The best sources to find suitable sales agents
Before starting with the selection of agents, we recommend spending some time to compose a certain document. For instance, you can reflect the list of activities or complementary products of yours. With this in mind you will be able to find the most appropriate profiles. And then the searches for information will be more concrete.
What are the sources to find sales agents?
We make a list of the most common sources, in order of success ratio:
– International fairs of the sector. Through the list of exhibitors of the fairs you can find companies that manufacture complementary products or services. Through them, you can find the commercial networks that they have in each of the markets of your interest.
– Professional social networks. Such as LinkedIn, Viadeo (strong presence in France) or Xing (Strong presence in Germany) through which one can get a professional network in your sector. In addition to using them to locate the most relevant commercial agents, you can use them for publicity and to position yourself as experts or specialists through high quality content of interest
– Purchase database. There are companies that are dedicated to the sale of databases of commercial agents, repertoires by sector and activity. The biggest drawback is that in most cases theses databases are not up to date. It´s also possible that you find people in this databases that are retired, have changed their profession or who are currently commercial employees of a company.
– Study of competition. Following the competitors (consulting companies) helps in two ways. You learn which agent has a peer portfolio, which no longer works for the competition and which could be qualified for the product or service of your company.
– Associations of commercial agents and federations. Allow to put advertisements that are published among their associates to find appropriate profiles. Usually this method has a low response rate.
– The free search in Google. If you look for networks of companies in the consulting area, you may find company lists with international coverage area, which could help.
Other related information:
Aspects to consider for the selection of the sales agent
B2B meetings between Spanish companies and French sales agents