You hear the alert from the door of your business and look up from the inventory sheet you were going over for the third time. Through the door walks a representative from one of the sales rep groups that calls on your business. Some people react to this scenario with anxiety and stress, as nobody wants to be “sold.” The smart business person, though, not only welcomes a sales person’s visit, but realizes the great opportunities they offer to help them in their business. 

Both manufacturers and manufacturers’ representatives are essential for practically every business. The key is to take advantage of the ways they can help you choose the right product assortments, help you sell the products they represent, and help you sell more of almost every product in your store. Here’s how.

Manufacturers 

Manufacturers produce the products that you carry. No matter how large or small, how expensive or inexpensive, everything in your building was made by a company that then sold it to someone else. It’s in the best interest of the manufacturer to help you move product, as that means you will happily order and pay for more of it as well as be happy and satisfied with them and the products that they deliver to you.

Many people are not familiar, though, with all the ways that a manufacturer can help them in their business.

Co-Op Advertising: Co-op advertising is a program where the manufacturer gives money or reimburses you at least a portion of your money when you piggyback their products along with your advertising. This can be things as simple as adding a logo to your flyers, billboards, newspaper and magazine advertisements, featuring their products in a paid commercial, or even something as simple as prominently placing their advertising displays in your store. For some larger manufacturers, this number can be rather significant. It is worth your while to explore a possible co-op relationship with every manufacturer whose products you carry.

Although most companies have some sort of co-op program as part of their marketing budget, it might not be well advertised or promoted. Sometimes it is because they are saving some of that budget for very large customers or are looking to create market awareness for their own brand, or other times it is simply because they just might not do a good job letting retailers know the program exists.

Many of these programs work as a rebate on purchases. Typically, the manufacturer will offer a percentage of your total purchase to be used in an accrued account for co-op advertising funds. This is a win-win proposition, as the more products you buy, the more advertising dollars you get. The best use of manufacturer co-op dollars is obviously to help promote the sale of that vendor’s brands inside your store. Often, manufacturers will have different ads pre-made as a template for you to use. This can also help you offset costly advertising design or, in the case of a live commercial, the cost of filming and editing.

Beware that there are often restrictions on co-op ad dollars, such as a mandate that there are no competing brands in the advertising you are using co-op dollars for. Sometimes there aren’t any restrictions. Make sure you know the rules of the game from the manufacturer you are working with before you spend the money on any advertising.

Website Promotion: Every manufacturer has a website. The vast majority of them have the ability to search for a local retailer that sells their products. There are often opportunities to be featured at the top of this list for your area. Again, many times this is tied directly to your product spend. Sometimes, all it takes is a good relationship and a polite ask. If the manufacturer you are working with does not have this type of setup, it may be worth your while to work with them to create one, with you being one of the first. People remember people who help them. You being helpful to them and moving their product by making a suggestion to find local dealers can be helpful to them. A suggestion or proposition to have a dealer or distributor list can be many thousands of dollars in both their and your pockets. 

Being Top-of-Mind: One of the lesser known advantages to regularly working with your manufacturers is being top-of-mind for them. The more often you communicate, the better they know you, and the more your business stands out among the hundreds or even thousands that they work with. That is a good thing. When discretionary funds, time, products or offers become available, a manufacturer will first think of the people they know and like the best. By being someone who is proactively communicative and a good customer to them, many times the first person they think of will be you. 

Utilizing Sales Representatives Effectively 

Sales people generally get a bad rap. This is mostly because of sleazy sales people and sales techniques used by industries such as used car dealers, timeshare companies and, to an extent, many products for your home. In most of these cases, the joy of purchase is very quickly replaced by the regret of buyer’s remorse because people have been forced into a purchase or action that they don’t really want.

The best sales people are a great partner for your business, and utilizing them properly can make you a great deal more money. 

Get an Education: Rather than looking at a salesperson’s visit as an interruption in your day, take it as an opportunity to learn something from an expert in their field. There is a reason that sales is one of the highest paid professions in the world: It’s not easy. 

Representatives deal with long hours, many difficult customers, a great deal of rejection, travel away from their homes and families, and even burnout. That’s good news for you, though, because that means the people you are dealing with are likely at least some of the better sales people in the industry — especially if they have been around for a while.

How can they help you? Regardless of what you think your business is, your business is actually sales. Whether you provide products or services, your main business is to sell more of those products and services. Picking up tips and tricks from a master sales person will help you make more money. This is one of the reasons why, despite my often hectic and packed schedule, I try to meet or speak with (for at least a bit) every sales person that calls on me. 

Pay attention to things like the way they approach you, how they ask questions, how it seems like you have arrived at a predetermined destination in their questioning and feel like it was your own conclusion that you got there, and especially how you sometimes wind up buying extra or additional things that you did not even realize you needed nor wanted. These types of tips and tricks can then be utilized in your own sales interactions and give you additional knowledge on things like effective marketing messages, advertising design, etc. You will also be more likely to train your employees to offer necessary accessories like optics, bipods, or slings with a new rifle, socks with every pair of boots, and, of course, ammunition to everyone that purchases a firearm. 

Another tremendous benefit is that with your newly acquired sales education, you will be less likely to be taken advantage of by one of the less scrupulous sales people that are out there. There aren’t as many as there once were, but they are still out there. That alone makes those few minutes of time taken to speak with them worth it. 

Help With Inventory: Many sales groups require their sales representatives or a contractor to take inventory of how much of their product is on the shelves and/or in stock at their customers’ locations. This allows them to more effectively predict ahead of time what their customers may need in the future. additionally, sales people work with a large number of customers and tend to know what sells the best, what sells for the highest margins, and, just as important, what products tend to lag on store shelves, whether that is during certain time periods, seasons or throughout the year.

Staff Your Events: Most sales organizations that work in the firearms and outdoor world employ a large staff of contract workers to help their customers with various events. Any time you have something like a Black Friday sale, a fall hunting sale, New Year’s, new gun promotion or similar, your sales representative and/or these additional pro-staff members can be deployed at your location to assist with handling increased customer flow and, perhaps most importantly, be a designated expert on their company’s products. For example, someone may come in wanting “an inexpensive riflescope,” but after speaking with an expert sales person about the advantages of spending just a little more money on a certain higher-quality product (which is usually theirs), they tend to be convinced to do so. Remember the “education” we talked about previously? This can result in multiple product purchases or a larger single purchase than they otherwise would have made. 

How you utilize your manufacturers and sales representatives that visit their business is ultimately up to you, but, as my father was often fond of saying both in and out of our several family businesses, “Many hands make light work,” and, in this case, can mean a lot more time and money.