Successful Reps Change to Fit the Times

April 30, 2008  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on May 2008 One of the furniture industry’s most widely listened-to “private” conversations took place last December when Thomasville Furniture Inds. eliminated its sales force in the course of a single conference call.

Someone made a recording of the call in MP3 format, which eventually reached the e-mail in-boxes of an unknown number of recipients.

Thomasville, which had long been moving toward dedicated retail distribution, isn’t alone in reducing its reliance on sales representatives. La-Z-Boy, for example, consolidated its sales force in January, trimming around 30 positions, or 20 percent of its representatives.

That sort of news is chilling for the thousands who make their living representing furniture lines to retailers, but those reps—and a lot of the retailers they serve—say there’s still a place for sales professionals who make themselves true business partners of the furniture stores they call upon.

The job of a furniture sales representative, especially when done well, has never been easy, but major vendors exploring their own retail models and today’s far-flung sourcing structures have made it harder than ever. The reps who will thrive are the ones who walk into a furniture store armed with more than an order pad.

“Retailers want their reps to add value to the transaction, and if you’re a rep that doesn’t add value, your situation is not in great standing,” said Jim Craven, president of the International Home Furnishings Representatives Association. “You have to make sure the talents you bring to the table are a value for the retailer.”

THE VALUE EQUATION

Effective training, problem solving and accessibility are ways to ensure sales reps’ value to retailers, said Craven, who represents Fairfield Chair and Cresent Fine Furniture in Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Based in Nashville, Tenn., he’s been a rep since 1989.

While reps for manufacturers heading toward vertical integration are in danger, independent retailers and vendors can find an overlooked resource in salespeople who are in the field all day every day. He says reps are a great “ear to the ground.”

“It’s extremely important to follow trends in a territory, and understand the area,” he said.

“I think the rep is still important in a situation like that—as long as you’re dealing with independent furniture stores, major department stores, or big boxes. The factory itself doesn’t know what’s going on per se in any city or territory. Reps can adapt to conditions in their territories because they know what’s going on.”

The growth of imports has created challenges for reps they didn’t face 10 or 15 years ago, said Ed Myers, first vice president of IHFRA. He’s been a rep for eight years and sells Broyhill bedroom and dining furniture to accounts in the Philadelphia, Pa., market; and is chairman of the Tri-State Home Furnishings Association, a coalition of representatives, retailers and distributors in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He brings a retail background to the job, having worked around 20 years with Drexel Hill Furniture.

“Today you’re more of a full-service individual, not just selling, but helping with customer service and in-home factory issues. We’re also working more with retailers on advertising, especially factory specials that are available,” he said. “We’ve become inventory control managers, especially when it comes to handling the flow of goods coming in from China. You need access to rates of sale and in-stock quantities so you can get a run rate.”

REP, SOURCING AGENT OR BOTH?

What are the good reps doing and how do they add value to retailers? The answer to both questions is the same, said Lee Goodman, president and CEO of the San Diego-based store chain Jerome’s Furniture.

“In order for reps to create value, they have to be much more involved in what’s going on at the factory in terms of quality and sometimes even product development,” he said. “The definition for a good sales rep these days is the same as for a good sourcing agent not too long ago. Retailers need to get a lot closer to the factory than before, and the rep can be their point of contact.”

That’s made the job of a sales rep even more difficult than before, he added.

“They might have to get on a plane to China to stay close to the factory and product developments,” Goodman said. “The reps that aren’t doing that are fading, and the ones who do are capable of performing the work of 10 reps.”

The sales companies that have developed successful relationships with and knowledge of oversees plants, in addition to helping their customers know what’s working in terms of product in other stores, where and why, make themselves vital sources of information useful to furniture retailers.

“The good reps became phenomenal resources,” Goodman said. “They reduce my need to stay on top of the factories.”

Dorian Stacy Sims, president of Stacy Furniture & Accessories in Grapevine, Texas, is another retailer who says the move toward off-shore sourcing has increased the importance of reps building true business partnerships with their customers.

“We’ve always liked to think in terms of partnerships, and that’s true now more than ever,” she said. “The climate is so intense with keeping containers, and the rep has to be your voice (with the factory) making sure your goods are flowing.”

Sims knows of several reps serving her operation that have taken the time and expense to go to China to see first hand what’s happening in the source factories providing the product they sell.

“It provides them with so much more information on what’s actually going on there,” she said. “The reps that get over there and get on the floor, see the product go in a can are seeing the process firsthand and the dynamics of how it’s working.”

Reps who get close to the factory are better able to sell features vendors look to offshore sourcing for such as hand-carving, she noted.

“It becomes real for them,” Sims said. “Until they see the eight or nine people actually crafting that piece, they don’t get the full picture.”

The partnership expectation on retailers’ part also demands more commitment to in-store visits from the rep.

“In a way the ‘squeaky wheel’ gets the sale, and if a rep’s in my store at least bi-weekly, they’re more likely to get sales,” on Stacy’s floor, Sims said. “They’ll get more respect from our sales and warehouse people—a lot of my people count on the reps more than they do me sometimes.”

That partnership cuts both ways, Sims said, noting that reps who do make the extra effort to flow product, help resolve delivery problems and are accessible for answering sales staff’s questions are the ones whose products are more likely to get pushed on the showroom floor.

“Reps who think they can write a big order and come in every six weeks don’t work with us too well,” she said.

The sales rep is a lot more valuable to a vendor’s performance on the floor than some seem to think, said Bob Brewer, merchandising design manager for Mobley Fine Furniture Outlet in Perry, Ga. He is just fine with steering customers toward vendors whose rep has a strong track record of service at his store.

“If I like a certain company, I push it,” he said. “If I’m decorating a $4 million house, I know that some reps go above and beyond, and I’m going to utilize those reps’ (lines). So many of my clients ask, ‘Which company do you want to use?’ There are some vendors where if there’s a problem I know it will be taken care of.”

EDUCATION: REPS AND RETAILERS

Paula Shoemaker is an independent sales representative in Ohio whose lines include A.R.T. Furniture, Cooper Classics, Philip Reinisch and Pioneer Furniture. She has 25 years experience in the field and has seen a lot of change in the rep’s function.

Over the past 10 years, the biggest difference in her job has occurred through, yes, imports, which have impacted the way reps do business almost as much as it has the business model for many vendors.

“The whole industry changed so quickly, and as reps we’ve had to learn more about container sales and dealing with goods from plants we’ve never seen,” she said. “You might meet one of a plant’s principals, but you don’t know the people the way you did” at a domestic plant.

That’s called for a broader approach to the job on sales reps’ part.

“You have to look at the avenues of distribution,” she said. “Are there other retail outlets that can sell furniture in categories like accessories and accents? If there are, you have to develop that yourself.”

Overseas sourcing also makes self-education a key for sales reps who want to make sure they’re increasing their value to retailers, and she’s taken the time to learn about the logistics game.

“I’ve had to learn about the whole process of shipping containers and order scheduling” for Asian imports, Shoemaker said. “Independent retailers, in particular, look to us for that kind of information. Many of them don’t go to market or not as frequently as before, so we have to condense a lot of information and bring it back to the retailer at their store.”

Reps can be a valuable educational resource beyond training retail staff on their own product line, Shoemaker believes.

“Sometimes it’s a love-hate relationship with the retailer—we need each other, but we don’t always want to need each other, ” she said. “Reps need to step up with useful input. There’s a lot of information reps have that would be useful for retailers in running their business.”

Sales education in particular, is a way Shoemaker and other reps believe they can help their accounts.

“We can help salespeople in the general area of selling, not just selling our lines,” she said. “As reps, we do a lot of product training, but we also know a lot about the sales process in general. We can be helpful in other ways that benefit our own product and the store, and retailers can bring us into that process.”

Reps also can serve as a retailer’s eyes and ears on what’s working in other markets the rep serves.

“Retailers want to hear a little bit of everything—advertising that’s been particularly successful, margins, where people are making money, what products are selling where, new categories,” Shoemaker said. “They want to pick your brain to make sure they aren’t missing out on something.”

That’s one reason relationships remain so important—reps and retailers at times view the other with suspicion.

“Sometimes giving information out to competitors does go on,” Shoemaker said, but that a confident retailer/rep relationship can help overcome hesitancy to share information: “Our whole industry is searching for something that makes us more appealing to the consumer.”

As a rep, Myers believes his retail background makes building those relationships easier—he’s been in his customers’ shoes.

“You have to get beyond the buyer and the owner and interact with the salespeople—we’re both on commission, and I find that winning over their confidence is extremely important,” he said. “I believe customers are impulse buyers these days, so the salespeople need to be confident that I’ll give an accurate answer to shoppers’ questions in a timely fashion. “You understand what it’s like to be inches away from a sale and you need to contact a rep for an answer. The deflation of the furniture industry is hurting retailers more than anyone else in the business. You can’t just sell them a product—you have to help them sell it at a profit.”