Post Link: 5 Reasons to Invest in Your Independent Sales Reps

5 Reasons to Invest in Your Independent Sales Reps

I speak with a number of wholesale businesses everyday who use independent reps to sell theirproducts. These reps are usually carrying multiple lines within the same industry (e.g. Outdoor)and are selling to independent ‘mom and pop’ shops.

Traditionally, this industry has been fairly antiquated in terms of its order writing processes, withthe majority of reps still using pen and paper. Some may even have their own method of orderwriting, involving tools like laptops, excel spreadsheets and palm pilots.

If these reps are not employed by you, why should you care about investing in them with a toollike sales order management software? I've listed some reasons below.

5 Reasons to Invest in Your Independent Sales Reps

1) You are increasing brand loyalty of your reps.

Most independent reps are carrying multiple lines, so you need to ensure that your brand isfront of mind when they walk into a store. By giving them a tool that is fast, easy to use andoffers an overall better customer experience, by logic, more business will be written. Why?

Think about it. I’m a rep and am using pen and paper to write my orders, where by extension Ihave to manually fill out lengthy, tedious forms. If someone gives me a tool where, by tappingmy fingers, I can showcase my whole catalogue and submit an order in a matter of seconds, I’mclearly going to prefer it. When you make life much easier for your reps, they become brandevangelists. Happier brand, happier rep, happier customer.

2) By investing in your reps, you are investing in your brand.

When you provide robust tools that enable your reps to better do their job, you are making aninvestment in your organization. You are saying that you care about how your products arepositioned, the real estate they occupy in stores, and the expectations of your customers beingmet in terms of on-time delivery and accuracy of their orders. These all have very positiveimplications on the overall perception of your brand.

3) You are increasing efficiencies across your order management process.

By taking the leg work out of the actual order writing and fulfillment process, your rep is able tofocus more on building relationships with their customers, and your customer service reps areno longer wasting time re-keying information into your back office. Let’s not forget thecompetitive landscape here – if your brand is getting an order in the system before theircompetitors, that order will be processed and fulfilled/shipped quicker, therefore hitting shelvessooner, and increasing the chance of maintaining your premium shelf real estate.

4) You get more visibility into how your independent reps are performing.

Order management software gives you access to reporting that allows you to directly check onrep performance - exactly how much they're selling, what products are in highest demand, andmore. We hear that it's often more challenging to get access to this level of businessintelligence when working with independent rep firms.

5) You're embracing technology, before it's too late.

Whether we like it or not, technology is drastically shifting the way we live our lives and run ourbusinesses. In order to stay competitive as a business, we need to not only accept, butembrace change, and be adaptive to change that is often beyond our control.

We are starting to see a big change of consciousness across wholesale, where more and morebusinesses are taking advantage of the many benefits cloud and mobile technology is offering.Apps have fundamentally changed the way we live our lives and run our businesses. Now’s thetime to embrace them, ideally, before your competitors do.

Investing in your independent reps leads to major gains

By investing in mobile technology for your reps, you are ensuring a smoother customerexperience, less manual work, and happier customers. It's important to invest in yourindependent sales reps just as you would your internal employees, as they are front linerepresentations of your brand.

If you've seen an impact after making technology investments in your independent sales reps,we'd love to hear about it in the comments below.

Post originally located at: www.handshake.com/blog/invest-independent-sales-reps

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