Manufacturers' Reps: Your Trusted, Proven Resource in the Field--05/21

Manufacturers' Reps: Your Trusted, Proven Resource in the Field

You have heard it from MANA, from manufacturers, and from reps. In the new normal, manufacturers that sell through reps have significant advantages over manufacturers with a captive sales force: In uncertain times, customers don’t take risks with untested vendors. They turn to trusted, proven resources for the products they need to keep their companies running. And, more likely than not, those trusted resources are manufacturers’ reps who may have a decade or two of history with their customers. When customers’ buyers and engineers abruptly had to pull up stakes and work from home, regular communication channels often were disrupted. Only trusted, proven resources like manufacturers’ reps were entrusted with customers’ personal cellphone numbers and permitted to text as needed to keep customers up-to-date with information about mission-critical products they need to keep their companies running. Face-to-face video chat appointments are granted only to those same trusted, proven resources. A stranger’s request has a slim-to-none chance of getting a video chat appointment. So if your product needs face-to-face demonstrations, but you don’t have trusted, proven rep resources as your salesforce, you are out of luck.

But there is another aspect of the new customers-working-from-home normal that has not gotten much attention. It’s flextime. Let me explain. Customers who work from home have discovered that their jobs are to get their work done. But not necessarily between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. What does having customers working unconventional times of day mean to reps? I rarely see a rep who doesn’t check emails outside conventional office hours. Reps are there when customers working flexible hours need answers. When there is an emergency, customers know that reps reply faster than manufacturers, who will likely respond during the next business day. Reps, go ahead and strut your customer-first attitude. It’s flextime.

A fellow sales representative on the West Coast, who happens to sell for the same principal that I do, recently phoned to let me know that the company management wanted to know from her, why I did not want to renew my contract. My initial response to her was “Why are they asking you, and not me?” I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised this took place given everything that has happened over the past two years.

The February issue of Agency Sales magazine profiled a MANA-member firm that at its beginning was willing to take on any line it could secure. Once the agency turned the corner to profitability, however, the agency owner explained, “Now we keep our product focus narrow and limited so we can effectively serve the objectives of the manufacturer, designer, builder and distributor.”

The practice and the accompanying benefits of line productivity analysis are hardly new. Consider the description of the process and the advice offered on the subject earlier this year by MANA’s Charles Cohon during the MANAchat described elsewhere in this issue of Agency Sales. In addition, the subject was discussed and analyzed in depth in the Operations Manual for Manufacturers’ Representatives Firms, a lengthy publication produced with MANA’s assistance in 2006. In that manual the following endorsement for line productivity analysis was offered: “Regardless of the size of your representative firm, knowing and understanding each line’s profitability is crucial.”

It’s been more than two decades since Agency Sales magazine visited with Maureen Ingram, owner of The M&M Sales Company, and while over the years change has remained a constant for her agency, there are three things that haven’t changed: Her adherence to the power of focus. Her belief that strong relationships serve as the foundation for her agency’s success. And finally, the maintenance of one of the agency’s core beliefs to provide POS (Positively Outrageous Service). The Columbus, Ohio-based agency represents a variety of manufacturers that sell products to gift shops, grocery stores, pharmacies, hospital gift shops, major chains, and more.