Death of a sales rep?

by carly_midgley | July 31, 2018 8:56 am

By Todd Wasylyshyn

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About 20 years ago, I was wandering through the lower level of the Sands Expo Center at JCK. A friendly older gentleman came out of his booth and warmly greeted me in the aisle. When Howard asked if he could have a couple of minutes of my time, I agreed. Picture George Burns in the movie Oh God (Google it if you must): who can say no to God?

I ended up doing some business with him over the coming years before curiosity got the best of me, resulting in the following carefully worded question: “Howard, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I’m interested to know how old you are.”

He said, “I don’t mind telling you if you’ll just tell me why you ask.”

Without implying I thought he was ancient for a traveller (which he obviously was), I said something like, “Well, you’re very good at what you do, you seem to love doing it at a time of life where most are more interested in golfing or fishing, and I find that inspiring.”

He said, “Thank you very much. I’ll be 82 next month.”

That brought to mind the following quote, spoken by Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s 1949 play, Death of a Salesman:

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“What could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people? Do you know? When he died—and by the way he died the death of a salesman… hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral. Things were sad on a lotta trains for months after that. In those days, there was personality in it, Howard. There was respect, and comradeship and gratitude in it. Today it’s all cut and dried, and there’s no chance for bringing friendship to bear—or personality. You see what I mean? They don’t know me anymore.“

Even if I wanted to be on the road 30 years from now, I’m not sure there will be such a thing as a travelling sales rep by then. There are few enough now. Globalization, mega jewellery shows, buying groups, and B2B websites could all make people like Willy Loman, Howard, and myself completely obsolete. Are retailers ready to let go of these seemingly expendable middlemen and women of our industry?

A recent conversation about cold calls on the Retail Jewelers Organization (RJO) Facebook page made me realize some retailers undervalue sales reps. This compelled me to share a few reflections that just might give you a new perspective on jewellery’s indomitable road warriors.

To cold call or not to cold call?

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Why would anyone in their right mind intentionally avoid booking a convenient time for a retailer to give them undivided attention? For some reps, cold calling is a solid business strategy. Often, asking for an appointment is inviting complete rejection before you get across the threshold. They say the best door-to-door salespeople have one foot bigger than the other, because once the door was open, they’d stick their foot in it so it couldn’t be closed on them.

I can tell you it’s a calculated risk that the owner, manager, or buyer will not be there when cold calling—a risk some are willing to take, because the odds of the buyer being there and agreeing to meet might be better than the chances of calling ahead for an appointment and getting an affirmative response. As a travelling sales rep, your entire existence is predicated on this vital in-person engagement.

Planning my travels as a sales rep would have been simple if all retailers were working in their stores 365 days per year with a couple of hours available each day for me to choose from. Life happens. Vacations, trade shows, staffing schedules, children’s sports or activities, in-store events, competing suppliers, and a host of other calendar conflicts meant every season I had to plan around dozens of key accounts’ schedules. That’s how I put up to 60,000 km (37,000 mi) per year on my car in a territory roughly 2500 by 1000 km (1550 by 600 mi). Sometimes making two important sales calls left space and time in between when I could reach out to new or seldom-visited retailers to see how their businesses were evolving and whether there was interest in what I had to offer.

When I first began on the road, I dropped in on a retailer in southern British Columbia who told me how awful the economy was, how people in his town didn’t buy anything nice, and what they did buy had to be discounted. I dropped in on him eight years later, and his opinion of the market was the same, so it only cost me literally five minutes each visit to determine this jeweller was not right for my lines.

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On the other hand, I was once having one of those difficult weeks on the road where I was spending a lot more than I was making. I’d had a cancellation on the Monday, and it was too late and too expensive to fly home for the weekend. I checked a 200-km (124-mi) radius to find a hotel where I could hide out for the weekend and decompress, and I landed all the way up in High River, Alta.

As I drove by a nice-looking drug store/gift store, I noticed a sign that read “jewellery.” When I introduced myself to the manager on the gift side of the shop, she told me they’d been frustrated with their current goldsmith and were looking for an alternative to do repairs. I made an appointment with the owner on Monday morning, which turned into a great working relationship involving all three of my lines. I considered that a gift from above.

Part of the reason they took the time was they didn’t see too many reps. For them, it was a rare opportunity. I’d like to challenge retailers—even those in well-travelled centres—to honestly answer two questions. Firstly, do you really have 10 reps per week wanting to take time out of your busy schedule, or is it more like five per month? Secondly, if you took five minutes to hear a sales pitch, five minutes to ask some questions, and five minutes to share where your business is before deciding to look at a line or two, would that cost you more than a couple of hours per month? What if, twice per year, you picked up a new line that added some needed variety and profitability to your business?

Counting the cost

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Making the leap from retail to travelling was a frightful proposition. My wife was working part-time, we had two kids in elementary school, and I had to take out a car loan so I could have something secure and reliable to get me around. The two lines I began with were good lines, but any drop in sales or increase in expenses, and my finances were in jeopardy. Sales reps tend to get paid out a large portion of commissions in the new year for much of the work they do during the fall. For years, I carried a large balance of expenses on a credit card or credit line until my payout in the new year. Too much of my payouts went into debt servicing.

Even so, I had to make the rounds to service my best accounts, keep nurturing emerging ones, and prospect for new. Why? Because I represented companies
I felt could benefit numerous retailers, and I wanted to make as many beneficial connections as I could.
I committed those weeks to the road, just like retailers commit to their own business hours. Both retailers and wholesalers enjoy the immediate sale, but we also take every opportunity to build relationships between purchases. Retailers often had a hard time accepting I would still come even if they had no open-to-buy (OTB). A sales rep can be a source of staff training, industry news, troubleshooting, and often inventory management, and can help retailers get the most out of the companies they represent.

There are also other costs to travelling. Socially, being on the road means lying to neighbours and acquaintances about your vocation, lest you reveal to the wrong person that you routinely carry a trunk full of valuables. I always felt the pressure to isolate friends and clients from my security risks. Here’s a valuable tip: resist the urge to ask a sales rep where he or she is going next or staying. You do not want to be the only person who has that information if, heaven forbid, they should be robbed after leaving your store.

It was never all bad. I have good friends, nice photos, and a lot of experience gained from the amazing retailers I worked with. I made a decent living, and I had some good spans of off-seasons to try to play catch-up with my family, friends, and the all-important ‘honey-do list.’ I loved travelling and I miss it a lot.

Getting back to the fortuitous meeting with the retailer in High River, they had a need, and would never have connected with the companies I represented unless I’d spent the time and expense to cold call them. It was an unexpected benefit for them to learn about what I had to offer. The point being: don’t dismiss hardworking sales reps who drop in unannounced. They might be able to fill a gap, they could have exactly what you’ve been trying to locate for a client, or they might be your golden ticket to the next big thing. If it turns into a valuable two-way relationship, you just might become one of the accounts they plan their schedules around.

When opportunity knocks, keep an open mind.

[6]Todd Wasylyshyn stumbled into the jewellery world while completing an arts degree at the University of Alberta in 1987, and still possesses the very first loonie he made in the industry. Having worked retail and been an owner, traveller, gemmologist, and writer, Wasylyshyn has seen the vast jewellery business from many angles, and is always on the lookout for new trends. Currently, he is general manager of Keith Jack of North Vancouver. He can be reached via e-mail at toddwaz@gmail.com.

Source URL: https://www.jewellerybusiness.com/features/death-of-a-sales-rep/

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