In most cases the factory person has not read the contract their company has with the rep company. In most cases the factory person does not know much about the financial or performance criteria that are in place between the factory that he or she represents as an employee and the factory that the rep represents as a contracted outsourced seller. In most cases the factory person has little or no knowledge or appreciation for the history between the factory and the rep firm.
All of this does not make for a successful working relationship between factory personnel and the reps.
What will make the relationship between manufacturer and rep work better?
The rep’ s profile— the first time a factory person visits the rep he or she should be given a copy of the rep’ s profile and walked through it to gain a complete understanding of the rep’ s territory, approach to business, and market position. This assumes that the rep firm has an excellent profile. Line card— again on a first visit, the manufacturer’ s personnel should be given a total overview of the rep’ s lines and how they fit together into a solid multiple-line selling package. Customer review— the rep personnel should walk the manufacturer’ s personnel through the customers and give them a good overview of their operations, what they buy from the rep, and other opportunities, especially with their factory’ s products. Forecast three to six months— the future sales of the individual manufacturer’ s product is key to any visit with a factory person. The rep should be thoroughly prepared to discuss their forecast of sales for the manufacturer. Looking forward and discussing what the rep sees is a critical part of the relationship. The rep is the eyes and ears of the manufacturer. Issues— do any issues exist with customers? If so, how should the rep and the manufacturer move forward? Other issues, problems and concerns— is there anything else not discussed as a part of the five items above?
Summary
The care and feeding of the rep’ s principals is a big job which requires a lot of time and careful thought. This article is designed to get the rep firm leadership focused and advancing thought about the way they work with every manufacturer on their line card. Making an aggressive, highly professional alliance with the manufacturer’ s personnel is a great way to build success and make the working relationship work.
Remember you are backselling at all times when you are face to face with personnel from your manufacturers.
MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at mana @ manaonline. org.