3 Tips For Reasons Why You Should Use Manufacturers' Reps To Sell Your Products
Does your company manufacture parts for heating and air conditioning units, or perhaps complete furnaces and air conditioning systems? If so, then one of your biggest challenges is likely getting those products into the hands of HVAC contractors who service heating and air conditioning systems on a regular basis. Business owners and homeowners usually rely on the advice of their contractor when choosing products, so selling to those contractors is often critical to a manufacturer's success. You can certainly employ your own sales force to promote your products to HVAC contractors. A better route, though, may be to work with a manufacturers representative, who is an independent contractor that sells your products. Here are three reasons why a manufacturers' rep may be the right choice for you.
It's less out-of-pocket cost to you. A manufacturers representative usually sells several different lines of products to a group of industry businesses. In the heating and air conditioning industry, a rep may sell products from several different manufacturers. One big benefit of going this route is that your rep isn't an employee of your company. While you will pay them commissions on product sales, you won't have to pay them a salary or pay for their benefits. You also won't reimburse them for business expenses.
With an internal sales force, they may only sell your product, but you'll likely have to pay them commission plus salary, benefits, expenses, and more.
They know the area. Many manufacturers representatives have serviced the same geographical area for many years. They have relationships with all of the contractors in town and are trusted by those contractors to make solid product recommendations. If the manufacturers rep believes in your product, they can then convince local contractors to also use the product. With your own sales force, they may not have those kinds of relationships, making it difficult for them to persuade contractors to make your units part of their product mix.
You can ramp up quickly. Hiring salespeople is a complicated and time-consuming process. You may need to recruiting firm to gather resumes and go through the initial batch of applicants. You'll then need to commit time to interviewing the candidates and performing reference and background checks. Even when you bring the new sales reps on board, they may have a long learning curve before they're selling at top capacity.
With a manufacturers rep, you avoid all of this lead time. They already know how to sell and can get moving immediately. And they'll have a proven track record, which should reduce much of the interview and research time. That allows you to get your product in customers' hands as quickly as possible.
For more information, contact a manufacturers rep that operates in the heating and air conditioning industry. They can advise you on how they can best sell your products.