Guest Blog Written By:
Alice Errett, President of RepRight (www.repright.com) 800-611-2761 alice@repright.com
We’re in the business of helping companies grow by helping them build independent (commission only) sales teams. So it makes sense that companies call us when they are young and in a hurry to add sales. Independent sales representatives get paid only when they complete sales, so they are often in heavy demand by fast growing companies that are watching their expenses closely.
For many companies with new products, trying to determine when they’re ‘ready to go to market’ is tough. (And sometimes we’re in the position of helping companies to realize that they have a little more work to do before they’re ready to bring in sales reps.) We love helping companies find great independent sales reps, but being ‘retail ready’ is an absolute pre-requisite.
Here are the 6 most common misconceptions that we hear about independent manufacturer sales reps:
#1 – I don’t know what I can pay my independent manufacturer sales reps because I don’t know what my fully loaded product cost will be.
#2 – I am open to as many independent manufacturer sales reps as you can find for me. I can handle an infinite number.
#3 – We’ll figure out our commission structure after we find the independent manufacturer sales representatives that we really want.
#4 – We don’t have sales goals. We’ll just ask our independent manufacturer sales reps what they think.
#5 – We don’t want to pay residuals or assign territories. We’d rather just pay a one-time commission.
#6 – There really is nothing for the independent manufacturer sales rep to do after he makes the sale, so we don’t think the commission needs to be very high.
If you’ve got an amazing product, but you see yourself in the list above, you’ll be a lot more likely to succeed if you can arrange for some great support from a retail services company like Retailbound (www.retailbound.com). They can help you prepare your product/ your pricing/ and your financials to ensure that you can achieve your goals.
When you’re retail ready, we at RepRight (www.repright.com) will be glad to help with finding great independent manufacturer sales representatives who can help build the sales that you need.
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RepRight is a service designed to unite independent sales professionals with growing companies that want to outsource sales. We have a completely free matching site (www.repright.com) , and we also offer a premium service for companies that want RepRight to do the recruiting, interviewing, training, bridging, and even the management for them (www.reprightMyTeam.com).
Six Misconceptions about Independent Manufacturer Sales Reps
