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Independent Rep

Provide Value, Build Relationships

Product and market Knowledge Open Doors, Earn Business

By Mike Martin

The plan, Aime Cedrone explains, was to go to med school. Being an independent manufacturer’s rep was something her father did. She had graduated from college in pre-med, was getting ready to take the next step, but needed some income.
“I asked my dad if he could use me around the office. That idea didn’t go very far,” she comments. “He said ‘If you want to work here, I want you on the road selling.’”

Brian Connolly of ATS Equipment with Aime Cedrone of AMVAL Associates. Just as ATS makes sure its sales staff are out on job sites with customers, as a manufacturers representative, Cedrone makes sure that she and her team are on job sites and visiting customers constantly.

With a map, an index of “old” prospects, and piles of product catalogs on the car seat, she hit the road. On her third call, she remembers as if it were five minutes ago, the prospect told her “Look, I’m busy. You have 10 seconds to impress me!”

“I didn’t even know what to say,” she recalls, shaking her head. “I left and called my dad. I was pretty upset. He told me to calm down. ‘People buy from people,’ he said. ‘Give yourself some time and keep working at it.’”

She did. She’s still working at it. And a not insignificant point – the impress-me-in-10-seconds guy is among her growing list of customers today.

In-the-field education
Now president of AMVAL Associates, the company her father Vincent Matteis founded in 1982, Cedrone says, those first calls were some of the most educational she ever made. “I still like making cold calls, I like meeting different people and working to find new opportunities,” she explains. But the key – along with re-emphasizing that people buy from people – is working to develop relationships, to listen, to know and understand customer and prospect needs, and to pay attention to what’s occurring with her customers’ customers.

That means getting out there with them.

ATS Equipment is one of her customers, working with AMVAL to obtain Oztec concrete tools. John Connolly, Jr., of ATS says good manufacturer’s representatives can be a great asset with contractor customers. “We really appreciate having them visit job sites with us. We have to be product experts, but we also rely on our vendors, on people like Aime, to be experts, too. Anytime they can help a customer find a solution or improve what they’re doing, they’re adding value.”

In addition to sales support they expect independent reps to provide training for ATS staff and customers.
“And if we ever have a product problem, they need to stand behind it. We work as partners with our vendors and with our customers. Manufacturers reps play a role in that.”

Which is how Cedrone prefers to work. “We have to be the product knowledge pros. If we are going to keep a customer, or turn a prospect into a customer, we have to have not just the product know-how, but a deeper technological understanding of a product and its points of difference. Otherwise, things just boil down to price. I’d much rather go to my customers and prospects with knowledge and understanding than start competing on price.”

In addition to product knowledge, though, she echoes what Connolly says about being out with customers. Cedrone, her brother Tony Matteis and sister-in-law Michelle Matteis are AMVAL’s sales team. All three view their sales territory as a network of resources for gathering, validating and disseminating market intelligence. “We all make calls on end-users, distributors, contractors, on rental centers. It’s important to have that face-to-face contact because then we all have the opportunity to see and to talk with people about what’s going on.”

This keeps them in tune with the status of new and ongoing construction projects, she explains. They see firsthand what tools and equipment are being used for various applications. “Different people tackle projects in different ways. Being out with our customers and their customers makes us much more aware of what contractors are doing, what they need and how our rental center and contractor supply customers can help meet those needs,” Cedrone explains.

Growth in rental
Founded with an emphasis on industrial and contractor supply distribution, AMVAL has been focusing on rental centers as a growth opportunity. “We’re placing a big chunk of our prospecting efforts – I’d say 70 percent – into developing rental accounts,” she says. Because all three are constantly on the road, they create the opportunity to find rental stores, stop in and work to build a relationship that leads to product sales.

Manufacturers see rental as a growth trend, too. Product and sales managers for the lines AMVAL represents travel with AMVAL sales people. “They’re constantly looking for information on what’s working, what’s going on in the rental market and the types of products being rented, the product needs end-users have,” Cedrone says.

From her standpoint, working with those product and sales managers is another opportunity to expand her knowledge and, in turn, provide input to her customers and prospects. “It helps us stay in tune with the marketplace. They cover a lot more territory than we do, so they know more about different product applications and how projects are handled,” she says.

The more she and her sales team are aware of these differences, the better prepared they can be to offer solutions. AMVAL’s customers also know the value of having a broadening base of market intelligence. “Everyone asks, ‘How’s the territory? Are you busy? What’s moving? What are you hearing out there?’,” she continues. “They want to know what I know about the market, the territory and the products. We exchange the same type of information with each other. It gives us a wider network, a broader picture. People see value in that.”

Having a broader picture of the market also helps AMVAL review its product offerings. Cedrone and the sales team constantly discuss their customers’ and end-users’ needs. Having this knowledge is essential to get and keep a new account.

“We can never stop trying to be of more value and we work hard to be ready with what a customer needs. There are those that have a hard time finding time to talk with us. But if we can even get just five minutes from them, we need to be prepared to
talk about what we’re seeing and hearing in our territories. You never know what might change and you never know what can change to give us the opportunity to help someone out,” she says.

It’s a lesson she learned from her Dad. While the thought of “helping out around the office” has long faded, her first few calls taught Cedrone that being customer focused, and providing market and product intelligence, creates business, drives growth and generates revenue. These are objectives AMVAL and its customers have in common.

Originally published in the July/August 2014 issue of Pro Contractor Rentals. Copyright 2014 Direct Business Media.

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