NEMRA Delivers a 2017 Power Pact

Last week’s NEMRA meeting pulled together the industry’s sales organization. Over 1900 manufacturers and manufacturer reps came together to review 2016, recognize successes and discuss how to accelerate growth in 2017.  In the words of one attendee, “this is the hardest working meeting in the industry.”  And with a high percentage of manufacturers going to market through manufacturer reps, it’s easy to understand why.

The tone of the meeting was:

• Focused
• Optimistic for 2017
• 2016 for many reps was an “okay” year. Those with LED lines fared somewhat better however rapid price erosion, challenges with product differentiation and overseas / go direct price competition is diluting this segment and nominalizing the revenue growth potential … but many units are being sold.
• Many reps are now more focused on growing their business from a perpetuation of the business viewpoint. Not just succession planning (which some manufacturers are soliciting from their reps) but also business expansion of services, of territory (organic and consolidation), marketing and strategically considering lines.
  • Speaking of line acquisition, there were a number of companies seeking new reps. Many of these companies were in what we called LED Alley.  It also brings up the issue that there are many companies seeking reps, however, many reps are somewhat cautious about adding as they’d rather focus their efforts. There is an opportunity for new reps in the industry and perhaps NEMRA could facilitate entry into the business for individuals through an educational process (and encourage attendance)?

Interestingly, NEMRA reps, and some manufacturers, are interested in the NEMRA educational platform as two educational sessions (Digital Marketing and VUCA) were packed and a third session, where NEMRA introduced results from a recent research initiative and its new Power Pact platform, was standing room only. The general session which featured Robert Herjavac of Shark Tank fame, may have had 1500+ people attend.

Some other notes from the meeting:

NEMRA shared some of the input from its recent research designed to help set its platform for the next few years. The platform is called Power Pact and it is designed to help reps “weather the winds of change and to thrive in the future” to support exponential growth for all.  Ken Hooper’s speech was powerful (and some who missed it heard about it and asked about it, ElectricalTrends hopes to post it in the near future.) The essence is to help craft how to think / re-think relationships within the rep-manufacturer environment.

Three areas that were discussed during one of the sessions were:

1. Sales enablement with a focus on increasing access to manufacturer developed “support”, programs and resources
2. Contracts and compensation (and the need to rethink these issues so they are more relationship and forward-thinking rather than transactional (and some reps haven’t had agreements in 20+ years). (and it begs the question, if you’ve had a line for more than x years haven’t you earned the right to have your contract be more than a 30 day agreement?)
   1. As part of this issue of POS / POT was highlighted. Channel Marketing Group is assisting NEMRA on this issue and more manufacturers committed to being able to accept the reporting standards from distributors. An updated list will be available later this month. For more information contact Ken Hooper at NEMRA or David Gordon.
3. Manufacturer C-suite engagement and commitment to the rep model

NEMRA will be rolling out tools, programs and resources to help reps transform through Power Pact.

Of the two other sessions:

• One was on digital marketing. It was SRO (standing room only) and feedback was very positive.
• The other was on managing VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) with the goal of becoming agile as “shifthappens”.

And a couple of takeaways from the keynote session:

• There will be 350 trillion sensors connecting to the Internet by 2020 so that you want think about the Internet the same way. It’ll be a utility. Something you just expect to be “on” and embedded into the fabric of everyday activities / life.
• He spoke about relationship and in the end, the key question becomes, “how much value do ‘you’ bring to a relationship?” (which, in electrical distribution industry parlance infers that you should ask the question “On a scale of 1-x, how much value do our salespeople add?” The reason for this is products are a commodity; most services are a commodity; distributors say that their difference is “relationships” but if the relationship doesn’t add value, is it valued?”)

Overall a very good, and productive, meeting.  And NEMRA executes the largest meeting in the industry with the smallest staff.  Kudos to NEMRA.