality is great, and our service is excellent” from every salesperson. So reps do pre-call research to uncover one or two differentiating characteristics of their offering that will be important to this prospect, and leave generalities to the amateurs.

I have never met a rep who was world-renowned. But I have met countless reps who are recognized by customers and principals as the go-to experts in their sales territories. So they are renowned where it counts by the people who matter.

A week of snorkeling and kayaking in the Florida Keys reminded me of one of the reasons there will always be manufacturers’ reps.

Everywhere the Atlantic met the shore, I saw mangrove trees, and only mangrove trees, thriving in the shallow ocean water.

Why only mangrove trees? Because mangrove trees adapted to thrive in environments that would kill any other tree. Ocean water salty enough to kill any other tree. Ocean tides that would drown any other tree. Waterlogged soil so barren of oxygen it would choke any other tree.

And not only do they thrive in toxic environments, mangrove trees gradually actually make the environment around them better because their massive in-the-water roots slow tidal water just enough to let sediment settle and build soil up around the tree.

Why did mangroves remind me of manufacturers’ reps?

Because savvy salespeople around the world look at their local markets and say: “There may not be enough business here for a factory to base a full-time salesperson locally, or even for a salesperson to stop here very often. But there are definitely orders to be written here.

“A salesperson trying to live off the orders from one factory’s products would starve here, but if I could find 10 or 12 manufacturers who need local sales coverage, I could thrive here.”

So, mangroves and reps both adapt and thrive in environments too harsh for their competition. Too salty, too drastic tides, too little oxygen in the soil for trees that would compete with mangroves. Orders too sparse and too dispersed for direct salespeople who would compete with reps.

That is why there will always be reps. Because while some look at a market and say, “nothing could grow here,” reps look at the same market and see opportunity.

© Photocreo Bednarek | stock.adobe.com

Golfers wouldn’t dream of hitting the links with just irons or just woods in their bags. Many manufacturers’ representatives feel the same way when it comes to the rep associations that support them in their profession. Let me explain.

MANA is a horizontal rep association, so we focus on rep and manufacturer resources that can be applied to any industry that uses outsourced sales forces.

Because MANA can serve all reps and manufacturers who use reps, we have thousands of members. Thousands of members means we have the budget, for example, to invest very heavily in RepFinder® rep/manufacturer matchmaking tools and print Agency Sales magazine every month.

Vertical rep associations focus on rep resources for one particular industry. Many times this is a conference specifically for reps in that particular industry.

Six vertical associations now purchase MANA memberships for all their rep members, giving their rep members the very best of both horizontal and vertical rep association resources.

• AIM/R, Association of Independent Manufacturers’ Representatives, Inc., plumbing, HVAC/R, kitchen/bath, waterworks, irrigation and related industries.
• HDMRC, Heavy Duty Manufacturers’ Representatives Council, commercial vehicle supplier industry.
• IHRA, International Home + Housewares Representatives’ Association, home, housewares, gourmet, giftware, consumer electronics & hardware industries.
• ISA, Industrial Supply Association, the association for the industrial Maintenance Repair Operating and Production (MROP) channel.
• NMRA, National Marine Representatives’ Association, marine industry.
• PTRA, Power-Motion Technology Representatives’ Association, power transmission and motion control industry.

From all of us at MANA, hats off to the leadership of these six associations for having the vision to be sure their members have both irons and woods in their bags, to help them to effectively manage their professional manufacturers’ representative firms.

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The rep in one of ABC Widget Manufacturing Company’s most important territories retired abruptly. So, ABC Vice President of Sales Sue Smith had a problem. And an opportunity.

Sue used MANA’s RepFinder® database to find candidates to take over the territory.

Several looked like they would be at least as capable as the rep Sue needed to replace. And one of the reps looked like a head-and-shoulders stand‑out.

Fred Jones’ rep firm was a head-and-shoulders stand-out over any other candidate, but all the other manufacturers on Fred’s line card were heavy hitters in Fred’s industry. ABC Widget Manufacturing was more of an up-and-comer. So, to hire Fred, Sue had to figure out how to punch above her weight class and sell Fred on representing ABC.

Sue met with Fred and shared the following:

• “Our top management is very responsive to our rep council’s recommendations. I can share with you a list of changes and improvements ABC has made that came out of rep council meetings.
• “We treat our reps like part of the team and members of the family. I have a list of reps in other territories who would be happy to speak with you about us.
• “And when you’re talking with those reps, here are some topics I hope you will discuss:
  • We communicate quickly and accurately with our reps for information and quote requests as well as any problems that may come up.
  • We ship on time and our quality is excellent, so once you make a sale, you don’t have to think about taking calls from customers with complaints about deliveries or quality.
  • We do not have any house accounts.
  • Whatever it takes, we will always make you look good to your customer.”

Fred signed up to represent ABC and couldn’t be happier that he did! “Yes,” said Fred, “We probably do spend a little more time working on ABC than the commission income strictly justifies, but when a manufacturer treats you right, you just can’t help spending more time on her line.”

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“Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy! Drained dry! I’m so sorry. Here: if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw — There it is. That’s a straw, see? Watch it — my straw reaches across the room, and starts to drink your milkshake, I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!”

Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood, 2007

Daniel Day-Lewis won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal ruthless fictional oilman Daniel Plainview.

Plainview bought up oil leases cheaply from property owners across Southern California during a late 19th and early 20th century oil boom. When a hold-out property owner finally comes to Plainview begging to sell, he delivers his famous speech. The property owner’s oil is long gone, gloats Plainview: “I drink your milkshake!”

Has someone got their straw in your milkshake? Here are some things to think about to help you protect the value of your rep firm.

• Most principals would say that the value of your rep firm is your customer relationships. Do you only have relationships with today’s decision-makers? Or have you also built relationships with junior staff who will probably be the decision-makers in the future?
• Principals also value your rep firm for your deep market knowledge of your territory. Do you continue to prospect for and build new relationships with new customers? Or have you become comfortable with orders you can secure from customers you already know well?
• Are there services that your customers or principals need and other reps in your territory supply that you have been reluctant to supply?
• When you start to think about selling your rep firm, the prospective buyer will value your firm more highly if you have deep relationships at all levels with your most important principals. Do you visit key principals periodically to build those relationships?

If a few key players at your customers retire, will your orders be in jeopardy? If a few key players at your principals retire, are you at risk to lose the line?

Whether you see it or not, there is always someone nearby, looking in your direction, holding a straw. To maintain the value of your rep firm, you must remain vigilant and keep their straw out of your milkshake.

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“We have had great success selling through reps,” said the manufacturer, “and we use reps throughout North America. Except of course in the home territory.”

He said “of course” as if there was no other choice.

Why do some manufacturers think selling without a rep in the home territory is an “of course” decision?

Sometimes a small company’s founder feels customers he or she developed in the company’s early years require the founder’s continued personal attention.

Other times a manufacturer thinks it’s cheaper to tack responsibility for local customers onto the other duties of a local employee.

What happens when the founder is still the salesperson for customers in the home territory? One of the founder’s two jobs suffers.

• A founder who devotes enough time to being the salesperson in the home territory spends less time managing the company, so crucial decisions are stalled while the founder is distracted by sales calls.
• A founder who devotes enough time to managing his or her company can’t give customers and prospects the attention needed to grow sales in the home territory.

What happens when sales calls on local customers are tacked onto the duties of a manufacturer’s local employee?

• The local employees’ primary duties always come first and local sales calls get pushed back “until I have time for them.”
• The local employee calling on customers knows that every customer visit means work piling up at his or her “real” job at the company, so sales calls become halfhearted “I need to check the box that I was here and get back to the office” events.

It’s a no brainer. Why would a company squander its home court advantage by assigning local sales responsibility to someone who can only make sales calls when they can squeeze them into their schedule around the duties of their “real” job.

That’s why many manufacturers use reps in their home territory. They need a sales force that has one job — to call on customers and prospects all day every day.

Of course.

It’s time to share my favorite backselling story.

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What is backselling?

It’s a word coined by John Haskell, a frequent contributor to Agency Sales magazine and author of Profit Rx under his pen name, Dr. Revenue^®.

In my own manufacturers’ representative firm, I took backselling to mean, “Communicate with principals as if the line were in jeopardy even when it is not, because once the line is in jeopardy anything you say will sound like an excuse instead of communication.”

Here is my backselling story.

I had broken one of the fundamental rules of running a manufacturers’ representative firm. I had let one principal become more than 50 percent of my company’s income. Much more than 50 percent.

We were so busy selling the product that it just happened without us noticing it. Once we did notice, we needed to think about ways to make sure that this principal knew how much value we brought to their company; not just the local regional manager, but also the team at the principal’s headquarters. So, we asked to schedule a visit.

Apparently, it was the first time one of their reps had asked to visit headquarters, perhaps because the only way to get to their small town was to fly to Oklahoma City and drive 139 miles southwest or fly to Dallas and drive 141 miles northwest.

On that drive we realized we had come empty-handed. So, we stopped at Walmart and bought one-hundred one-dollar sleeves of “fun size” candy bars. Arriving at our hotel, I emptied my roller luggage and filled it with candy.

We visited customer service, product marketing teams, product engineering teams, and pretty much everyone we could see in the day and a half we’d scheduled. And at the end of each visit I opened my luggage and asked, “As a very small thank you for all you do, could we offer some candy?”

You would have thought we were giving away gold bars instead of candy bars. No one had ever come to headquarters to thank them for their help, and no one had ever brought them even a small token gift to thank them.

Each year our visits got longer and our discussions became more productive. Each year our bond with that principal grew stronger. And each year we gave away more sleeves of candy bars. I knew we had made our mark when we arrived for our third annual visit and saw a head pop up over one of the cubicle partitions and announce loudly, “Hey, it’s the candy man!”

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It’s a question I hear all too often.*

“I’m the sales manager for a manufacturer, and my boss thinks our rep is getting too rich off a new order. I don’t know for sure whether I agree with my boss or not,” said the sales manager.

“I can see the argument that the rep should be rewarded for bringing in a huge order that took five years to close, but the rep’s check last month was bigger than my boss’ check — that is not sitting too well.”

My reply?

The sales manager made the most obvious argument himself. The rep worked for five years before any commission was earned. Now the rep is being compensated for the five years of unpaid work leading up to the order he or she earned for your company. Each commission payment the rep receives covers both payment for that month’s shipments and an installment payment toward reimbursing the rep for all the unpaid work during the past five years.

But there is more to it than that. It will be easier to explain if I use an example.

Let’s say you invested in 50 risky stocks five years ago. Most of the companies went out of business. Some of them earned you a modest profit, and one of them was a big winner.

What was your five-year profit?

Is the gain on the big winner your five-year profit? Of course not. You calculate your net profit by totaling all your losses and all your gains.

Consider that the rep had many losses on prospects in which he or she invested time and effort that never returned a cent of commission.

These losses, which are an expected and normal part of being in the rep business, come from pursuing prospects where the rep’s principal ultimately can’t meet the prospects’ price, delivery, or performance standards.

Reps don’t expect their principals to be an ideal fit for every prospect. Quite the contrary. They expect that only a modest percentage of prospects will be a good fit for their principals and use the commission from the orders they do receive to offset the cost of making calls on prospects that turn out not to be good candidates for their principals’ products.

“Pursuing five to eight prospects for each order that eventually closes is part of the rep business,” explained one rep. “I came into this business with my eyes open. But when I do make a big win, I have to be sure to remind my principals that the commission I receive on each closed order has to cover my cost pursuing that order, and five to eight that didn’t close.”

* This article combines conversations with a number of MANA members. Their comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.

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Here’s how one manufacturer explained it.*
“We find lots of good candidates to represent our line in MANA’s RepFinder® database.

“But once in a while we also find a rep member profile that is a real turn-off. It’s what I call the ‘I sell everything to everybody everywhere’ profile.

“One turn-off is when the rep claims to sell every one of the RepFinder’s 100+ product categories. Everything from Advertising Specialties to Veterinary supplies.

“Great rep firms focus on a few key markets and have great relationships with decision-makers in those markets. A rep who claims to sell in every market has no focus and will never get an interview to rep our line.

“Sometimes it gets even worse. Sometimes the rep claims to sell all of the product categories in all 50 states, and perhaps even in Canada and Europe. A pretty bold claim for a rep firm with just one or two salespeople.

“That’s why I said, ‘If you say you sell everything to everybody everywhere, you sell nothing to anybody anywhere.”

Want to be sure your MANA rep member profile isn’t a turn-off? Keep these rules in mind and update your MANA member profile today:

• Manufacturers look for reps with focus. Choose only categories where your rep firm really shines.
• Choose the product categories you sell, not the markets you sell to. If you sell castings to the pump industry, choose “castings” not “pumps.”
• Your sales territory should make sense compared to the number of your firm’s salespeople.
• Update your MANA member profile annually. Starting soon, manufacturers will be able to see if a profile has gone untended for more than year.
• Seventy-seven percent of MANA rep members have a website. Don’t be one of the 23 percent who don’t.

Update your profile today in the member area of www.MANAonline.org.

Sound like too much trouble? Schedule a free telephone profile coaching session with Jerry Leth or with me. We’ll walk through the steps together.

Let manufacturers know that your rep firm’s profile says what you do, and you’ll do what it says. Update your MANA member profile today!

* Comments from more than one manufacturer have been combined and edited for clarity and brevity.

At Universal Studios, an Express™ Pass moves you in front of everyone who only bought a standard ticket. At close to double the cost.

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Now MANA manufacturers’ representative members can move to the front of the list manufacturers see when they search MANA’s RepFinder® database. And the cost is: Free!

How do you get free priority placement when manufacturers do RepFinder® searches? Update your member profile using these guidelines:

1. Pick only product categories where your firm excels. Manufacturers tell us, “A rep who claims to sell everything really sells nothing.” Choose fewer product categories to get priority placement over reps who choose too many categories.
2. Pick only the product categories you sell, not the markets you sell to. If you sell castings to the pump industry, choose “castings” not “pumps.”
3. Pick only the sales territories your firm covers well. Manufacturers tell us, “A rep who claims to sell everywhere really sells nowhere.” The number of salespeople at your firm and the size of your territories should make sense.
4. Check any boxes that describe your firm:
   ☐  My firm has a business plan.
   ☐  My firm has a succession plan.
   ☐  All our salespeople have taken professional selling courses.
   ☐  My firm has a professionally done website.
   ☐  We work with all our principals as Trusted Partners in Profits.

Need help updating your profile? Schedule a free telephone profile coaching session with Jerry Leth, [email protected], or with me, [email protected]. We’ll walk through the steps together.

Be among the first manufacturers’ representatives that manufacturers see when they search to fill an open territory. Update your MANA member profile today!

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Last month I answered a manufacturer’s question about why manufacturers’ representative agreements increasingly include clauses covering Life of Part/Life of Program (LOP/LOP), shared market development fees, and/or extended post termination commission.

This month I answer that manufacturer’s follow-up questions:*

“Let’s say my rep Fred closes a major order at Acme Company and I give Fred LOP/LOP commission on that program. Later I replace Fred in that territory with a new rep, Nicole.

“When that program comes up for renewal, Nicole is managing negotiations for a reorder that is still commissionable to Fred due to LOP/LOP.”

• “Why would Nicole work hard to maximize the selling price on this reorder?
• “Why would Nicole work hard to keep this reorder from going offshore?”

Why Would Nicole Work Hard to Negotiate the Best Deal for Her Principal?

Nicole plans to write new orders with Acme and earn LOP/LOP commission on those new orders. Nicole knows that if she lets prices tumble on this reorder it will be harder to get a good price later when Acme’s next new project comes up. Maintaining a good margin now serves Nicole’s interests when she negotiates with Acme on the next project.

Of course, if the principal still has lingering concerns about Nicole’s motivation to maximize the selling price, the principal can always give this negotiation extra attention and oversight.

Why Would Nicole Work Hard to Keep This Project From Going Offshore?

Once Acme starts sourcing its projects offshore, Nicole will face offshore competition on every future project she quotes to Acme. Nicole will do everything she can to avoid having Acme starting to source its projects offshore.

Bottom line, most manufacturers would love to be facing a situation where they had so much business that managing quotes for reorders became a major undertaking. After all, you had to get the orders in the first place for reorders to be an issue. And getting orders is exactly what reps do best.

* The manufacturer’s comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.

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The manufacturer who called me was sincerely puzzled. “I am trying to hire reps and all of them are asking for Life of Part/Life of Program (LOP/LOP) or shared market development fees.*”

1. “What happened to just paying the rep based on each month’s commissionable shipments?”
2. “If I gave a rep LOP/LOP and then replaced him or her with a new rep, then the new rep would end up handling price negotiations on repeat orders that are commissionable to the old rep. Why would the new rep try to maximize the selling price if commission goes to the old rep?”
3. “And if the new rep handles negotiations on repeat orders that are commissionable to the old rep, what incentive does the new rep have to work to keep the reorder from going offshore?”

To answer the first question, let’s say you are a casting manufacturer who wants to target Ford Motor Company.

Before any commissionable parts orders ship, your rep must:

• Introduce your company to Ford.
• Get your company through Ford qualifications.
• Wait for a new program to come up (say a new rear-view mirror design).
• Get your part on the print.
• Wait for tooling to be produced.
• Wait for prototypes to reviewed, perhaps adjusted, and resubmitted for approval.
• Wait for the program to be released.

Without LOP/LOP and/or shared market development fees the rep risks working 3-5 years for free and then being terminated after the first production order ships.

And making the rep’s situation even worse, for every project he or she works on that becomes an order, the rep also probably worked on 5-10 similar opportunities that did not become orders for reasons that were completely outside the rep’s control.

That’s why manufacturers who want their reps to hunt for elephants put LOP/LOP and/or shared market development fees in their contracts.

For the answers to the manufacturer’s last two questions, watch for next month’s “MANA Minute.”

* The manufacturer’s comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.

If manufacturers’ representative associations like MANA are a good idea, why aren’t there organizations similar to MANA across the globe?

Actually, there are.

Left to right: Charles Cohon, CEO and president, MANA; Ralf D. Scholz, Germany, vice president; John Beaver, chairperson, MANA; Olivier Mazoyer, France, president; Christian Rebernig, Austria, secretary general; Enric Enrech, Spain, vice president; Axel Sturmberger, Austria, vice president; Jordi Marti, Spain; Ole Kristian Bull, Norway, vice president;
David Johnson, United Kingdom, vice president.

Associations like MANA support manufacturers’ representatives in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. Although, outside North America, what we call manufacturers’ representatives are referred to as “commercial agents.”

These 18 country associations and MANA work together to advance the utilization of manufacturers’ representatives through membership in the Internationally United Commercial Agents and Brokers (IUCAB). Recently IUCAB’s Executive Committee met in Chicago to share best practices and plan future activities to support manufacturers’ representatives.

One of those best practices came to MANA in 2013 from Austria’s commercial agents association, Bundesgremium der Handelsagenten. MANA adapted the Austrians’ “explainer video,” describing sales force outsourcing, to English and it has since been viewed over 15,000 times on YouTube.

MANA’s version of the Bundesgremium der Handelsagenten video has been viewed more than 15,000 times.

MANA’s IUCAB membership also gets MANA representative members more visibility with European manufacturers looking for North American sales forces. IUCAB’s commercialagents-northamerica.com advertising and rep search platform is available exclusively to MANA representative members seeking European principals. (Click here for details.)

MANA leaves no stone unturned as we search for the best international resources to serve our members. We would welcome your help finding more and better benefits to include with your MANA membership. Please share your ideas with MANA today!

© Nataliya Dolotko | stock.adobe.com

Getting information about manufacturers’ representatives taught in business schools has been a long-term MANA priority. And we’ve been successful in earning opportunities to do presentations about manufacturers’ representatives at Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School, University of Arizona, The College of New Jersey, University of Cincinnati, and Kent State, for example.

But presentations reach only students who attend. To reach students year after year, MANA content needs to be part of a school’s curriculum instead of just being part of a MANA presentation.

Now for the first time MANA content is part of a University curriculum as part of MKTG4471 — International Marketing at Thompson Rivers University Open Learning, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada.

Thank you to the Manufacturers’ Agents National Association (MANA) for granting us permission to use your video Understanding Manufacturers’ Reps. Full credit according to standard academic practice will be given to the work.

Thompson Rivers University (www.tru.ca) is a publicly funded, not-for-profit institution in British Columbia, Canada. The Open Learning Division develops distance education curriculum using a combination of material developed in-house, adopted textbooks and third-party copyright owned works. We rely heavily on materials produced by organizations, such as yours, that are willing to share their knowledge and expertise.

This video was found on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apng2eKmZtY. Our Subject Material Expert (SME) was pleased to be able to use the video in our in-house developed online course MKTG4471 — International Marketing. Understanding Manufacturers’ Reps is a valuable addition to the course material.

Patricia Stachiw
Intellectual Property Officer
Thompson Rivers University Open Learning

Developing content that speaks to business school students is an investment in the future of our industry. We look forward to reporting future successes engaging with business schools and working to increase the visibility of outsourcing field sales with college students who are the business leaders of tomorrow.

© oni | stock.adobe.com

This article is about succession planning. But it’s not the kind of succession planning you’ve ever seen discussed in Agency Sales magazine.

Let me explain. MANA gives lots of attention to succession planning that helps representative firm owners thinking about retirement to sell their firms and transition to new owners.

That’s the kind of succession planning that is done when a relationship is ending.

But there is another kind of succession planning that is done before a relationship even starts. And it is that beginning-of-the-relationship succession planning that I discuss in this article.

This beginning-of-the-relationship succession planning happens before a representative firm and a new principal launch a new relationship. That’s when the representative firm has to think not only about launching this relationship, but also about what will happen in the distant future when this new relationship eventually ends.

Succession planning, in this case, is this representative’s plan to protect his or her rights when there is a succession of this principal to a new path to market.

This aspect of succession planning asks the “what if” questions now about what that separation in the far future will look like if the principal switches to a successor: another representative firm, a direct salesperson, or even “we don’t need a salesperson, we can handle this from headquarters.” Those “what if” questions include:

• What if the representative is tremendously successful and commission payments spike beyond anything the principal expected to pay?
• What if the sales manager who gave me verbal promises not written into the agreement moves on to a new company?
• What if a venture capital firm buys the principal to quickly flip it?
• What if principal sells off all its assets, leaving only an empty shell with no resources to honor its commission obligations?

A representative-savvy attorney can craft agreement language that answers these “what if” questions so that years or decades later when the relationship eventually ends the representative and principal already know what that separation will look like.

The representative firm’s only chance to shape what that far-away separation will look like is usually before the agreement is signed. And when it comes to most of the signed agreements representatives have shared with me, that would be something completely different.

© garybaldi | stock.adobe.com

“I am not taking on any new lines.”

Manufacturers sometimes tell me that’s what they hear when they call prospective representatives.

“Why do they even have a profile in MANA’s RepFinder database if they aren’t taking on any new lines?” ask those manufacturers.

When I get that call, asking the manufacturer some strategic questions usually reveals the truth.

• Does your line have existing business that will be turned over to the representative, or is your line a pioneering line?
• If it is a pioneering line, did you offer to share the costs of launching your product with some sort of shared market development fee?
• If you have existing business, will that be turned over to the representative, or will you only pay commission on new customers?
• Does your representative agreement allow you to terminate all commission payments on 30 days’ notice, or does it include a post-termination commission and/or life-of-part/life of program clause to let the representative recoup the start-up expenses that came from launching your product?
• Have you worked with representatives before, or will this be the first time?

Honest answers to those questions often lead the manufacturer to an unflattering truth: “The representative hasn’t really decided not to take on any new lines. He or she just decided my offer was not appealing and said what was necessary to end the call quickly.”

There is no such thing as a representative who is not taking on any new lines:

• If a manufacturer needs a representative to take over a $10,000,000 territory and receive 10 percent commission on all existing business calls, what is the representative’s likely response?
• If a manufacturer needs a representative to take over a pioneering territory and bear all the expense of launching the product calls, what is the representative’s likely response?

For manufacturers who fall between those extremes, the difference between getting a “yes” or a “no” from a representative is usually whether or not the representative feels the manufacturer is looking for a mutually-profitable long‑term partnership.

To succeed recruiting representatives, craft an attractive package that emphasizes the opportunity to build that mutually-profitable long-term partnership. And then you won’t hear any more little white lies.

© Scott Maxwell | stock.adobe.com

Part one of “The Blank Check” appeared in our last issue. Just to recap:

The early morning caller was a manufacturers’ representative. He sounded panicky, and I quickly discovered that his panic was justified.

“About 15 years ago I signed a rep agreement with 30-day cancellation terms. And for 15 years I kept growing that principal’s sales, and never gave it another thought.

“Yesterday I found out that I’d been terminated and that all the commissions I would have received for customers I’d closed over the past 15 years will end in 30 days. This is my #1 line and it’s 50 percent of my income. What can I do?”

In our last issue we discussed a manufacturers’ representative’s options for that principal. We also promised to suggest ways to try to negotiate extended post-termination commission into contracts that have already been signed but have not yet been terminated.

Is that really possible?

Yes, there are occasionally brief windows of opportunity when you can get improved terms written into existing representative agreements. But they generally occur only after a manufacturer has given you other bad news, and that window may be open only for a few days.

What kind of bad news? Most often it’s a phone call or e-mail that does not announce a termination, but does cut the manufacturers’ representative’s income. For example, it could be a commission percentage reduction, a reduction in the manufacturers’ representative’s assigned territory, or taking one or more of the manufacturers’ representative’s accounts as house accounts. (In every instance where manufacturers’ representatives have reported these situations to me, by the way, the manufacturer was not a MANA member!)

If an attorney’s review of your agreement doesn’t reveal any ways to get that unwelcome change reversed, don’t give up. Instead, negotiate for something else to make up for what you’ve lost.

• Commission rate reduced? Negotiate for extended post-termination commissions, life-of-part/life-of-program commissions, additional sales territory, or to convert a current house account into a commissionable account.
• Lost part of your territory? Negotiate for extended post-termination commissions, life-of-part/life-of-program commissions, or to convert a current house account into a commissionable account.
• One of your accounts is now a house account? Negotiate for extended post-termination commissions, life-of-part/life-of-program commissions, or additional sales territory.

Remember, if you have to give something, try to get something. A manufacturer who originally hired you for your negotiating skills shouldn’t expect anything less!

* Your legal recourse for a signed blank check may be better than your recourse for a badly written contract. This column is not legal advice; for definitive information, consult your attorney.

© Scott Maxwell | stock.adobe.com

The call came in early in the morning, long before normal business hours, but I picked up anyway. The caller sounded panicky, and I quickly discovered that his panic was justified.

“About 15 years ago I signed a blank check. No date. No ‘Pay to the Order of.’ No amount. Just my signature. I gave it to someone I’d just recently met, but he seemed so trustworthy. And for 15 years I kept making deposits into that account and never gave it another thought.

“Yesterday I found out that the check I signed 15 years ago was presented to my bank and the account has been cleared out. What can I do?”

OK, that is not exactly what the caller said. But it was close. Here is what the caller actually had to say.

“About 15 years ago I signed a rep agreement with 30-day cancelation terms. No extended post-termination commission. No ‘life-of-part, life-of-program’ clause. I’d only recently met the sales manager, but he seemed so trustworthy. And for 15 years I kept growing that principal’s sales, and never gave it another thought.

“Yesterday I found out that I’d been terminated and that all the commissions I would have received for customers I’d closed over the past 15 years will end in 30 days. This is my number one line and it’s 50 percent of my income. What can I do?”

For this contract and this principal, the only thing you can do is have a rep-savvy attorney read that contract line by line and review the laws of your state and the laws of the places where the principal does business to be sure you know this principal’s obligations to you.

For future contracts with new principals, learn from this experience and negotiate extended post-termination commission and/or “life-of-part, life-of-program” clauses before you sign any new agreements.

For other principals already on your line card, review your contracts to see how many other 30-day “blank check” agreements you’ve signed and watch for opportunities to get those agreements amended to improve your post-termination commission payments.

Pause.

At the end of the last paragraph you probably shook your head in disbelief. “Really? You expect my current principals to renegotiate my post-termination commissions?”

Not often, but occasionally there will be times when asking to add extended post-termination commissions to an existing contract can be put back on the table. Which is the topic for “The Blank Check Part Two” on this page in the next issue of Agency Sales.

* Your legal recourse for a signed blank check may be better than your recourse for a badly written contract. This column is not legal advice; for definitive information, consult your attorney.

© f11photo | stock.adobe.com

Face-to-face.

Good for selling? Yes!

Good for manufacturers’ representative education? Also, yes!

We’ve all heard that the Internet would end face-to-face selling. Yes, it’s changed face-to-face selling, but the overall outlook for manufacturers’ representatives remains strong.

We’ve also heard that the Internet would end face-to-face manufacturers’ representative education. And for a while, face-to-face manufacturers’ representative educational programs did suffer a slump.

But high-quality, face-to-face education is making a comeback, and MANA has joined with the Electronics Representative Association (ERA, www.era.org) to give you an unparalleled opportunity to participate in manufacturers’ representative education on February 25-27, 2018 in Austin, Texas.

The educational session at ERA’s 49th Management and Marketing Conference promises to bring you the kind of company-changing ideas that make the difference between being an average rep firm and a world-class rep firm. And by special arrangement, 25 attendee slots at ERA’s conference have been reserved for MANA members.

The theme of this year’s ERA conference is “Tools of Our Trade — Constructing a Successful Future.” Says ERA Conference Committee Chair Rick LaPiana, the conference focuses on “Tools to help you, your team and your company be more productive and increase your importance to your business partners while sharing your success with them.” Monday morning will include a breakout session with MANA’s CEO.

To view complete details and register for the conference, visit www.era.org and click on the “ERA Conference” button.

The 25 MANA-member attendee slots and rooms at the conference hotel will go quickly, so please visit the ERA website and register soon. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Tried to register too late and all 25 slots were gone?

E-mail Susan Strouse [email protected] and ask to be put on the waiting list for cancellations, added slots, and alternate programming.

© Dan Kosmayer | stock.adobe.com

A cornucopia, often referred to as a “horn of plenty,” is one of the most popular decorations at Thanksgiving. It’s a symbol of abundance, often depicted as overflowing with produce, flowers and nuts.

But sometimes abundance comes with its own set of issues. And it’s the issues raised by abundance and the ways that MANA representative members can capitalize on those issues that are the topics of this Thanksgiving-month article.

MANA manufacturer members report that some searches in MANA’s RepFinder database result in a manageable list of five, 10 or 15 agencies.

But some searches return much bigger lists. A lot bigger: sometimes 50 or even 75 candidates.

Abundance is usually a good thing. But when it comes to a cornucopia of candidates to represent a line, manufacturers have to find ways to trim a list of 50 to eight or 10.

How does a MANA manufacturer member capitalize on this information? By learning how manufacturers trim their lists and positioning themselves to get onto the short list.

This is how manufacturers tell MANA they get to a short list of candidates:

• Download the list of reps into Excel and sort by website. Firms without websites are cut from the list without ever even knowing they might have been in contention.
• Eliminate reps with an “I’ll rep anything” line card, cutting reps whose lines card don’t demonstrate concentration on a particular market or product category. Representatives with lines that include castings, stampings, molded parts, scented candles, and garden tools don’t make the short list.
• Reps whose e-mail addresses don’t match their websites may not make the long list. If a rep’s website is www.repcompany.com but his or her e-mail address is
• @aol.com, it may be enough to keep that representative off the short list.
• A MANA member profile that claims a representative firm with one or two employees covers 12, 20, or even all 50 states suggests lack of focus, and can eliminate that firm from consideration.
• A MANA member profile that claims 20, 30, or even all MANA product categories are sold by one firm also suggests a lack of focus and disqualifies that representative with some manufacturers.
• And a sloppy MANA member profile also can keep a representative firm off the short list. Capitalization and grammar errors may be held against a representative whose profile says “abc rep company sells machine parts to avionocs customers our phone number is 3125551212.”

The first step to getting on manufacturers’ short list of candidates is knowledge of how manufacturers create short lists. And the final, more important step, is acting on that knowledge.

© Noel Powell | stock.adobe.com

“The Stars We Are Given.
The Constellations We Make.”
— Rebecca Solnit

(And why this is important to you and your rep business or rep relationships.)

There really aren’t any constellations.

But, when you view the night sky from a particular hemisphere on earth, facing a specific direction, then unique stars are visible. And a creative stargazer spending enough time staring at the heavens from that particular vantage point will start to see patterns and ways to connect the dots.

The patterns form based not so much on the positions of the stars as on the patterns familiar to that viewer.

So, from ancient stargazers, we have been handed down constellations based on images familiar to ancient stargazers: a scorpion, an eagle, a ram, or a charioteer.

It’s just human nature to take those points of light in the sky and see patterns.

We still do it today, but instead of mentally organizing points of light in the sky to fit our preconceived patterns, we mentally organize data points to fit our preconceived notions.

How is this important to your rep business or rep relationships?

Our rep and manufacturer members are awash in data points. Value of products sold, amount of commission paid, percentage of sales leads closed, and orders shipped on time, among many others.

And when it comes to reps and manufacturers, that sea of data points is just waiting for each party to interpret them according to their own preconceived notions.

Viewing the same data points, one sees a great sales year, but another sees great growth for only a single customer. One sees commissions paid to a rep firm exceeding the manufacturers’ CEO’s income, the other sees that firm’s commission spread among 10 of the rep firm’s salespeople.

Once those dots are connected and those business-results constellations are formed, there is little hope of changing anyone’s perceptions. After all, the lines were imaginary in the first place. How can you change imaginary lines in someone’s head?

But you can change their preconceived notions before they form the lines.

Have a conversation about the importance of gross sales vs. the number of new customers brought on board. Let the manufacturer know that the money he or she invests with your rep firm goes to support the efforts of 10 salespeople instead of going into your own pocket.

Then when the data points arrive, the information you’ve supplied will be the framework in which those data points are stored. So, when the time comes, the lines your partners use to connect those dots will be seen as a value instead of a cost.

It’s up to you to give your partners context before they interpret your mutual data points. With context, you can prepare them to connect the dots of your data points into a charioteer instead of a scorpion.

© Ron Dale | stock.adobe.com

Be nice to people you meet on the way up.

No. Not because you meet the same people on the way down.

Be nice to the people you meet on the way up because they are on their way up too!

It’s your opportunity to invest like a venture capitalist, except you are investing in your career instead of your stock portfolio.

Let me explain.

A venture capitalist invests in early-stage ventures with lots of upside potential. Many of these ventures fail. Some break even. And a very small percentage are so wildly successful that they make venture capitalists rich, even after they’ve paid off all their bad bets.

For example, in 2004 venture capitalist Peter Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook in exchange for 10.2 percent of Facebook’s stock. Thiel cashed out his stock in 2012 for $1 billion. Regardless of how Thiel’s other 2004 investments turned out, that was a pretty good year for Thiel. (Today Facebook is valued at $350 billion dollars.)

Your opportunity to invest in your career like a venture capitalist is to invest your time with people who have lots of upside potential instead of investing your money in early stage ventures with lots of upside potential.

Who are these people with upside potential? Colleagues in your own firm who might need a mentor, perhaps a more experienced executive mentoring a Millennial. A promising manufacturer who has no existing business but who offers independent manufacturers’ representatives a contract that includes shared market development fees and/or “life-of-part, life-of-program” commissions. A startup rep who has the promise to do great things representing your manufacturing company.

Venture capitalists expect that some of the ventures in which they invest will fail. And you should expect that some of the people you mentor, some of the prospective clients you help, and some of the manufacturers of new products will never turn a profit for you.

But if you make a few Thiel-like choices, the big winners will more than cover your losses.

And, perhaps more important, it’s a powerful way to insulate your career and your firm from the commoditization of Internet selling.

Websites may be able to compete with you on price and delivery, but the one area where websites can’t compete with you is in the long relationships you have with important decision-makers — relationships based on the time you gave those decision-makers before they were important, and the trust you built when they were just promising beginners starting on their way up.

If you’d like to know important people who will take your calls and buy your products 10 years from now, invest some time with promising early-stage executives today. One of them could be your Facebook!

© gunawanteguh | stock.adobe.com

Working Together So Everybody Wins

This is a true story.

Six non-competing manufacturers now have an informal alliance to share the cost and benefits of expensive resources that would be too costly for them to deploy on their own. Listing their products illustrates how these companies’ product lines fit the same market but don’t overlap, making it practical for each company to comfortably share resources with companies that are not its competitors.

• CNC Machining
• Electroplating
• Metal Fabrication
• Rapid Prototyping
• Stamping
• Swiss Precision Turning

Because they are not competitors, their informal alliance lets them share sales leads, best practices, and even their sales force. So, when the electroplater gets a sales lead, the electroplater’s offering is presented to the prospect first, but then the stamper gets a crack at the same customer, as do all the other manufacturers. And had the stamper had gotten the lead first, the electroplater and all the other manufacturers would get a crack at the same customer.

And when one creates a best practice in, say, vendor managed inventory or bin stocking, each of the others will hear about it and have the chance to create similar programs.

How is such an informal alliance created and maintained?

These six manufacturers, and others, share the same outsourced sales force company, or manufacturers’ representative, to manage their sales in a particular territory.

The representative is a territory clearing house for all leads received by any manufacturer on the representatives’ line card. When any manufacturer on the representative’s line card has a sales lead in that territory, that manufacturer’s product is presented to the prospect first, but the representative eventually exposes all the complementary non-competing products on that representative’s line card to that prospect, so eventually every manufacturer gets the benefit of all the leads that representative receives.

As manufacturers on the representative’s line card develop best practices, the representative is the conduit through which each non-competing manufacturer often learns about those best practices. If there is a new development in project tracking or lead management, each of the complementary, non-competing manufacturers will likely first hear about it from a representative. Some manufacturers even take that a step further and tap their best and brightest representatives to serve on their Representative Council and serve as the manufacturers’ informal executive peer review board.

This is why manufacturers’ representatives are not just a manufacturer’s stepping stone on the way to being able to afford a direct sales force. Representatives can also be the means to informally collaborate with manufacturers of complementary non-competing products, making representatives a “secret weapon” manufacturers can deploy to outperform competitors who go to market with captive sales forces.

© Zlatko Guzmic | stock.adobe.com

Many representatives report that a common quality of their favorite principals is that they “Let me figure out the best way to do my job and let my results speak for themselves.”

So when MANA VP and General Manager Jerry Leth came to me a little over two years ago with the idea that MANA should facilitate the formation of Special Interest Groups (SIGs), I took a cue from our representative members’ favorite principals and asked Jerry to spearhead the program, manage it as he saw fit, and keep me updated on his progress.

And progress is just what Jerry has achieved, with five robust Special Interest Groups in regular contact on topics that serve a particular subset of MANA members:

• The Professional Development Council (PDC) focuses on professional development resources for our representative members, enhancing our current offering and giving guidance on the resources needed to complete MANA’s wealth of knowledge. Most recently the group helped draft an Agency Sales magazine article on what to do when principals ask for lengthy reports for their online CRMs.
• The Manufacturers Educational Development Council (MEDC) mirrors the PDC, but from the manufacturers’ perspective. In addition to helping recast MANA’s Nine Steps to Being a Quality Principal Program, the MEDC also had helped guide the Agency Sales article on principal’s online CRMs.
• The OEM Aerospace Special Interest Group (OASIG) shares knowledge and experiences of the group in dealing with the unique issues of the aerospace industry, such as its procurement practices and extensive industry/supplier consolidation.
• The International Special Interest Group (ISIG) gives MANA members who sell into international markets or represent international principals the opportunity to discuss topics like the challenges of vetting international principals or being vetted by them, the added risk of having to collect commissions across international boundaries, and how to best communicate with companies where employees with English fluency are more the exception than the rule.
• The Young Professionals Organization (YPO) is a forum where younger, millennial manufacturers’ representatives can share solutions and best practices to deal with the unique issues they face.

Although each of these SIGs addresses concerns of a very different group of MANA members, they do all have one thing in common. They exist because a talented and dedicated guy took ownership of the SIG program and ran with it. And because the CEO, like some of our representative members’ favorite principals, had the good sense to “let him figure out the best way to do his job and let his results speak for themselves.”

Special thanks to Jerry for launching and managing this very successful program. If you have a suggestion for a SIG that would add value to MANA members, you can reach Jerry at [email protected] or (949) 600-6465.

One of my first trips to speak to manufacturers’ representatives after becoming MANA’s CEO in 2011 was to speak to the Manufacturers’ Agents of Cincinnati (MAC). It’s been a regular stop for me ever since, and it was a thrill on my most recent visit to find 35 manufacturers’ agents and manufacturers registered to take part in a “PowerPoint-Free Zone.”

The “PowerPoint-Free Zone” at the Manufacturers’ Agents of Cincinnati (MAC) meeting.

The “PowerPoint-Free Zone” has become one of MANA’s most popular presentation formats, and its heritage goes back to my first MAC visit six years ago. It was common practice then, and remains common practice today, to pick a topic, prepare a slide deck, launch a speech, and hope that the audience that had arrived to receive it was the right audience for the message you had prepared.

It’s the public speaking equivalent of broadcasting: Crafting a message for the audience you hope to attract, and trusting the pull of that message to attract that target audience at the time and place it will be delivered.

Over the years, two things became apparent.

1. PowerPoint overload at work left audiences with little tolerance for PowerPoint outside of work.

2. Q&A after the PowerPoint was often much more dynamic and powerful than the presentation that preceded it.

With this in mind, MANA’s “PowerPoint-Free Zone” was born.

Instead of MANA picking a topic and hoping it would resonate with the audience, we launch each “PowerPoint-Free Zone” presentation with 15 minutes on a topic chosen to elicit questions and vigorous discussion, and then open the floor for Q&A.

Special thanks to MANA Past Chairperson Tom Hayward for his regular outreach to get me onto MAC’s speaker agenda once again.

The audience decides what they want to discuss, and we discuss it. Vigorously. Productively. No holds barred.

Instead of broadcasting, it’s narrowcasting. Instead of our chosen topics, it’s the audience’s chosen topics. And some of the best insights are shared not by the presenter, but by members of the audience.

It’s not unlike the advice we get from sales trainers, applied to audiences instead of prospective customers. Instead of telling prospective customers everything you know, according to most sales trainers, find out what they are interested in, listen more than you talk, and help them find useful solutions. Sage advice for salespeople and MANA presenters!