Optimum Sales – 10 tips for the successful development of a network of commercial agents
In many inquiries made by our clients, there is an element of dissatisfaction that they express to us quite frequently. This factor is verbalized as follows: “The sales agents do not sell my product.” Faced with such a statement, at Optimum Sales we ask the following questions:
1. How long does it take for one of your in-house salespeople to acquire a new client?
2. What is the compensation the representative receives at the moment of making a sale?
3. What is the relationship between the % of time he dedicates to promoting your product and the % of compensation he receives?
4. What actions do you take to accelerate customer acquisition in your area?
Why do we ask these questions? For the simple reason that, on many occasions, our clients have the mistaken perception that being the commercial representative of a product or a brand is already sufficient reason to work almost exclusively for them and that the sales processes are much faster, or that the clients in the agents’ portfolios, just because the agent markets a new product, should already sell it.
At Optimum Sales, we believe that a sales agent, a representative, or a multi-portfolio salesperson, conceptually, are nothing more than an in-house sales team that provides the company with capabilities it lacks in exchange for qualitative and quantitative compensation that should be beneficial for the sales agent.
On one occasion, a client, a software manufacturer, consulted us about their network of agents. The inquiry was as follows: “My sales agents do not sell my product, and we also have a lot of turnover.” We asked them four questions, to which the answers were:
1. The salesperson takes 36 months to acquire a new customer.
2. The salesperson’s compensation is 2% (€1,250).
3. He must invest 80% of his time to obtain 5% of the compensation from all his representations.
4. We manage and generate marketing investments to attract new clients.
As can be seen from the responses, it is very difficult for a sales agent compensated exclusively by transaction to dedicate 36 months to promoting a product that only accounts for 5% of the sales of their represented companies.
If we want to successfully develop a network of commercial agents, we propose the following recommendations:
10 tips
1- Evaluate the value that this type of commercial network brings you and define the network in such a way that its capabilities are incremental to your other sales methods in your company.
2- Clearly establish the commercial processes that must be followed to succeed in selling your products or services.
3- Establish uniform rules of the game for the entire team.
4- Establish a compensation system that includes a portion for acquiring new clients, another portion for the revenue generated, and another for bonuses or contests.
5- Don’t mind if they make money, if they make money, your company does too.
6- Make them feel like they are members of your company.
7- Make your products important in their portfolio.
8- Take acceleration actions in attracting new clients that impact the agent network.
9- Help them find other firms that complement yours, and you will prevent them from representing your competitors.
10- Set up individual meetings to analyze and monitor their activity so that you can motivate, demand, and control their performance.
Ultimately, managing a network of commercial agents is no different from managing a sales team.
| David Galve | General Director www.linkedin.com/in/davidgalve |  |
