NEMRA … Providing a Venue to Enhance Agency Performance

Next week represents the coming together of over 2000 people who are responsible for selling electrical material through the channel … the 2019 NEMRA Annual Meeting.   Widely regarded as one of the best meetings of the year, manufacturers will recognize top performers, outline their 2019 sales, marketing and sometimes product launch plans and discuss performance, goals, targets and specific initiatives with their manufacturer reps.  Concurrently reps have the opportunity to share their organizational plans with their manufacturers and express their needs.

And hopefully each side will listen, and maybe hear, the other.

Two major initiatives that Channel Marketing Group has been involved in to support reps will also be shared at NEMRA.  They are:

The launch of the second phase of NEMRA’s POS initiative.

The first phase was defining and setting standards for POS to help improve data collection and facilitate reps being more accurate compensated.   A key element of the NEMRA standard is the focus on considering POS as “place of sale” as the minimum standards only request customer zip code as this is the minimum “customer” information needed to ensure accurate sales credit.

“Minimum” is an important element of the standard as manufacturers and distributors can jointly agree for the distributor to provide more information.

41 manufacturers / brands endorsed the standards along with Graybar, Sonepar, Rexel, Mayer, Scott Electric, IAC Supply Solutions and IMARK.  The efforts also helped increase the visibility of the issue.

And leading distributors know that ensuring rep compensation ensures that the local rep will support their branches rather than be “enticed” to support distributors from whom they know they will be compensated for sales by their manufacturer.

The second phase, introduced at the NAED Western to some manufacturers is the launch of a web-based hub where distributors can upload one file with data from multiple manufacturers, the data will be scrubbed against an IDEA provided database and then manufacturers will receive one file consisting of data from multiple distributors. Manufacturer reps will also have access to the data uploaded from their local distributors and can download information, enabling them to have the same data their manufacturers have.

The system leverages tools that Jigsaw Systems has developed and managed for manufacturers for over 5 years that already receives data from 100+ distributors.  NEMRA is investing monies to enhance the system, IDEA is contributing the database to scrub content and Jigsaw has reduced its pricing by up to 50% … all in an effort to evolve to an industry POS data collection solution.

Reps, during their one-on-one meetings with their manufacturers should ask 1) if their manufacturer has endorsed the NEMRA standards and 2) are they aware of / planning to participate in the POS hub.

Some manufacturers are considering committing to participating prior to NEMRA and showing their industry leadership as NEMRA needs 8 supplier commitments in order to launch the system within 90 days of approval.

To learn more, visit the NEMRA POS booth at the show, contact Ken Hooper or contact Channel Marketing Group for more information. (Note: Channel Marketing Group is the facilitator for the NEMRA POS Initiative.)

Reps enter “eCommerce” with their own eCatalog

Supporting reps with an eCatalog offering, the new DDS offering, RDX (Rep Data Exchange) will enhance rep’s value to

• their manufacturers through increased demand creation
• improve service to their distributors through centralized access to manufacturer product information 24×7
• enhance internal productivity through an aggregated content system for their staff
• while delivering increases services to engineers, contractors and other electrical professionals in their territory through local product information and the ability to request an RFQ

DDS (Distributor Data Solutions), which has over 3M fully attributed electrical SKUs and millions of graphics and pdfs to power distributor websites and provides the content to power a number of leading electrical distributor sites, is launching, for NEMRA reps, the industry’s first rep specific catalog offering.

The tool, developed with input from 19 reps, is customized to each rep’s linecard.  It aggregates attributed manufacturer product content and is easily searchable.

New sites are launched within two weeks. Click here for a demo.

A key benefit to manufacturers is the enhanced SEO benefits of content being more local to prospective customers while the catalog is also a service benefit to end-users, influencers and distributor sales personnel.

While electrical reps are not involved in “eCommerce” as defined as transacting the order, the RDX enables reps to support their customers and manufacturers through an eBusiness / omnichannel solution.

The Power of the Pact

The theme of the conference, The Power of the Pact, and the agenda, highlight the relationship between manufacturers and independent reps … the mutual dependency to ensure support each other and to seek growth opportunities. Together these channel partners support distributors and their customers.

Ensuring appropriate compensation through POS reporting in this age of increased responsibilities and reducing commissions is critical to reps being able to invest to support their manufacturers. The issue is being driven by NEMRA as compensation is the lifeblood of an agency.

The RDX is a tool that can both help increase sales and local brand preference while providing additional self-serve tools for distributors and end-users (and perhaps some internal productivity benefits.)

Together the goal is increased sales, increased commissions and more satisfied customers.

And the NEMRA Annual Meeting provides the venue for manufacturers and reps to ensure they start the year communicating the same message.

And distributors … the following week may be a good time to ask your rep “what did you learn from XYZ manufacturer last week that we can use to grow together?”