Jun 10th, 2015 - Category: Sales
I heard it again the other day: a client complaining about his sales representation. After asking a couple questions, the reasons became clear: expectations and neglect. I’ve seen the same problems dozens of times before. One of the reasons I was initially hired by Bruel and Kjaer is because they needed someone to manage their new “outsourced” sales team in certain territories. Who better to manage reps than someone who was one, right?
The active hate of reps at Bruel and Kjaer went very deep at the time. The person whose job I took left the company because they were forcing him to manage those reps. I found the job to be extremely rewarding and educational and it turned out that they were better sales professionals than the direct sales team. They did lack technical depth, but that wasn’t surprising. With 30 other manufacturers on their line card, it was clear they weren’t going to be technical heavy hitters.
What they lacked technically, they more than made up for on the sales side. They brought B&K into companies and industries where it had never been before and challenged the company to move out of its comfort zone to tackle larger projects and opportunities. There have been many books written about managing reps, but here are five simple guidelines that will help you get the most out of this valuable resource.
- Interview Carefully - Have them create a written proposal for your business. This should include their line card, primary industries / customers, references, and a well written description of their services. If possible, accompany them on a day of customer visits. If they can’t sell themselves…
- Provide Ongoing Training - Reps excel at extracting the essence of a company’s competitive advantage. They naturally distill this into effective “sound bites” that they can use in front of customers. Providing training appropriate to their expected level of technical proficieny will pay off in the long run. Continue to have short refreshers every time you visit their territory or at least via short webinars.
- Communicate Regularly - You do this with your direct salespeople, do the same with reps. Good reps will rank principals. If you are in the top five, you can communicate as much as your directs. If not, be sensitive to their time.
- Create a Visit Schedule - Good reps plan far in advance. If they know when you will be coming, they will be more likely to have your product in mind to make sure they have good visits planned. Their time is more limited than yours.
- Review Expectations - An honest, regular review of expectations insures that both parties stay on track. Reps are experts at “managing expectations” so if you don’t make reasonable demands, performance can be substandard for months before it is clear that action needs to be taken.
So please stop calling them names and blaming them for sales issues. It took me several years to understand and really begin to use their services effectively. Hopefully these simple guidelines will provide a bit of a headstart for getting the most out of sales representatives.