The Never-Ending Search for Good Salespeople
Challenges and Strategies in Modern Sales Recruitment
When rep firms today find themselves in need of attracting, hiring and retaining productive salespeople, they can face a daunting task. In years past, filling sales slots was the fairly simple act of promoting a family member, or attracting someone from a competitor (or principal), training them in the needs of your market, and sitting back to watch the results. But now, how times have changed! A number of trends are at work, today, to drastically impact how and where agencies can satisfy their sales staffing needs.
Generational Shifts in Sales
Attitudinal differences between older generations of reps vs. the new crop of outsourced salespeople. Differences in how the job is performed today vs. yesterday. Lack of teaching and knowledge in academic circles concerning who and what reps are.
Not Your Grandfather’s Rep Firm
The fact that manufacturers’ representatives are no longer toiling in their grandfather’s work environment is identified as one of the rep profession’s major challenges, acknowledges Robert W. Wendover. Wendover, director of the The Center for Generational Studies (www.gentrends.com) in Aurora, Colorado, maintains that if agency owners want to experience success in populating their agencies with trained professionals in the future, “They had better come to terms with the impact of this sea change.” The Center for Generational Studies conducts research, produces seminars and publishes resources on how the generations relate to one another in American society.
Embracing Change
Wendover’s advice on the critical need to embrace change as it pertains to rep salespeople is echoed by Charley Cohon, CPMR, Prime Devices, Inc., Morton Grove, Illinois. “Every day I experience the different means of communication employed by younger people engaged in our marketing channel,” he explains. “I’ve got any number of customers and principals that you can only communicate with via e-mail. No matter how many notes or voice messages you leave, you’re not going to receive an answer. But pose a question via e-mail regarding a quote or a delivery and they get right back to you. It’s a little bit like asking yourself what’s the best way to communication with a Frenchman? In French, naturally. It’s the same with younger people. If you want to get their attention and communicate with them efficiently, communicate with them via the latest technology.”
Generational Considerations in Hiring
Also keeping an eye on generational considerations when it comes to how agencies should be filling sales positions is Rick Johnson, CPMR, Andrews-Johnson-Brusacoram, Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to Johnson, “How you populate the sales positions of your agency is important especially when you consider the age of the agency. For example, look at our agency for a moment. We deal with distributors and we started in the business about the same time many of the distributor decision-makers started. We grew into our positions together. At the same time, it ought to be important that if there are younger people making decisions for your customers, that you have younger people in place to work with them.
Keeping Them Once They’re Hired
Once reps have been fortunate enough to hire what they hope are professional salespeople, then they face the challenging task of keeping them — especially those who have proven themselves to be especially apt at sales. According to Norton, there are two important ingredients when it comes to retaining individuals: succession planning and continued education/training. “A key here,” he says, “is that to attract top salespeople you’ve got to give them something as an incentive to stay. That’s where succession planning comes in. They’ve got to know that there’s something in it for them long-term. A problem can occur, however, after you explained to someone that somewhere down the line a percentage of the business is theirs for the taking, then some seem to wallow in obscurity or even relish mediocre performance. That’s where education/training comes in. When you look at younger generations, there are many among them who never seem to want to leave college to start their professional lives. That’s why continual education on the job is imperative. Luckily for reps there is a clear-cut path for education, and that’s MRERF’s CPMR program. Add to that desire to be educated the comfort and familiarity that younger people have with technology. Pander to that need, and make sure they have at their disposal the requisite technological tools to not only do their jobs better, but also to keep their interest in the job at a high level.”
Immersed in the Process
Contacted right in the middle of the search process — looking to fill two sales positions for his agency — MANA District Director Richard Sinclair, CPMR, Applied Process Equipment, Inc., Scottsdale, Arizona, has opted to follow the least expensive, albeit most time-consuming, solution to his problem. “Any place I go, anybody I’m speaking to, I ask them if they know of anyone they could recommend for the positions I’m looking to fill. I ask if they’ve run into any ‘one-man armies’ that can really get the job done,” he explains. Sinclair continues that while he’s been loath to place ads in newspapers because that hardly ever works to his satisfaction, he has dabbled a bit with some Arizona-based job websites. However, he finds that the asking-everybody approach works best.
Conclusion
As rep firm principals consider the various hurdles they face when it comes to attracting salespeople to the rep profession and to their agencies, it’s remarkable how optimistic many of them remain as they consider the future: Charley Cohon is blessed owing to the long tenure he enjoys with most of his staff. As he looks to the future, he notes, “The major reason I’m optimistic is that I never planned for myself to be a rep. I was on an entirely different career path. That’s why I think we’ll be able to attract others like ourselves because there are plenty of entrepreneurial opportunities for all of us.” Likewise, Rick Johnson maintains, “The fact that manufacturers work with reps to efficiently go to market will always serve as an attraction to the rep profession. That, coupled with the entrepreneurial spirit that remains alive and well in this country, will always allow us to find the right people for our agency.”