Step 4 - Develop Trust and Open Communications With Manufacturers’ Reps

While it may be impossible to identify what follows as a trend, the fact remains there have been a number of MANA members who have recently contacted the association with their thoughts on what some term as “onerous” requirements that they provide regular updates to their principals on their principals’ CRM systems. At the very least, if it’s not a trend, it’s certainly an area of concern.

Perhaps serving as a preface to a discussion of this subject are comments that have appeared recently in Agency Sales. For instance:

• “Maintaining a manufacturer’s CRM (often salesforce.com), rep salespeople lose time generating the data and the rep’s data entry team has to be sized to keep up with those updates.” — April 2020

• “Today all principals want you to stay in touch with them — on their CRM systems — which are not ours. I’m the first one to understand and appreciate the fact that our principals need to have eyes on projects and opportunities in the funnel which helps them plan for their business. But every time the salesperson has to provide the factory with a report, it is a drain on the salesperson’s time to advance opportunities and uncover new ones. Time is the single and most important avenue for growth. The more face time we have with our customers, the greater the volume and quality in the funnel. Consider that our agency has seven sales guys out in the field. If each of them has three and a half hours of reports each week, our principals have to know they’re losing twenty-four and a half hours of selling time each week. While reporting is needed, we must mitigate the amount of time spent on it.” — June 2019

In partial response to those important points, one recently retired West Coast rep noted that his agency was faced with the task of submitting such reports, but thankfully the head of his agency took the load off his salespeople and did all the reporting himself—thus freeing his people to do what they do best, that is, sell, sell, sell.

Shedding some additional real-world light on this subject, one rep volunteered that in terms of relations with one of his principals, “We’re entering some uncharted territory here. I work with a manufacturer that is actively pursuing a CRM platform. What they’re proposing is that we capture every interaction with customers. On the one hand, I have an interest in assisting them when it comes to employing tools that will track some activities. On the other hand, however, I’m against including every interaction.”

He continued, “They’ve asked me to participate in a demonstration of the platform. Having done that, I’ve been fairly vocal when it comes to voicing my opinion when it comes to including all that they want.

“It’s interesting that when I give them my opinion, the sales manager who manages the outsourced sales team understands the terms of our contract, but the president and general manager of the company don’t really see this as some sort of separate function that I would be performing. I believe they think I’m afraid that I’m being watched.”

The rep concludes that what is needed here, is “for us to arrive at a happy medium — perhaps a quarterly report or some other interval where I can describe some milestones that will provide them the visibility of whom I am calling on.

The bottom line here is that manufacturers pay me to get orders; they don’t compensate me for describing how I get the order. That’s something I do at my own direction.”

And that’s hardly the only thought on the subject. Another rep offered, “Reporting is important but sometimes the add on for CRM and technology is a challenge for people who need to do what they do best — sell! We make our intentions clear to each principal, and most understand our approach. We don’t use their system, just ours, and we don’t spend countless hours writing call reports, or as a former boss called them, dissertations. If the sales rep stays on top of their funnel and data collection as they go, a report for the principal is just a click away, and the variations that can be offered via Salesforce are somewhat endless.

“But we are not above saying that they might need to hire someone to input data. If you can hire someone for a lesser rate, can you really afford to spend the sales force’s time (taking them from millions of dollars in calls) for excessive reports?”

Weighing in on this subject earlier this year was Marnee Palladino, CEO and president of MARN, Inc., Middlebury Connecticut. Writing a column for Agency Sales, she noted that a recently upgraded CRM platform “is going to make our day-to-day lives better. It allows us to easily input notes after a meeting, send post-meeting follow-up emails to prospects and customers, and share line specific information with the touch of a button — all from our smart phones.”

Adding to those thoughts, she recently commented, “I agree that the reporting is onerous. However, I do feel strongly that there is value in providing reports as well as a monthly discussion (20-30 minutes) to our principal lines because it reminds the principal of what we are doing for them — our value. I think the best way we can do that is to be sure our CRM can export an accurate report on accounts we are qualifying and the prospects and customers we are working on for them.”

Palladino is hardly alone in crediting CRM with making her business life a bit more palatable. Adding to the conversation is Bob Foster, who heads Foster Engineered Products, Phoenix, Arizona. Foster, who is also the owner of Bid Track Sell, which is an app on the Salesforce platform customized for the rep and manufacturing industry, explains, “Our agency struggles with the issue of trying to meet the demands of data input required by the manufacturers we represent.’’

Managing Data

“We have learned over the last couple years the manufacturers that require us to input data also are extracting very elementary information because they do not know how to manage their data. They are drinking from the data firehose and paying greatly to store the data. Data storage is a huge business so you will not hear any cloud-based company speak against data collection.

“That said, the CRM we use to track our projects and sales has been instrumental in our success and growth. We have worked out with many of the manufacturers we represent as to what data they want and provide them with a monthly report set up for them to import into their system. This method allows us to use our CRM and provide the manufacturers with the data they need.

“If you are going to actively participate with your CRM (100 percent adoption), they can be very good tools. If you do not have 100 percent adoption, then CRM will not provide the answers you are seeking. Customers that do not have 100 percent adoption of their CRM hate their CRM and view it as a waste of time and money. All of our repeat Bid Track Sell customers say they could not live without it. CRMs are sold as the answers to your issues, but the truth is they require a lot of input and a lot of maintenance.

“I don’t know if this is a good analogy, but a car is a great tool to get you from A to B, but it requires gas. A CRM will get you the information (A to B) you seek, but it requires gas (data).”

Rationalizing the Time

John Beaver, GSA Optimum, Oakdale, New York, emphasizes, “It’s a fact, CRMs are here to stay and reps need to become comfortable with it. The question is, how can reps rationalize the extra time required to do the keystrokes?

“As I like to say, ‘Technology giveth, and sometimes taketh it away.’ Time is what I’m referring too. Over time, technology has afforded reps the ability to work smarter and faster and CRMs, once considered a time bandit, are no exception.

When manufacturers use CRMs correctly (which most have and do), in actuality, their use becomes a time saver and revenue generator. For example, before CRMs, preparing for an upcoming Quarterly Business Review would take days to gather the data, prepare the infamous PowerPoint, etc.; now there is very little prep work needed as every detail about every account has already been entered into the CRM.”

Greg Matthews says, “I wish I had a silver bullet for you but alas, I do not.” Matthews, a partner in Keller Industrial Products, Inc., Clarence, New York, continues, “We do frequently push back and have an agreement with most manufacturers about the dollar level of opportunities that need to be loaded and followed. With some they wanted almost all opportunities over $5k loaded. That simply will not work for us. We have established a bottom threshold for our manufacturers’ CRMs to be between $25K-$50k. This does cut out quite a few but we are still doing the reporting. If they want more, that tells me they are babysitting a rep, which is never good.

Typical CRM Problem

And finally, Kurt Nelson, CPMR, a retired rep who served as the CRM specialist for NEMRA, offers, “If I understand the issue correctly, there is a complaint that most principals want communication on the factory-owned CRM systems; yet when they want an update on a project or want a report, the rep must do the work even though the information is in the system.

“This is a typical problem in any corporation that utilizes CRM. If the president does not learn the system and utilize it himself, then those below him do not bother to learn it. If the VPs just pay it lip service and do not know how to do things on the system, then the regionals quickly learn they do not have to learn it because their boss does not know it. Therefore, manufacturers as a rule continue to ask for reports or updates, etc., because they do not know how to capture the information from the system on their own. This is also the beginning of the end of a CRM system at a factory because no one is willing to state the truth that no one in the sales chain at corporate really embraced it or became a cheerleader for it, so the system itself gets blamed, and they switch to a more ‘user-friendly’ brand. This is a universal problem in all industries, and I experienced it with major manufacturers. Our firm was a couple of steps ahead of manufacturers in CRM execution and culture, so we gladly provided the requested reports because we knew that the direct territories could not perform upon request like we did, and we demonstrated our value over the direct model each time.”

Nelson continues, “I disagree strongly with the statement that it is a drain on the salesperson’s time to advance opportunities and uncover new ones. The gentleman who stated that is not utilizing CRM and the opportunity funnel as it is meant to be used. It sounds like his firm is using it as a product to create reports rather than a tool that enables salespeople to identify leads, determine if the customer has a reason or need to buy, to be auto reminded to perform certain tasks, etc. The salesperson who is utilizing CRM properly can track more opportunities, drop fewer balls, and close more business because he relies on the system to remind him what the next step is on the next call, and when to do it.’

It’s All About Time

“I agree, however, with the comment about time. The Good Lord gave each of us 24 hours a day, and what separates the mediocre from the excellent is the way we utilize our time. The whole argument about the guys being out of the field is way off base. CRM updating and report writing did not just pop up in the garden in the last couple of years. When I started off in this business, I did not know my customers, I did not know my products well, let alone the competition’s products and any advantages either had. I represented our main line back then, so I had to learn that line, plus understand additional lines to be able to talk with knowledge and recommend solutions. I also had to learn about each end-user I called on, what they made, who was who, and we did not have the Internet back then. And I had to do monthly reports as well. My point is this: I still had to make 5-7 sales calls a day and I did my reports, studied the catalogs and planned my calls with goals at night so I could be effective during the day. Any salesperson who wants to excel must realize that sales is not an 8-5 job, and there is stuff to do when customers are not available to be seen.’

“For those with families, the time might be after dinner and when the kids are in bed, or it might be very early in the morning before the family is up. It does not need to happen every night, and there is flexibility. There is also the lunch hour if the salesperson failed to obtain a lunch date with a customer. I apologize that I do not provide the wisdom the reps might be looking for on this point, but I believe what I have to share is a reminder of what the sales role requires and for the salespeople to ‘buck it up.’

Nelson adds that “I am an advocate of the rep firm having their own primary system despite having to upload to many manufacturer systems. Why? When a rep loses a line, all those contacts, opportunities, etc., are lost when the manufacturer shuts off their license. There is always the question of who owns the data, and when you have your own system, the rep will retain valuable account information that they inherited when they took on the line.

“When a rep has their own system, the field rep can utilize the CRM like it is meant to be used by a field salesperson. It sounds like many of the reps are turning in paper reports with the required field information in the specific manufacturer’s system, and a clerk in the office types it into the system. Generally, a manager will have to review what will be sent to catch something that should not be said. That is a lot of work indeed.

“By having your own system, it is easy to have a computer company map over fields from the rep’s system into the manufacturer’s system, so the rep can upload in batches weekly.”

In conclusion, he notes, “The bottom line is that I get a strong sense that these reps are using CRM because the manufacturers want information, rather than using a system of their own, that is a mighty tool, that assists them to identify, track and close more business than without using a CRM. They are chasing the tails of the manufacturers vs. proactively running their operation effectively with CRM.”

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