We left space on the tri-fold so you can print your rep firm information on it.

We hope you find the new marketing tri-fold a useful resource.

Download the tri-fold here. Once the web page opens up you will be able to save it as a pdf file on your computer

Want to talk about rep sales and management challenges in a forum of like-minded people?

MANA and Sa1esWise are continuing our very successful series of rep sales and leadership conversations. Featuring Nicki Weiss, each call draws over 200 people — reps and manufacturers who know the value of Nicki’s experience and insights.

Professional development is your BIGGEST competitive edge, and it’s an edge you are going to need in the coming year. So join us for a series of FREE, one-hour, monthly conference calls to help you push your sales to the next level.

Upcoming Topics:

• Selecting the Right Principals
  June 11 | 3 pm ET | 12 noon PT

• Business Planning
  September 24

• Negotiating Contracts
  October 22

• House accounts, Split commissions and Other Territory Management Issues
  November 16

Watch your e-mail for registration information.

Schneider Welcomes Reps to Sales Force

at Sandler Sales Institute for MANA Members

May 15-16, 2012

A surprise we get when we talk with members is how many never took any formal sales courses. A misconception exists that you come into this earth with sales skills. Sales skills are inherent, no need to learn them. Wrong! Even if you are in the upper 10% of performers in your industry, you benefit from changes that occurred in the sales process in the past few years!

Members tell us they get a big return on the investment when they invest in well-done sales training programs. The increased sales volume easily pays back a hundredfold.

If you or the salespeople who work for you have not taken a professional sales course lately, MANA has great news. Through MANA, you can now access discounted sales training for manufacturers’ reps from the world renowned Sandler Sales Institute. The two-day sales training Boot Camp, which Sandler offers to the public for $1,500 to $2,000, costs MANA members $599 a person.

We scheduled the first Sandler Sales Institute on May 15-16 at their Irvine, California facility. MANA members in CA, AZ and NV will be mailed the details on the program.

For Boot Camp details, click here.

Look for announcements on future venues and dates for the Boot Camp within the next few months.

Questions: Call Sandler Training @ 949-450-1425
17701 Cowan, Ste. 120, Irvine, CA 92614

Edited by Jack Foster, Agency Sales focuses on the critical issues — both business and personal — that face agents and manufacturers today. Featured are such stories as growing your business, commission surveys, marketing and lively profiles of agents and manufacturers.

Plus, Agency Sales keeps you on top with MANA news, tips, trends, survey results, government issues, industry news, and the inside scoop from other associations. Whether it’s happening down the street, across the country, or around the world, you’ll read it here.

The most productive classified ad mart in the nation is in Agency Sales magazine. Agents seeking principals, principals seeking agents, and a directory of services fill over 15 pages monthly. With more than 30,000 executives reading the Agency Sales classifieds, we bring people together.

Classified Ad Sections Include:

• Miscellaneous Sales, Services
• Product Lines Wanted
• Manufacturers’ Agents Wanted

Subscribe Now!

Click here to view our Media Kit or for advertising questions, contact MANA at 877·626·2776, lmckee@MANAonline.org.

Submit an article? Click here.

	Association of Independent Manufacturers’/ Representatives, Inc. (www.aimr.net)
	Canadian Professional Sales Association (www.cpsa.com)
	Electronics Representatives Association (www.era.org)
	Electronics Representatives Association Southern California Chapter (www.erascal.org)
	Equipment Marketing & Distribution Association (www.emda.net)
Foodservice Group	The Foodservice Group, Inc. (www.fsgroup.com)
	Foodservice Sales & Marketing Association (www.fsmaonline.com)
	Gift and Home Trade Association (www.giftandhome.org)
	Heavy Duty Representatives Association (www.hdra.org)
	Health Industry Representatives Association (www.hira.org)
	International Housewares Representatives Association (www.ihra.org)
	Industrial Manufacturers’ Representative Association (www.cjmichelson.com/imratest/index.html)
	International Union of Commercial Agents and Brokers (www.iucab.nl)
	Professional Sales Representative Organization (www.avreps.org)
	Manufacturers’ Agents of Cincinnati (www.maccincinnati.org)
	Manufacturers’ Agents Association for the Food Service Industry (www.mafsi.org)
	Manufacturers’ Representatives Educational Research Foundation (www.mrerf.org)
	National Association General Merchandise Representatives (www.nagmr.com)
	National Electrical Manufacturers Representatives Association (www.nemra.org)
	National Marine Representatives Association (www.nmraonline.org)
	Power-Motion Technology Representatives Association (www.ptra.org)
	Society of Manufacturers’ Representatives (www.smronline.org)
	United Association Manufacturers’ Reps (www.uamr.com)
	Wisconsin Association of Manufacturers’ Agents (www.wama.org)
Wood Reps	Wood Reps (www.woodreps.com)
	Shoe and Accessory Travelers Association (www.shoetravelers.org)

Related Associations

	Communications Marketing Association (www.cma-cmc.org)
	National Association of Manufacturers (www.nam.org)
	National Kitchen & Bath Association (www.nkba.org)
	National Tooling & Machining Association (www.ntma.org)
	Precision Machined Products Association (www.pmpa.org)
	Small Business Legislative Council (www.sblc.org)
	Tooling & Manufacturing Association (www.tmanet.com)

2012 GEM Award

There’s really no magical formula to create a successful independent manufacturers’ rep. The old stereotype was that most of them were two parts type “A” salesman, one part renegade and one part riverboat gambler. Add a pinch of business savvy and dash of street smarts, shake vigorously, and you had a rep.

The formula is much more complex these days. When you meet many successful reps, you quickly learn they are professional marketers of electrical products who do much more than get by with their innate sales abilities. They know how to mentor and keep young talent; harness IT and computing tools; develop and maintain a line card of complementary product lines; and manage a profitable business.

Charley Cohon, MANA’s President and CEO, was the recipient of Electrical Wholesaling magazine’s GEM Award, presented at this year’s NEMRA Conference. Pictured (left to right) are Cohon, Ken Hooper, NEMRA President, and Jim Lucy, Chief Editor Electrical Wholesaling magazine.

The winner of the 2012 GEM Award for Independent Manufacturers’ Reps, Charley Cohon, CEO, Prime Devices Corp., Glenview, Illinois, exemplifies today’s successful manufacturers’ rep, and in many ways sets a new standard. How many reps do you know who run a profitable rep agency while being president of the Manufacturers Agents National Association (MANA); wrote a book, The Sales Force, on the benefits of using independent manufacturers’ reps; got an MBA from the prestigious University of Chicago business school and served on that university’s graduate school admissions board; was the V.P. of research for the Manufacturers’ Representatives Educational Research Foundation (MRERF) and acted as the liaison between MRERF and Pi Sigma Epsilon, the undergraduate national professional fraternity in marketing, sales management and selling? And in his spare time, Charley enjoys writing articles for Electrical Wholesaling and other industry publications and speaking on rep- and sales-related topics for a variety of industry organizations.

To do all of this and still manage a profitable rep agency that specializes in the industrial OEM market in Chicago and northern Illinois, you really have to love being a rep. Cohon attributes much of his success to his father, Harold, who was a rep himself for many years and helped get Charley started in the business soon after he graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. Harold eventually joined Charley at Prime Devices and until very recently came into the office every day.

“I worked for Dad for eight years,” says Cohon. “It was wonderful experience. People talk about loving the rep business and loving the electrical business.  A lot of it is that I associate the business with my dad. It’s sort of a continuation of the relationship to do the thing that Dad did.

“No one really sets out to become a rep. We become reps in a serendipitous way, because people don’t go to school with the intention of becoming a rep. A lot of people become reps because of family members. Loving the rep business and the electrical business comes from having a strong relationship with my dad.”

In his early days in the rep field, Cohon worked for another Chicago-based industrial rep and he likes to tell the story of how he would park at a downtown Chicago parking garage and haul catalogs for terminal blocks and other industrial devices in a huge piece of luggage to the many consulting engineers who worked in the area.

The electrical market has changed quite a bit since he had to lug those catalogs around the streets of Chicago. But Cohon, who founded Prime Devices in 1984, and Eric Anderson, the company’s president since January 1, 2011, say while the technological tools they use to service customers may have changed, everything they do at Prime Devices is still centered on maximizing the amount of selling time they have with customers. They strive to fulfill the promise in the company’s “elevator pitch”: “Think about an electrical enclosure. If your product is installed inside it, connected to it, installed near to it, powers it, is powered by it, or is the enclosure itself, Prime Devices is the rep for you.” The enclosure-related product lines that Prime Devices reps include ABB, Rittal, Federal Signal, Brother International, Dart Controls, Heatrex, Micron, Redington, SSAC and Symcom.

Cohon utilizes technology in some innovative ways to market these lines. For instance, in the case of ABB, a line Prime Devices has repped since the late 1980s, customers can find hyperlinks to much of the information in the catalogs that Cohon lugged around Chicago through the website he designed, www.controlcatalogs.com, which directs customers to information on ABB controls.

And to give the Prime Devices sales force additional face time with customers, over the past few years Cohon has worked on automating the company’s call reporting system. Today, the company uses voice recognition software so Cohon’s wife, Barbara, listens to the call reports that the salespeople leave in their designated voice-mail boxes and then speaks into the computer, telling the Phone.com voice recognition software what to transcribe. Phone.com then sends back both a .wav file of the salesperson’s call and a transcription back to Barbara so she can check it for accuracy and then cut and paste reports into their CRM (customer relationship management) system. Eric Anderson says the system frees up precious sales time and allows the company’s sales force to make several more sales calls per week than when they had to manually fill out call reports.

Cohon enjoys the time he gets to spend talking with reps from other markets through his involvement with MANA and over the years has gotten ideas from them that he has integrated into his own business. He says that while MANA reps sell many different types of products, they have many common challenges. Like electrical reps, reps from other lines of trade want to find the best CRM system; are interested in trends in commission payments and percentages; and want to know what services manufacturers expect from other reps. “There’s a rush to excellence,” he says. “Manufacturers are looking to get the maximum value for the commission dollars they spend. The reps that are the most professional and well-run are much more valuable because manufacturers are trying to get the most for their money.”

The purpose of this short consultation is to enable you to get a quick answer to a general legal question. It is not intended for you to get specific legal advice or services such as a contract review or even a contract clause review.

The attorney with whom you speak will make the decision as to whether the consultation falls under the no-charge member benefit category or under a fee for service category. If the attorney believes the service is one for which you should be invoiced, he should notify you and allow you to make the decision as to whether to proceed or not. Part of this notification would include the hourly rate and an estimate of the amount of time involved.

The attorneys on the list are known to MANA as being experienced and knowledgeable about the manufacturers’ agency business and laws that govern rep/principal relationships. We ask that you limit your no-charge call to one attorney only on the list. If you call one of these attorneys and they are in court or for whatever other reason are unable to speak to you in a reasonable period of time, you may then try another on the list.

These attorneys are not under any agreement with MANA; each member’s dealings with any of them is on an individual basis, arranged between the member and the attorney he/she selects.

MANA does not guarantee or warrant the services provided by these attorneys or their qualifications. You are responsible for performing your own due diligence before selecting one of them.

MANA reserves the right to add or remove an attorney’s name from the list as it deems appropriate in its sole discretion.

MANA members can access the attorney list in the MANA member area of the website.

Where:
Montgomery Inn | 9440 Montgomery Road, Cincinnati, OH 45242

Time:
11:30 am – networking
12:00 – 1:30 pm – lunch and presentation

Cost:
$25 for members who pre-register by credit card/$28 at the door by cash or check
$30 for non-members who pre-register by credit card/$33 at the door by cash or check

Future Meetings:

• Luncheon — May 11, 2012 — Conflict Resolution
• Golf Outing – June 11, 2012

Call 513.385.8091 or email kathy@maccincinnati.org for a reservation.

For information on upcoming MAC (Manufacturers’ Agents of Cincinnati) chapter meetings go to the MAC web site and click “Events.”

MAC Policy: If you make a reservation, but do not show up, you will be invoiced for the cost of the meal.

Meetings are open to members and non-members.

There are just a few ways left to participate in the American Dream.

Becoming a manufacturers’ representative (we like to call them outsourced field sales professionals) is one of them.

Yes, you can open a small business with very little capital and retire in style in 15–20 years. But it’s not through buying real estate with “no money down” or similar get rich quick schemes.

Becoming a professional sales agency owner is hard work and requires that you have a healthy respect for, but not fear of, risk.

If you are qualified, and many who visit this page will be, due to 10-plus years of corporate business to business sales experience, you will want to explore this section of our MANA web site in detail and then give us a call for a free consultation. No, we won’t try to sell you a timeshare or a stake in an oil and gas drilling venture.

MANA is non-profit trade association of 3,000 professional sales companies that average six employees per firm. Since 1947, MANA has been the association of interdependent manufacturers and representatives dedicated to educating, protecting and promoting the multi-line, outsourced sales function — we think we do that very well.

Are you ready to start a manufacturers’ rep business? Try this quiz to find out.