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President’s Message
By
Ron Reed, 2006 President
Have
you recently had a company you represent change ownership or be acquired
by another company (perhaps overseas) that tries to change everything
they can to improve the bottom line, regardless of how it affects the
sales department? Have you been terminated based on these changes, even
when you are a top performer? It’s happening more and more. It seems that
our active associate members don’t fall into this category, thank
goodness.
Change,
change, everywhere there’s change. Even songs are written about it.
Sometimes I wish I were in the sign painting business instead of being a
rep. Globalization has greatly influenced not only our industries, but
all of business. If you are not planning for the worst, and working
towards the best, you better get rolling, now! If you are
strictly selling commodity items I know you feel the pain. You need
to pursue both customers and manufacturers that understand the value of
what we offer. This may mean changing the way you do things on a daily basis.
We
must all sell our function and value on a daily basis, and give extra
support to the manufacturers that continue to support the rep function.
Some thoughts are: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” thus entertaining
relationships with offshore companies has become a reality, even though
it’s against our “nature” or learned behavior, as I like to call it.
How
are your lines adjusting to this globalization? How can we make a
difference?
Be
proactive; get your manufacturers to join with us to continue the
crusade. Manufacturers who are associate members of AIMRA: get all your reps to join AIMRA. Suggest they improve
themselves by joining and perhaps getting into the CPMR program, or other
opportunities. I challenge you to find a better investment in
yourself and business for success.
Help
us help you! If we don’t take care of ourselves no one else will. At AIMRA we offer many ways to keep up
with what’s going on. I recommend that if you have not been to a
conference recently you get yourself to the next one and get networking
to see what everyone is doing about this and many other issues.
This
year’s conference will be in Minneapolis on
November 5-7, 2006. Program Chairman, John McDaniels, is
lining up speakers to address real life issues we face on a daily basis.
“The
times, they are a changing.” It’s time to stop complaining and get moving
forward. The only guarantee we have anymore is that if we don’t change
with the trends, we’ll be left behind. I still think that this is a great
way to make a living, and we will not only thrive, but continue to grow
in importance. We have to fine tune our way of doing things to make sure
we do. Are you moving in the right direction?
Get a
Competitive Advantage without Lowering Your Fees
Unless you have a
distinct advantage customers care about, you must create a competitive
advantage by creating a value perception that goes beyond your product or
service. In other words, you must have a value added proposition.
Here
are five ways to get it done:
1. Make the customer feel you understand their critical issues. Make the customer or
prospect feel listened to and understood at every point of contact. Help
them think about issues differently and perceive you as having a
solution. When your customers and prospects feel you truly understand
their issues and challenges, they will see more value in your services.
2.
Demonstrate the added value. Every time customers or
prospects come into contact with you, you want them to believe they
received some value from the experience. Help them gain new insight or
identify an underlying problem. Do whatever you can to establish yourself
as a thought leader by demonstrating a deeper understanding of your
prospects’ or customers’ critical issues by bring forth new ideas that
pertain to those issues.
3. Be consistent in your customer contact. When you don’t establish
consistent, positive contact with your customers you lose opportunities
to create and maintain your competitive advantage. Many reps say and do
everything right to get an account and then once secured become
invisible. By maintaining visible, consistent contact, you create a
competitive advantage because you’re doing something few others do. For
example, instead of calling a prospect and saying, “I’d like to talk with
you about the services I can provide,” you can say, “I’d like to talk to
you about the solutions we provide to the issues businesses like yours
are facing.”
4. Be as
specific as possible about the issues they face. A way to add value is to
meet with customers on a regular basis to explore new challenges, send
customers an article about trends in their industry, or recommend a book
they may find useful.
5. Identify unforeseen problems. If you can help customers or
prospects identify potential and existing problems they didn’t even
realize they had, you can put yourself light years ahead of the
competition. The key is to do more edevelopment work. Take your point of
contact opportunities to the next level and look for symptoms your customers
experience, but can’t find the cause. If you can engage them at that
level you will win. Ask the right questions to gain deeper insight into
the hidden issues and get the customer to realize how those issues impact
their business and life.
6. Provide all your resources to the customer. Once you’ve done all the
development work, you must continue to add value. Don’t focus on your
products and services as much as focusing on how they solve your
customer’s critical issues.
To
maintain a pricing advantage and to avoid lowering your price, you must
create a value added perception by leveraging your points of contact.
Remember,
do what your competition isn’t. People will only see you as
valuably different, and be willing to pay more for you, if they believe
they get something of value they can’t get anywhere else.
A Good Book for Manufacturers
A
good way to build value is to be a unique source of information. But who
is smart enough to have original thoughts all the time?! No problem – recommend
a good book to your customers that reinforces your value message. One
such book you should recommend to your manufacturer customers and
prospects is “Selling Through Independent Reps” by Harold
Novick. This book offers a six step process for designing, developing and
maintaining a highly productive sales channel using independent reps
(what a great message!)
The
book covers:
1.
How to intensify coverage of target markets
2.
Adding significant profits from secondary markets
3.
Making market segmentation strategies a success
4.
Assessing the compatibility of a sales force with short and long term
needs and promptly correcting weaknesses
5.
Gauging the ability to support a sales staff effectively
To
order the book, go to www.amazon.com
and type in the title. It sells for $43.50.
Minneapolis Fun Facts
The
2006 AIMRA Marketing
Conference, held in conjunction with FEWA and FEMA is scheduled for
November 5 - 7 in Minneapolis. The downtown Hilton Hotel will
be the headquarters. Now, you might think of Minneapolis as some city up
there on the frozen tundra, but it is an oasis of the North Coast of the
US. Here are some fun facts of Minnesota:
1.
The Mall of America in Bloomington is the size of 78 football fields ---
9.5 million square feet.
2. Minnesota Inventions: Masking and Scotch tape, Wheaties cereal,
Bisquick, HMOs, the bundt pan, Aveda beauty products, and Green Giant
vegetables
3. Minneapolis is home to the oldest continuously running theater, The
Old Log Theate, the largest dinner theater, Chanhassan Dinner
Theater and houses the largest regional playhouse, The Guthrie Theater, in
the country.
4. Minneapolis’ famed skyway system connecting 52 blocks (nearly five
miles) of downtown makes it possible to live, eat, work and shop without
going outside.
5.
Minneapolis has more golfers per capita than any other city in the country.
6. The climate-controlled Metrodome is the only facility in the country
to host a Super Bowl, a World Series and a NCAA Final Four Basketball
Championship.
7. Minnesota has 90,000 miles of shoreline, more than California ,
Florida and Hawaii combined.
8. The first open heart surgery and the first bone marrow transplant in
the United States were done at the University of Minnesota.
9. Bloomington and Minneapolis are the two farthest north latitude cities
to ever host a World Series game.
10. Rochester is home of the world famous Mayo Clinic. The clinic is a
major teaching and working facility. It is known world wide for its
doctor's expertise and the newest methods of treatments.
11. For many years, the world's largest twine ball has sat in Darwin . It
weighs 17,400 pounds, is twelve feet in diameter and was the
creation of Francis A. Johnson.
12. In 1956, Southdale, in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina , was the
first enclosed climate-controlled suburban shop in 50 states.
13. The first practical water skis were invented in 1922 by Ralph W.
Samuelson, who steam-bent 2 eight-foot-long pine boards into skies. He
took his first ride behind a motorboat on a lake in Lake City .
14. Rollerblades were the first commercially successful in-line Roller
Skates. Minnesota students Scott and Brennan Olson invented them in 1980,
when they were looking for a way to practice Hockey during the
off-season. Their design was an ice hockey boot with 3 inline wheels
instead of a blade.
15. The first Intercollegiate Basketball game was played in Minnesota on
February 9,1895.
16.
Hormel Company of Austin marketed the first canned ham in 1926. Hormel
introduced Spam in 1937.
17. Introduced in August 1963, The Control Data 6600, designed by Control
Data Corporporation of Chippewa Falls , was the first Super Computer. It
was used by the military to simulate nuclear explosions and break Soviet
codes. These computers also were used to model complex phenomena such as
hurricanes and galaxies.
18. Minnesota has one recreational boat per every six people, more than
any other state.
19. Twin Cities-based Northwest Airlines was the first major airline to
ban smoking on international flights.
Windshield
Time: Musings from Behind the Wheel
By
Terry Twiestmeyer
(Starting with this
article by Terry Twiestmeyer, every issue of the AIMRA NewsLine will feature wisdom – okay
thoughts! – by one of the association’s past presidents. Terry was AIMRA President in 1997)
Did you hear the
one about the sales manager whose ears were so big he could hear the sun
come up?
Did you hear the
one about the manufacturer that demanded all their reps drive heavy-duty
¾ ton trucks to pull their equipment . . . with no additional
compensation.
Did you hear the
one about the police station that mysteriously had all their toilet seats
stolen . . .they have nothing to go on.
Did you hear the
one about the rep who, after being let go by a manufacturer, agreed to
write pre-season orders for one-half commission?
Did you hear the
one about the police officer who pulled an elderly rep over, shouting
“Don’t you realize your wife fell out of the car a couple of miles
back?” “Gee, thanks,” the old rep said, “I thought I had gone
deaf!”
Did you hear
about the manufacturer that actually stated to his in-house sales force,
“We will use independent reps in new territories for one or two years to
pioneer the product and then take the line back.”
Did you hear the
definition of golf . . . a good walk spoiled, an infuriating game that
brings out the worst in people. Why is it called golf? Because all
the other four letter words were taken.
Did you hear the
one about the reps that were turning in weekly call reports to a
manufacturer . . . in clear violation of the IRS Independent Contractor
Ruling?
Did
you hear about the rep that stated: I’m bullet proof, my companies
would never let me go.
Did
you hear the one about the company that let five AIMRA reps go, after pioneering
their product, to be replaced by one new company hire? P.S., they
never paid a commission on time.
There you have
it. Just like Fox News -- fair and balanced (some truth, some
fiction). You decide! On a serious note, as an AIMRA member, the way you decide to
conduct business with a manufacturer not only affects you, but all
members of AIMRA. Think!
Twisty
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