strategies to manage your relationship with a companys sales rep- resentative(sales rep) What Can a sales Rep Do for You? a good sales rep can help you determine what you need, what ou don't need, and the most cost-effective way to get it. As a conduit to a company's administrative and scientific resources, a sales rep can help you resolve bureaucratic problems, receive tech nical information in a timely fashion, make sure you clearly under stand all the nuances of a price quote, and help you obtain special order items What Should You Expect from a Sales Rep? While you and your sales rep may think differently, you should be made to feel confident that advancing your research is impor tant to your sales rep. Respect for you and your time, and the confidentiality of your research should also be maintained. As discussed below, good salespeople love to know "the inside scoop and take personal pride in their customer's research, but you shouldn,t have to worry that their exuberance for your work results in confidential details discussed with your competitors The best way to determine a rep's trustworthiness is to discuss other work in the field. If you're suddenly learning details about the competition that you would never share with the outside world until papers are published, you have reason to wonder if your someone else is buying(unless the researcher has agreed to serve as a reference)also is cause for concern. You have every right to expect that even your most mundane dealings with the company are kept confidential Is it reasonable to expect your rep to be thoroughly familiar with the technical aspects of their products? If they represent a catalog of 13,000 items, probably not. If the product line is more limited and highly technical in nature, you should expect a high degree of technical competence. In either case a good rep employed by a company that truly cares about their customers should be able to deliver answers to any questions within two to three business days. As is true with business in general, your sales representative is probably managing her territory by the Pareto principle. That is 80% of her business comes from 20% of the customers while the majority of reps want desperately to assist all customers and treat them equally, the reality is that the elite 20% are going to get the Getting What You Need from a Supplierstrategies to manage your relationship with a company’s sales rep￾resentative (sales rep). What Can a Sales Rep Do for You? A good sales rep can help you determine what you need, what you don’t need, and the most cost-effective way to get it. As a conduit to a company’s administrative and scientific resources, a sales rep can help you resolve bureaucratic problems, receive tech￾nical information in a timely fashion, make sure you clearly under￾stand all the nuances of a price quote, and help you obtain special order items. What Should You Expect from a Sales Rep? While you and your sales rep may think differently, you should be made to feel confident that advancing your research is impor￾tant to your sales rep. Respect for you and your time, and the confidentiality of your research should also be maintained. As discussed below, good salespeople love to know “the inside scoop” and take personal pride in their customer’s research, but you shouldn’t have to worry that their exuberance for your work results in confidential details discussed with your competitors. The best way to determine a rep’s trustworthiness is to discuss other work in the field. If you’re suddenly learning details about the competition that you would never share with the outside world until papers are published, you have reason to wonder if your ideas are being similarly discussed. Discussions about what someone else is buying (unless the researcher has agreed to serve as a reference) also is cause for concern. You have every right to expect that even your most mundane dealings with the company are kept confidential. Is it reasonable to expect your rep to be thoroughly familiar with the technical aspects of their products? If they represent a catalog of 13,000 items, probably not. If the product line is more limited and highly technical in nature, you should expect a high degree of technical competence. In either case a good rep employed by a company that truly cares about their customers should be able to deliver answers to any questions within two to three business days. As is true with business in general, your sales representative is probably managing her territory by the Pareto principle. That is, 80% of her business comes from 20% of the customers. While the majority of reps want desperately to assist all customers and treat them equally, the reality is that the elite 20% are going to get the Getting What You Need from a Supplier 15