AN AGENT'S BUSINESS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 59, 7 September 1926, Page 32

AN AGENT'S BUSINESS

NOT HIS OWN MASTER

LINK IN SELLING ORGANISATION.

There is a strong impression among tho manufacturing and distributing employees of an industry that agents have the easier of all positions, as they only need to sit in an office awaiting orders, with their consequent commissions (writes a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian .Commercial). This impression became an obsession during the boom period of 1919----20, when well-established agencies aid not need to canvass for orders because buyers were tumbling over each other to place orders with them or their principals. During these years and the later war periods they had a good time, and many men with sound staff positions were attracted into the field because there appeared to be money for little or no work. These latter made the mistake of looking only at the well-established agents, and failed to see the hundreds who merely scrape a precarious living together. Not only do the employees envy the agents, but often the principals look at the money they have to pay to their successful agent, and they quite often fall into the error of dispensing with him, thinking they can save all the money they have paid him previously in commissions. Often they learn their mistake only too late, and find that the "connection" was his, not theirs. This is the. whole point of an agency, the spadework necessary to build up a connection. In engineering, in particular, the need of an agent is absolute, and no amount of inside selling organisation can take the place of the personal touch. The agent is not a middleman,' ho is not an unproductive factor, for' he produces that feeling of confidence essential between buyer and seller. I The spade-work consists of finding out who counts in the office of a prospective buyer, and one is extremely fortunate if they learn this at once. He can hardly expect his competitors to supply this information, so he calls and calls until he passes from the order clerk to the buyer, from the buyer to the chief engineer, and then to the managing director. But any man knows that this takes years, and constitutes the connection, and often membership of the same clubs. Because of the easy friendship of the latter stages some of the keen young men are straining to get on tho road, and when opportunity appears they jump in without any deep consideration. A concrete case—often repeated —was that of an agency for textile machinery given by a new firm to a man I who wished to start an agency business, j The terms were sole agency for Eng-! land, with all expenses, 5 per cent, commission on selling price, and an office. It looked very good until a more experienced man pointed out that he would have to do all the spade-work in a very keen market, build up a connection, live on his own money, and run the risk of losing the agency when it was producing a return, unless he was extremely well placed. At that time the aspirant had a safe and progressive position of £600 per annum. There is an idea prevalent that an agent is & njan who is his own master and works for himself, but a man With three or four good agencies knows batter. He is less his own master than wh«n he works in an office. In addition to the principals, every client and inquirer is another master, as he has to be at their beck and call. He must go out to see them at any time, and he cannot afford to bo out of his office for long. Here is a striking incident. A man lives at the seaside, and occasionally leaves town at 5 o'cloek. He is an engineer's agent, not a yarn or cloth agent. One firm with whom he had business rang up ond afternoon after ho had left, and his typist said he had gone to the coast. These people wrote to his principals saying they could not get in touch with their agent, and asked for a direct quotation. If he had not held this agency for fifteen years it might have gone very hard with him. If a young man or a man in middle years is considering tho change from staff to agency, let him make sure he has the right temperament, which can wait when things are quiet and can be calm when things are booming. There are few agents made from good staff men, because the makeup is entirely different, so it is as well to look before leaping, and remember that one agency does not make a living.