It happens with distributors everywhere. For some reason you don’t have a great relationship with one of the manufacturer’s reps assigned to your company. The reasons for this are many. Let’s dig into the big three: The rep is responsible for lines which are competitive to your company’s key suppliers. Many distributors fear working with reps who are tied to competitive products lines. The reasoning is simple, introduce them to our best customer and the next day, they will return to the customer with a demo of a different brand product. Further, if they know more about “your” customer, proposed solutions become more focused and effective. When the product they sell are an important part of your value proposition, it’s easy for them to offer something similar but better or cheaper or both. The rep is closely aligned with a competitive distributor. When the rep has close ties to a competitive distributor, it raises a number of trust issues. Will important information be ...