Manufacturer visits, when not managed proactively, can be a pain point for distributors. When I worked for the family rep/distribution business, it was a big headache for us. We represented 40-plus lines, and in any given week we could have three to five manufacturers making sales calls with our team and visiting our headquarters in Louisiana.

Managing that was a nightmare until we started to proactively plan, communicate and collaborate on visits using our CRM system.

In a recent monthly meeting, I asked the distribution executives in my Industrial Sales Management Peer Group how they manage manufacturer visits. Here’s a sample of what they are doing:

• Prioritizing manufacturer visits based on group membership/affiliation.
• Tracking visits and determining which are most valuable and which are wasting time.
• Centrally managing the process from the corporate level vs. allowing manufacturers access to each branch or salesperson individually.
• Scheduling quarterly meetings with manufacturers with sales calls before or after to optimize the time.
• Inviting manufacturers in only when there is a customer with big potential that the distributor feels needs attention from the factory.
• Scheduling lunch and learns whenever a manufacturer visits. Sometimes these sessions include engineers or designers. This distributor says that manufacturers are open to investing in these types of events.

Some distributors took a reactive approach, waiting until the manufacturer called to visit. Others took a more proactive approach, inviting specific manufacturers in to tackle specific challenges or opportunities.

I have found that a proactive approach is more effective. But a balance has to be struck. A few years ago, one of our Peer Group members shifted to a more proactive approach, inviting manufacturers in for planned cross-selling blitzes each month. They also included training and product updates in the offices. But the frequency and intensity of these visits ended up being too burdensome for the sales reps, who felt they were being taken away from other sales calls they needed to make.

It evolved into a quarterly process focused on the top 15 accounts in each territory. Management would ask salespeople if they needed manufacturer support, and if so, when and with whom. The requests would be handled centrally. Manufacturers seemed to appreciate the approach and were less likely to request a visit because the distributor was reaching out when necessary.

This distribution company now limits how frequently it has manufacturer reps in sales territories, trying to leave two to three weeks between visits.

When I was a sales manager for my family’s rep/distribution company, we found that being more proactive about manufacturer visits meant they became more manageable and more productive. Technology and documentation played a big part in that. Distributors should use a spreadsheet, CRM or other means of tracking sales and other activity by customer. When manufacturers call in that they are going to be in the office the following week, a sales manager can then quickly view all of the activity around that manufacturer immediately. That includes opportunities, quotes, projects and more.

Another area where ongoing tracking can help is in addressing problems associated with a line. For example, the inside sales team may track all expediting and service calls for a manufacturer’s products.Pulling those records gives you a road map of where you can do damage control when the manufacturer visits.

With a system in place, the sales manager has current and valuable information to build a schedule for the manufacturer’s visit that will have the most impact. It’s no longer a chaotic experience. 

It’s also important to track the visits themselves, so that you can look back to see when the suppliers came and what they did while they were there.

I would also ask manufacturers for their objectives for the visits to ensure that their goals were in line with ours. Documenting your objective for the manufacturer’s visit is important. We’d start the manufacturer early and end them late; I wanted them to be tired and to know that we were working hard for them.

This blog series is based on monthly meetings with members of Industrial Sales Management Peer Groups, which discuss issues important to distribution and manufacturing sales managers and executives. If you are interested in joining a Peer Group, visit salesprocess360.com/industrial_sales_management_peer_groups or contact Brian Gardner at brian.gardner@salesprocess360.com. Gardner is the founder of SalesProcess360 and has spent more than 25 years in sales and sales management in the industrial market. He contributed to the MDM book, The Distributor’s Guide to Analytics.