Many manufacturing companies find that bringing on an experienced manufacturers' representative can stimulate sales rapidly in a new territory.
As a sales rep, you may spend years building trust and relationships with companies you want to work with. With the fresh contacts and relationships that the new manufacturers' representative brings to your sales team, their value is obvious.
Many sales teams agonize over how to revitalize a relationship that was fantastic when the sales rep was new and earning exciting commissions but has now grown a little stale. After that initial burst of activity in accounts where your new sales rep was embedded and had strong relationships, there may be some frustrations on both sides as opportunities become more mundane and frankly, harder for everyone to find.
Related Article: Learn how to increase your B2B sales by generating leads with content targeting!
In the 1980s and early ’90s, I worked at a large manufacturing plant in Texas that employed close to 3,000 people. As a manufacturing engineer, I would frequently get cold calls from manufacturers' representatives selling capital equipment.
Why?
Because they would give me a stack of brochures and tell me about the latest trends and features for the capital equipment that I was interested in. Even if I was only slightly interested, I would take brochures and put them in my files for future reference. If I saw any potential at all for a future need, I would even take the time to sign them in and take them back into the factory to brainstorm a problem and get their ideas.
Back in 1996, I started my career in sales. At that time, it was common practice to search for potential customers in industry databases, pick up the phone, and make cold calls to their desks. Remarkably, more often than not, I could engage them in conversation and arrange an in-person meeting to visit their facility.
Why does a once high-performing sales rep start avoiding you? Why does it take spending several days with them visiting customers just to get a brief spike in opportunities?
Two cataclysmic changes have taken place over the last 10-15 years that make it harder for your manufacturers' representatives to cold call into new relationships and penetrate new markets.
It has gotten harder for manufacturing and industrial industries in the US to survive since the 1980s.
Enter NAFTA, global trade and the rise of Chinese manufacturing. Staffing in US companies has been cut just for them to remain competitive.
Everyone now must achieve more with their limited time. In 2017, decision-makers rarely have time to answer a cold call or meet a sales rep in the lobby. In fact, decision-makers intentionally hire people to block access and protect precious uninterrupted time.
These walls and barriers stymie your lead generation goals.
The internet became ubiquitous.
Pre-internet, my only source of information as a decision-maker, especially for technical information was industry publications, trade shows, and my friendly and frequently present manufacturers' representative.
In 2017, every bit of information that I could possibly need was available with just a few clicks on Google.
Now, decision-makers can literally take their problem to the internet, click a few times, find numerous solutions and identify companies that can help them. All in less time than they could walk up to the lobby and back with that handful of brochures.
If you've been in sales management for more than ten years, you know that the traditional approach of ads in industry publications don’t seem to work as well as they used to, and no data on results makes it almost impossible to calculate ROI.
You have struggled with justifying the expense and time of a presence at that “must-do” trade show, but what will your customers think if you don’t show? And sales reps?
They all have multiple lines and will spend their time and energy where they make the most commissions, and cold calls don’t work well and are typically not a good investment of their time.
Are you feeling frustrated? The good news is, there's a better way. Did you know that more than 20,000 companies globally are approaching a solution that creates leads with strangers that your sales reps may not know at 1/3 the cost of traditional methods? It's the power of a digital marketing strategy.
Related Article: Must-Know Tips to Expand Market Reach for Your B2B Company
At Open Path Digital, we specialize in helping you build your brand and take the cold out of cold call.
With our lead generation approach, we help you create warm leads that already know your company, your products and believe you can solve their problems. Warm leads are the Viagra for slumping sales rep performance, reinvigorating results and closing more deals. Get started when you request a call with one of our Growth Strategists!
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