Sales Consultant VS Sales Rep - Which to choose? What’s the difference?
I started my journey as a Sales Representative in 2020. I started at an agency as a glorified shipping and Shopify manager in a small town in the middle of nowhere, with a very rude accountant, and I quickly learned that if I wanted to advance in this industry, I needed to find something else and fast.
Fast forward to 2022, when I picked up a rep position at another independent agency. I took on a larger brand and, for the first time, had a territory to really work within, a companied paid vehicle and a key account commission paying my salary. This position helped me build credibility with specialty accounts, grow relationships with partners across the Midwest, and educate as many people as possible, whether that meant educating buyers on product technology or helping salespeople understand how to sell those products.
In 2023, I started my own sales agency. Mostly because of a very rocky termination that had nothing to do with me or my job performance. It came down to semantics and, honestly, pettiness. Within 72 hours of being let go, I had started my own agency. For the first time, I was able to take everything I had learned during my time in the outdoor industry (see my first blog post for more on my industry experience) and create something I could truly call my own. I could create the feeling I wanted my buyers to have in storytelling of the products I sold, and work with them through empathy and understanding, instead of the greasy “big tough guy” car-salesman vibes I had experienced from other agencies.
But there was something else I learned while repping that eventually changed the direction of my career. As much as you can love a brand and believe in what it stands for, the economics of being an independent rep can be brutal. If it’s a lower-priced item, especially from a new brand, you can open as many accounts as humanly possible and still find yourself looking at a commission check of around $350 a month for that brand, and not much else. Unless you are given a key account with multiple doors (the key account that I had the brand took in-house) and a significant open-to-buy to fill those doors, your opportunity for revenue can be extremely limited. Sometimes it barely keeps you going.
And the costs of being an independent rep don’t stop there. You’re paying membership fees for regional shows, hotels, gas, meals, samples(can be up to $25k a season for a rainbow set), rental vans, racks, displays, iPads, you name it. It is expensive to be a rep, especially when you’re writing future orders a year out and working on a pay-on-pay commission structure, you can kiss that $350 if and when it arrives in 12 months. Let’s also not forget that most of the time, your commission is under 10%. So you better sell A LOT, or rep too many brands to make this model make sense.
If you’re a founder, you’re probably wondering, “Gee, why are you telling me this? I’m not a rep, so why would I care?” Well, this could actually be one of the reasons you’re struggling with a rep agency right now, or why you can’t seem to land anyone to represent your brand in the first place. Emerging brands are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, you’re looking to grow your business, and finding reps who already have their foot in the door seems like a no-brainer.
But here’s the catch:
You aren’t their manager. You aren’t their boss. You are contracting them to sell a product. How they sell it, or whether they sell it at all, is ultimately on the independent rep, not you. So the question becomes:
How do I get my product out there if I can’t get a rep agency? There are a few options.
1. You become the rep.
You grab a consultant like myself who knows the industry inside and out, and you gain the tools and perspective to go out to shows, email prospects, develop relationships, and create a plan to get your foot in the door before you ever sign with a rep agency. The goal is to build an established book of business that you can then take to a rep agency and say, “Here’s what I’ve already built.” Now they can see how your product is performing, what the revenue potential is, and, most importantly, that there is already buy-in from retailers. That gives them a dollar figure to work with. They can take over those relationships, build on the existing business, and drive it further.
2. Hire someone to do #1 for you.
Either way, building a book of business before bringing on a rep agency can set you up for significantly greater success than shopping your brand to agencies based on the story alone, and help save you money on your already razor thin margins. And this is exactly why I left the independent rep world and decided to become a consultant. Being an independent rep in the Midwest was an insufferable grind. There is always this inner monologue: Should I quit and get a “real job” so I can save my marriage and pay my bills? Or do I keep playing the guessing game because I love the freedom of being a business owner and the relationships I’ve built with my accounts? That constant uncertainty is exhausting and not sustainable, at least it was for me.
I started this consulting business because I wanted to go directly to the founders and help them develop a strategy to get into wholesale before they sign over their business to an agency. Because I genuinely believe you can do it. Even if you’ve never been in sales before. A lot of it is marketing. The rest is consistency. And with AI tools taking over the planet (for better or worse), there are more tools than ever to help you stay organized, consistent, and on track while you build your business from the ground up. Not all consulting agencies are the same. And shopping around for the “perfect” plan can feel overwhelming. That’s why I’m streamlining my services into three simple programs, along with hourly consulting. I’m not going to ask you for a retainer and then become the person who connects you with another person. I’m going to provide direct, real value to your strategy and help you get inside those doors. Because once you’re in, anything is possible.
If you’d like to learn more, I offer a free 30-minute consultation where I’ll speak with you directly and give you my honest feedback on where your brand currently sits within the industry.
From there, you can decide what makes the most sense for you. No pressure. No bullshit. Just an honest conversation about where you are, where you want to go, and how you can get there.
-Allison Deschaine, Founder & Consultant