The Rep Connection

The year was 1947. Harry S Truman was president, the World Series was televised for the first time (the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games), Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, and on October 17, 1947, the Manufacturers' Agents National Association joined the community of not-for-profit trade associations.

Fast forward to July 1949, and MANA members discovered the first, 24-page issue of The Agent and Representative magazine (eventually renamed Agency Sales) in their mailboxes.

Digging through the first few issues of The Agent and Representative reveals how much MANA has changed, and also how much it has remained the same.

In those first few issues we find sentences like: "I know it's customary for men to call themselves and believe themselves to be 'practical men' to pooh-pooh anything savoring of academic classification in salesmanship." No thought of women as salespeople or as customers in those earliest editions. But in today's MANA, woman-owned firms are common and the first woman to join MANA's Board of Directors does so in May 2017.

Another glaring change since 1949 is that, although manufacturers were invited to advertise in our magazine, the articles in that 1949 issue focus solely on the needs of manufacturers' representatives. Today Agency Sales strives to be relevant to both manufacturers and manufacturers' representatives and includes articles for both audiences. And, also for the first time, a manufacturer will join MANA's Board of Directors in May 2017.

Those are things that have changed, and changed for the better. Yet, some articles from those early issues could be reprinted today and most readers would have no hint that they were written in 1949. In the very first issue of The Agent and Representative is the story of Bill Herendon, a manufacturers' representative whose customers pressured his principals to fire Bill and cut the price by the amount of Bill's commissions. And how Bill, lacking a written agreement, had no recourse when the principal's new sales manager agreed to that customer's request.

Manufacturers' representatives are thriving in North America, but that's not the only place where sales force outsourcing has robust support. European manufacturers' representatives, known there as commercial agents, are flourishing on the other side of the Atlantic.

In this podcast we speak with Olivier Mazoyer, president of commercial agent company AJM Forces de Ventes Associées about his company and how commercial agents work in Europe. Olivier also is president of Alliance Professionelle des Agents Commerciaux de France (APAC), the French counterpart of MANA and of Internationally United Commercial Agents and Brokers (IUCAB), an umbrella association of most European countries' representative associations and MANA.

Business networking groups bring together business owners from a wide range of businesses. A veterinarian, a real estate agent, and a restauranteur could be part of the same networking group, with their only common interest being the desire to bring their business problems to a fresh set of eyes.

But what if you could assemble a group who had deep, detailed knowledge of your business and industry instead of choosing your group from random industries? And at about half the cost of joining a business networking group.

For manufacturers that sell through manufacturers' representatives, that industry-specific group is easy to assemble. Just bring together a half dozen of your best representatives to serve on your representative council.

In this podcast, MANA CEO and President Charles Cohon discusses the reasons representatives councils are so productive and touches on resources manufacturers can tap to launch their own rep councils.

Manufacturers' representatives famously coddle their customers, the people and companies that buy products from the manufacturers listed on the representatives' line cards.

The manufacturers listed on the representatives' line card, often referred to as the representatives' principals, are the entities that send the representatives monthly commission checks.

Too often representatives remember to sell to the companies that buy products from the representatives' line cards and forget to sell to the companies that send the representatives their monthly commission checks.

In this podcast, manufacturers' representative and past MANA Chair Tom Hayward discusses the reasons why it is important for manufacturers' representatives to remember that even though the customers are their customers, the principals are their customers too.

Last year Mexico imported approximately $182 million from U.S. companies. One of the ways U.S. companies can pursue their own slice of that $182 million pie is through manufacturers' representatives in Mexico.

In this podcast MexicoRepresentation.com President Ed Juline describes how U.S. manufacturers can engage with Mexican manufacturers' representatives and clears up some of the misconceptions U.S. manufactures have about best practices in dealing with customers in Mexico.

"Questioning is the prequel to selling," says Manufacturers' Agents National Association Board Member Stephen Fowler. "The RIGHT questions should discover the RIGHT answers. Questions uncover facts, beliefs, timing, and circumstances. Open minded, curious, goal-directed, RIGHT questioners have interest, enthusiasm, respect and need a special sympathetic intelligence. Armed with the right answers they map the trip and sequence the actions to achieve their goals by fulfilling those of their customers."

In this podcast, Fowler, President of Process Equipment Resources & Consulting Services in Bridgewater, NJ, described best practices in eliciting the information you'll need to best serve your customers' needs and to recommend your products that will be most effective in addressing your customers' pain points.

I've heard of manufacturers' representatives going to court and being awarded past due commission on a million-dollar order. I've even heard of manufacturers' representative s going to court and being awarded a million-dollar commission. But this is the first time I've heard of a manufacturers' representative going to court and being awarded a $76,877,889.41 commission judgement.

In this podcast manufacturers' representative Don Hanes and his attorney Anthony Santucci discuss the events that brought them to United State District Court where Hanes was awarded a $76,877,889.41 judgement against his Chinese principal, and the path ahead toward collection that judgement in Chinese courts.

Read the judgement at https://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FDCO%2020160606698/Senah,%20Inc.%20v.%20XI'AN%20Forstar%20S&T%20Co.,%20Ltd.

Why I Love to Find My Competitors' House Accounts is one of the most popular articles ever to appear in Agency Sales magazine. In this podcast the article's author, Doyle Evans, president emeritus, Pinnacle Marketing, Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina, discusses how accounts his competitors try to service without a manufacturers' representative are low-hanging fruit for him to convert to his principals' products.

In the article, Doyle notes, "I'm referring to the principal that assigned a manufacturers' representative to a territory, but holds back one or more customers as so-called 'house accounts,' or customers that will be managed directly by the principal.

"The reasons for doing this vary, but usually fall into four categories:

• "We have 100 percent of the customer's business, and the rep would add no value.
• "The business is low margin and we cannot afford to pay commission.
• "The customer purchases our legacy products, and we are the only game in town.
• "The customer requested factory-direct coverage, probably thinking that they would receive lower pricing."

When he finds competitors' house accounts, continues Doyle, these "house accounts can be low-hanging fruit for a multi-line manufacturers' rep. Even though the direct supplier may call these 'key accounts,' truth is, house accounts are often taken for granted by suppliers, as they assume their business is safe or 'locked in' and they have a tendency to drop their guard."

And because Doyle recently executed a succession plan to transfer his manufacturers' representative firm to its next generation, he also shares some insights on how he managed that processs.

Sales force outsourcing is booming in Europe, says Christian Rebernig, Secretary General of the Internationally United Commercial Agents and Brokers (www.iucab.com). Known commonly in Europe as commercial agents rather than manufacturers' representative or manufacturers' agents, companies that provide European sales representation to worldwide manufacturers enjoy productive political and economic climates, says Christian.

IUCAB is an umbrella organization of European and other worldwide country representative associations, and maintains a list of country associations where manufacturers seeking reps can launch a search. IUCAB also maintains a searchable database of North American MANA member representative firms that international manufacturers can search to outsource their North American sales activities at http://www.commercialagents-northamerica.com/index.html.

Christian shares insights that let North American manufacturers' representatives know that they have more in common with their international commercial agent counterparts that they might have expected, and let manufacturers know that there is a robust international network of outsourced sales force firms is available to take their products to new markets and customers they never would have reached any other way.

Olympic relay runners routinely pass the baton with graceful finesse, never missing a step. Handoffs from Baby Boomers to Millennials tend not to go that smoothly.

Those Olympic athletes have a distinct advantage over the Baby Boomers and Millennials. The athletes know in advance who will pass the baton, who will receive it, and exactly where in the race the baton will be passed. Baby Boomers and Millennials must make those decisions while they are running the race. And the person passing the baton often eager to hang onto it longer than the person who to receive it is wants to wait.

To help these two generations better understand each other, Millennial manufacturers' representative and MANA Board member John Davis and Baby Boomer and MANA CEO Charles Cohon discuss how generational differences affect the ways we work together and manage representative firm succession plans.