When I was growing up, WAVES was an acronym for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service and they were the navy’s version of the army’s WACs. “Doing the wave” in the stadium at a University of Michigan football game was a completely different event and “new wave music” added another dimension to the term. But after dozen’s of years of educating distribution sales reps, I have begun to dub them as my WAVEs, that is, my “Wholesale Added Value Engineers”. “Being a WAVE” is my way of teaching the importance of creating value as a distribution sales person.I didn’t coin the title BDR but I really like it. BDR is used at POOLCORP and as a title means a lot more than Sales Rep in my book. It spells out the correct function of the person who is the “Business Development Representative” for a wholesale distribution company, the person on the front lines of helping our customers to grow their businesses. It is after all the key to success for all distribution companies! If we can help our customers to develop their businesses, to accomplish their goals and dreams, then our companies will also be successful.In the same way, being a “Wholesale Added Value Engineer” shares a concept that says we must be more than “talking brochures”. We must be more than a mouthpiece for the Marketing Department that spells out the cool programs our company has created that add value to the products we distribute. We must be more than a mouthpiece for our supplier’s Engineering Department that spells out the features and benefits of an exciting new product. We also have to create value as a part of our daily activity.Because we are in the best position to really understand our customer’s unique and individual business goals and because, at the same time, we are supposed to know the details of each of the programs and products that our company has to offer them, we are in a position to “marry” the correct customer to the correct program and the correct new product for the ultimate results…growing each of their businesses. This alone seems like a monumental challenge on occasion but at the same time my mantra is that we must create additional value on our own.Being a Wholesale Added Value Engineer means creating value by helping our customers grow in at least three new ways that may seem “outside the box”, unique or unusual to many of us:1. Being a WAVE means cultivating a wide network of contacts within our company so that we can find ways to solve problems that have nothing to do with the products or services that we normally sell. Perhaps our contacts within our IT Department allow us to gather advice for a customer who is in need of upgrading his point of purchase computer hardware or software. Perhaps our contacts and relationships with other BDRs in other parts of the country offer solutions to a sales or marketing challenge that our customer has. Perhaps our involvement with our trade association helps us to recognize a solution to a problem that our customer hasn’t been exposed to. Cultivating a wide network of contacts takes time and effort but the payoff comes when we need that additional expertise to create additional value for our customers.2. Being a WAVE means finding the personal time to help our customers in their own sales efforts with consumers. Perhaps we offer a weekend to help them beef up their sales force when they are doing a consumer show. Perhaps we help with making sure shelves are properly stocked or displays are updated. Perhaps we offer physical help and advice in updating or upgrading their showroom and/or their service trucks, etc. One of the BDRs in a company I work with took the initiative and put together a group of fellow employees at her sales center and created a fun Saturday by painting and re-vamping one of her good customer’s showroom. The customer wasn’t even on the premises; he just gave her the keys and reimbursed her for the materials on Monday morning. Talk about trust and relationship! Talk about creating the ultimate loyal customer! There are lots of ways that we can offer our labor and our ideas to help our dealers accomplish their goals but sometimes creating value this way means sharing some personal time of our own.3. Being a WAVE means creating value by educating and training our customer’s employees in new technologies, new programs and new products that our company represents. We have to take the time and make the effort to learn about the latest and newest technologies, not only from our company’s viewpoint in selling the products but also from our customer’s viewpoint in how he promotes it, sells it and installs it for the consumer. We have to accept the responsibility of working side by side with our dealer’s employees to help them acquire the requisite skills needed to apply these new technologies in the field.Being a WAVE means focusing our efforts as a true partner with each of our dealers. Not the common rhetoric that is bantered about regarding partnerships but rather truly putting ourselves into our customer’s shoes and helping to find solutions to whatever issues and problems he has. We have to discover new ways to add our own value by helping our customers to achieve their own dreams and goals.Being a WAVE, a Wholesale Added Value Engineer, is really about a total commitment of our time and talent in helping our customers to develop their individual businesses. It also relies completely on the relationship we have built with each of our dealers and that takes a huge amount of time and effort. If anyone told you this BDR job would be easy, she was totally wrong. It is however, a fun opportunity that is tremendously rewarding, both economically and mentally, when we learn the unique ways we can add our own value to every situation!If POOLCORP's BDRs really are "making WAVES" then we are accomplishing our goals!
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