Line Retention and Acquistion for Manufacturers Representatives
DataForceCRM How to Guide Line Retention and Acquisition for Manufacturers Reps A Business and Technology Review for Manufacturers Reps
The Scene... A Rep Owner's Office:
It was a busy Monday morning and the rep firm's owner had finished a quick sales meeting with his team and was about to be late for a customer meeting. The accident on the other side of the highway had the rubber-neckers crawling along. While moving slowly the exec was working his day over in his mind. The customer visit, then a quick trip to the airport to pick up his principal, and then back to the office for a 2 hour rep review and a grilling on last quarters results vs. the new forecast. The principal had called Thursday to relay his trip plans and the short notice was due to the loss of an very large order that everyone was counting as done. As the traffic crept slowly along his cell phone rang and from the display he recognized his largest prinicpal's phone number. His cheerful hello quickly dissolved into confusion, anger and despair as the color slowly left his face...
Manufacturer Representatives Agreements
The confusion was due to the message the new Regional Sales Manager was relaying... He was being fired! The RSM had only been on the job for six months and was moving the line to a rep firm he had previously worked with and knew well. The anger... only six months prior he had dropped his 3rd largest line on the RSM's request due to a perceived conflict with his line. His head started to throb and the immediate urge was to reach through the phone and strangle the young pup...
Violence, although a welcome mental picture, was not the solution and the rep would recover because after all he was a professional and he had recovered from the same situation in the past. His disappointment had turned to anger and now into action. He would re-evaluate his firm's business practices and vow to do everything possible to prevent this from happening again. A systematic plan was put in place. This paper describes his plan. What Business Am I Really In?
"Just who is my customer?" Lots of cliches float around the rep business including:
* "lines come and go but your customer relationships are most important", * "my real customer is my principal as that is who hires me, pays me and the work I do is to call on accounts for them" * " got 9 lines... 3 coming, 3 going and 3 I'm working"
There may be some relevancy in each of these but just how does the manufacturers rep firm win this two front war as by definition, the rep is in between the principal and the customer. The answer is performance and not just for one or the other but for both. The manufacturer rep must bring value to the customer by introducing, selling, and supporting the principal's products, and must effectively cover the territory and provide market intelligence, management of both direct and distribution sales and most importantly... produce sales results. Select Compatible Lines
For a rep owner, selecting lines that are truly compatible and non-competing can result in the optimal rep business model of Multiple Line Selling. This concept is certainly not new, however in the 1980's Jack Berman brought this clearly into focus with his book "Synergistic Selling" and followed this with seminars, newsletters and appearances at gatherings of reps such as ERA, NEDA, NEMRA and others.
But the question is how do I manage 10 or more principals, each of whom are demanding 100 of their time on non-sales activities. Just think how much your bottom line profitability could be increased if only 5 or 6 hours per week per salesperson could be converted from data entry clerk to selling. Start With Organization
How do you manage hundreds of customers with thousands of contacts, activities for multiple principals, distribution channels, leads from every direction, many different report demands and tie this all to a commission statement at the end of the day. Although today's technology allows us to integrate multiple applications and databases into a single, easy-to-use, web-based tool, many reps still have different systems (some manual) to track contacts, opportunities, do reporting and reconcile commissions.
First of all you need a web based tool so data is available to everyone from any location where you have an Internet connection. Today that is virtually anywhere from office, home, hotels or WiFi Hot Spots at airports or Starbucks. Plus you can add a PCMCIA card to your laptop and access the Internet while you are driving (or rather sitting stopped in traffic). Soon many areas will have WiMAX so in the very near future you will never be without a connection. A Good Sales Tool will Save Time
Before starting a discussion on sales automation or organizational tools for your company make sure you address one of the most important aspects to guarantee success... ease of use. No system will be worthwhile if your salespeople don't use it, and they will push back on inputting data if they have to drill down from screen to screen to input or edit their data. A tool should be a time saver and make the salesman more productive, otherwise the investment is counterproductive. Today's newest technology, properly designed and employed will allow the salespeople to do all of their operations from one or two screens with edits and inputs being done directly into these screens to update the database. Fast, efficient and a real time saver. Save time by organizing your data
Organizing your accounts and contacts is pretty straight-forward as the same data is required as was with the old Roladex or older programs such as ACT! or Goldmine. The real organization begins with capturing very granular detail about each Project and Opportunity. In today's global sales environment you need to capture detailed data such as project, board, quantities, internal part number, manufacturer's part number, distributor (if involved), contract manufacturer (if outsourced), design-win date, production date, customer engineers and buyers involved and other relevant data that will help you to manage the project, report to your principal and most importantly... collect on commissions due.
What to do next...
DataForceCRM has developed a 30 Minute Small Business Management Tune-Up which we conduct over the telephone with you and your top staff members. Here is what we accomplish together in this fast-paced, zero-nonsense session:
1. Organize all your critical data: A borderline problem can be quickly and easily corrected so long as you know what a critical misstep not to take. We will walk you through our three step process (which takes literally about six minutes) and shows you exactly how to carry this out in no more than 1 2 weeks. This will immediately enhance your effectiveness as an executive and maximize your on-line sales tool effectiveness. 2. Time Management Problems: Lying awake at night worried about maxxing out your sales effectiveness and getting more done in the day? We have helped hundreds of clients clear this hurdle by automating onerous and time consuming administration tasks that your highly trained and highly paid sales team do every day. Keep 'em selling not doing reports. 3. Cost Cutting without Amputation: You are all to familiar with how easily costs can balloon out of control, and how painful cuts can be. We will show you key three key areas you can cut back 50 60% - yes so painlessly, most people in your company wont even notice.
The 30 Minute Small Business Management Tune-Up is conducted by a principal of our company. Please be assured that this consultation is not a thinly disguised sales presentation; it will consist of the best intelligence we can supply in a thirty minute time span. There is no charge for this call. Please be advised that the call must be strictly limited to 30 minutes.
This consult will typically take place with 1-2 weeks of your call. To secure a time for this consultation, please email sales@dataforceone.com and he will advise you regarding available time slots. He will also provide you with a pre-consultation questionnaire that will prepare both of you and us to get maximum value in the shortest amount of time.
DataForceCRM is the standard for On-lines sales tools for manufacturers and reps. 2140 E. Southlake Blvd. P.O L555 - Southlake, TX 76092 - 888-387-5145
Peter Fuller is Business Developement Director for a lead on demand CRM and customer relationship software company. Http://www.dataforcecrm.com distributes powerful crm for free. Register for your Free Account right here: http://dataforcecrm.com/?q=crm_trial