Sales 101:  Creating Canadian Consistency

Carol, a Utah-based sales manager had North American responsibility for DMRs. She managed a successful sales team that spent most of their time in front of their customers in Vernon Hills, Tempe, and Round Rock.  She’d parachute someone into Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver once a quarter to do floorwalks, mini product trainings, and vendor tabletop events.  Carol’s Canadian DMR business was declining and her marketing and travel expenses were increasing.  Why couldn’t she make the Canadian business work?

Canada has the population only the size of California.  It is a market driven by relationships.  Consistent local representation not only hunts opportunities, but gets on the receiving side of bid requests, receives regular calls for pre-sales assistance, and requests for buddy calls.  The DMRs make the effort to call the local rep to expedite orders when there are stock-outs, instead of selling the competition’s in-stock products.

Do you have consistent partnerships with your major Canadian customers?