INDEPENDENT REPS PART 3 - HIRING ONE

First off, look for reps who work with products you sell. If you sell a toy product, don’t sign on with a rep who sells housewares. Second, look for reps who sell to those outlets and regions in which you are interested, i.e. brick-mortar retailers, catalogs, online retailers, large chain stores, independent specialty stores, nationwide, regionwide, etc. When putting out information about what you are searching for, be sure to include your parameters. Personally, I would steer clear of any rep who claims he/she can do it all and cover everything. It just does not work that way.

Based on our aforementioned education, when a rep is interested in our products, we have a sheet prepared that we hand to them. If they still feel like working with us after reading the information, then we move forward.

Here is what our sheet contains:

1. A company introduction. One short paragraph about what our company manufactures and where our products are currently sold (not names, just regionally or nationally).

2. A sentence or two defining what kind of rep you are looking for (e.g., “if you have proven experience with placing _________, __________, or _______, we would be interested in talking to you.”). Also, list your preferred outlets in this paragraph.

3. For our screening process, we ask for a resume that includes or is accompanied by 1) list of current retailers they work with, 2) three business references, 3) the names of three buyers the rep works with directly and their contact information, and 4) a list of product lines the rep represents.

We then include our full contact information and where to send the resume and supporting information.

In some cases, we will work with the rep without having all of the information. If the rep does not flinch at the information we request and run the other way, they probably are quite interested in selling our product and confident they can do it.

Once a rep is interested, we negotiate an agreement. We have devised our own agreement, and that is the one we use. It covers everything, including territories, payment terms, and the number of samples that will be provided.

Now, with all of this in place, we are comfortable working with reps and confident that we will not incur financial disasters in doing so. Good luck! Feel free to contact us with any questions.