Tell us if this sounds familiar:

You decide to hire salespeople to help you grow existing accounts and bring in new business, freeing up your time so you can focus on the big-picture sales development strategies that’ll help you launch into new markets.

Soon, you find yourself busy recruiting, training, and managing your sales team – so busy, that you don’t have the time or mental bandwidth to do much of anything but that.

But you’re still responsible for the never-ending tasks of forecasting demand, controlling inventory, managing staff, improving efficiency, maintaining margins, and keeping up with technological advances.

It’s tiring.

There always seems to be a new set of fires to put out. Especially now – industrial manufacturers are facing unprecedented challenges:

Fortunately, many industrial manufacturers have found a way out of this vicious cycle: They outsource their sales function to an industrial manufacturers’ representative (IMR) agency.

Outsourcing sales to an IMR frees you up to focus your energy on key projects and initiatives that drive value and advance your business—while still making sure you increase revenue, grow profit, and keep your costs in check.

Sales outsourcing is the act of retaining an independent salesperson or firm to manage your sales for you. In the industrial manufacturing space, these individuals and firms go by a number of names, including:

Regardless of the name you use to describe them, these are all independent contractors, not full-time employees. You pay them a commission (typically a percentage of what they sell), not a salary or wage.

Another unique characteristic of manufacturers’ reps is that they represent manufacturers — plural. They don’t work for just one manufacturer. Manufacturers’ reps act on behalf of the interests of multiple manufacturers.

In North America, there are around half a million manufacturers’ reps, most of them working in specific geographic regions, and focusing their sales efforts on a particular industry or type of client.

While outsourcing sales can be a great way to take some huge tasks off your hands, there are a few things to think about before making the leap.

Which sales do you want to outsource?

Many industrial manufacturers are a bit nervous about outsourcing their sales, and that’s normal! They may have a handful of particularly delicate or high-potential accounts that they want to nurture closely. Or they may already have a few superstar salespeople who they want to hang on to.

For these reasons (and more), plenty of manufacturers are choosing to have the best of both worlds: a hybrid sales approach. In fact, in 2019, 67.9% of all companies studied by the Industrial Supply Association (ISA) used a combination of independent reps and direct field sales employees.

With this approach, manufacturers choose to outsource some of their sales, but not all. How they break that down is entirely up to them. They might:

• Outsource basic lead generation and cold calling but keep an in-house team for high-touch leads and account management.
• Keep an in-house team for local clients but outsource reps as a way of easily expanding into new territories.
• Use in-house sales for their primary target segment but outsource sales to other industries or markets.

What markets do you want to reach?

Depending on what you manufacture, there may be a wide range of possibilities when it comes to geographic reach or expanding into new industries.

Let’s say, for example, your primary customer base is distributors for the medical industry. And your existing reps know that industry inside and out. Great! But there’s a solid use-case for several of your product lines in a different industry: agriculture.

Now what? Your team knows how to talk about pediatric equipment, not poultry agribusinesses. Getting them up to speed will take months. Building relationships? That’ll take even longer.

That’s when an IMR firm is a great option, letting you work with reps who already know that industry – and more importantly, the distributors and players in that industry. They’re already “in,” so all you need to do is teach them your products.

The same principle applies when it comes to geography. If you’re looking to expand into Canada, for example, why not hire an IMR firm with reps who know the market, speak both official languages, and already have deep-seeded relationships with the distributors you want to reach?

By knowing where you want to go, you’re in a better position to determine whether an IMR firm can help you get there.

Who are you?

This sounds like an existential question (or a song by The Who for anybody else here who remembers the late 1970’s), but your sales reps are the face of your business and ambassadors for your brand. So, if your company keeps a casual, friendly, “regular folks” attitude, you probably don’t want to hire an overly formal, tie-wearing sales rep who takes an aggressive sales approach.

The same goes for outsourcing your sales: Knowing your brand and being able to describe who you are as a business will make it easier to find outsourced sales reps who match your tone, style, language, and way of working.

Fortunately, you don’t need to have all the answers on your own. An experienced industrial manufacturer’s rep will ask you these questions (and more) and will work with you to set a clear strategy. And if they don’t? That’s a good sign they might not be the right fit.