MANA Member Experiences and Insights

Understanding Member Needs

I’d like to share two quick stories about our experience asking MANA members what they want. The first story comes from MANA’s Board of Directors’ preparation for its Strategic Planning session. MANA has many member benefits. The Board knew it couldn’t build a roadmap for MANA’s future until they knew which of those benefits were most highly valued by our members. So we asked them. We discovered MANA members’ number one priority was for MANA to provide the world’s most robust and powerful rep search tools. So the Board’s number one priority became the new RepFinder® smartphone app.

Enhancing Tools with Feedback

The second story comes from MANA’s experience after launching the RepFinder® app. We needed to know how we could continue to improve the rep search process the app offers to manufacturers. So we asked them. Kent Gladish (left) with TMA members participating in MANA’s focus group. In this case, we wanted face-to-face live feedback from manufacturers as they used the app to conduct rep searches, so we needed to assemble a focus group. I turned to a longtime friend of MANA, Kent Gladish of the Schaumburg, Illinois-based Technology and Manufacturing Association (TMA) for help. I asked if he might be able to get five or 10 TMA manufacturer members to sit down with us, use the app, and give us their feedback. Kent graciously put out the word, but instead of five or 10 volunteers, we got 38! Their insightful feedback will help MANA to continue to improve and enhance the world’s most robust rep search tool — crucial feedback that we only received because we asked for it.

Customer-Centric Sales Approach

Do you want to outpace your competitors? Ask your customers what they want! You will get the information you need and will earn your customers’ loyalty and respect. Ask them! Sales are about relationships. Take any sales course today and you learn your purpose is not to get purchase orders but to help customers solve problems. If the customer senses that, they start to trust you and they go on to buy from you. MANA strongly supports the concept that professional manufacturers’ representatives need to also treat the manufacturers they represent as customers. The relationship you create with your principals needs to be high-trust. When your principal trusts you, you work together as partners. The result? You increase orders, a benefit for both of you.

Feedback and Continuous Improvement

Shortly after Craig Deerman opened his own agency doors two years ago, he arrived at a couple of valuable observations learned while sitting on the manufacturer’s and rep’s side of the desk. Deerman, Deerman Sales, Birmingham, Alabama, armed with 18 years of unique expertise in the residential, commercial and decorative plumbing products’ markets, noted that networking for reps is a bit of a different game from what he had previously experienced as a manufacturer. And, manufacturers aren’t always knowledgeable and appreciative of everything that reps do on their behalf.

Training and Development Insights

Over the last 45 years, I’ve hired and trained many outside and inside salespeople. I’ve made a lot more hiring mistakes than wins. This writing is to hopefully help you, the manager, make fewer mistakes than I did. Sales professionals can also learn to stay in touch with previous supervisors. Make checking references an integral part of the interviewing process, not just a formality. The tendency is to ask easy questions, hoping no red flags come up that would cause you to question the decision you have already made to hire the person.

Challenges and Opportunities in Sales

COVID-19 Relief Programs Bypass Reps, Says MANA Member I have been a MANA member since 2016, and have greatly benefited from your services. My agency, North Central Manufacturing Solutions, represents suppliers of factory automation and test equipment, and sells to Fortune 500 manufacturers in the Upper Midwest. I am sure that many MANA members are feeling the effects that the coronavirus has had on the economy. While almost all of us have fought and survived through economic downturns, we have not experienced “shelter-in-place,” which shuts down factories, and prevents suppliers from executing. If shelter-in-place goes nationwide, and lasts for months, …