Every company has a organizational hierarchy of sales people… in some, “Area Manager” is the top slot… in others, it’s “Regional Manager.”  Add in District Managers, Sales Associates, Sales Engineers, and on and on.  The problem comes when companies add the term “Sales Representative” to their list of company sales personnel.  And when we refer to them as company personnel, well that’s the point.  All of these people are on the payroll… they work for us… why they’re, um, employees.

So what’s wrong with calling some of them “sales reps?”  Because, by definition, a sales representative is NOT an employee.  More typically a firm, a sales representative firm is an independent company that does not take title or possession of the goods.  They represent you, for a commission, along with the other companies on their line card.  Have any sales employees selling other products besides yours?  Not that you know of, right?  Cause if they were, you’d be calling them for career adjustment meetings.  But that’s what reps do, and it’s a good thing that they do it because that’s the only way they can afford to call on customers to small to send in a direct sales person.

The key isn’t that they are carrying other product lines… it’s that they don’t carry competing product lines.  And because of that, they tend to be loyal parts of the channel.  I know rep firms that have kept some of their major lines for 15 years or more.  In Silicon Valley, at one time the average employee changed companies every 7 years.  Now tell me, who has the most loyalty?  So don’t call your direct sales employees “sales representatives”… it just confuses the heck out of people.

Everyone faces this issue from time to time.  You need a rep firm in, say Huntsville, to carry your products.  How to find one?  The time honored method is to ask the customers in that area.  After all, you must have some customers or you wouldn’t be worried about a rep, right?  So you ask the customers who their favorite reps are.  The quality of response you get to this question should only serve as a starting point, since their view of a rep firm can be dramatically influenced by whether or not they got invited to the annual rep BBQ, or whether he brings donuts to the early morning meetings.

Another way, in my view a better one, is to find a couple of complementary products, and then look to see who they have for reps.  By complementary products I mean those that are normally used side-by-side with yours.  The obvious example is a company selling bolts.  If you need a rep, look for the ones selling nuts.  Then contact the nut guys — believe me, they’ll be very interested in taking on a bolt line.

Finding complementary products is usually not this obvious, but it’s a good thing to do.  Once you have, make a list of ALL their reps across the country.  That gives you a candidate list when unexpected things happen and you need to replace someone quickly.  Not a bad idea to be in communication with them anyway… you can get a lot of local market intelligence from them.