Breakout Seminars
Breakout seminars are listed in alphabetical order and include detailed descriptions as well as links to presentation files and audio content (if available).
Click on any speaker/presenter name to link to his/her biography.
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Mike Calabria
Mike Swenson, CPMR
Achieving Trusted Advisor Status: Differentiation Practices by Reps, Distributors and Manufacturers
Monday, 10:45 a.m. / Tuesday, 12:45 p.m.
Presenters: Michael Calabria, President and CEO, Abracon, LCC, and Mike Swenson, CPMR, President, Mel Foster Company
How are you differentiating your firm to be viewed as “best in class” or to have “trusted advisor status?” What does achieving this status do to enhance your company’s position in the market? In this seminar, examples will be presented on differentiation for reps, distributors and manufacturers working together. Achieving higher level relationships with all business partners is extremely important to your future success, so be sure to join the open interaction and idea sharing during this session.
Richard Greaves
Are You Maximizing Sales Collaboration with the Latest Cloud Tools?
Tuesday, 9:45 a.m. / Tuesday, 2:15 p.m.
Presenter: Richard Greaves, Senior Partner and Co-Founder, Empowering Systems
Is your firm leveraging the latest collaboration tools? In this session, Rich Greaves will discuss the latest collaboration tools and specifically why Office 365 is a great platform for rep firms and all salespeople. It’s much more than Excel, Word and PowerPoint. See what you can do with the latest tools to take your sales collaboration beyond phone, text and email … and why you will want to!
John Mitchell
Cloud Computing and the Makeup of the Salesperson of the Future
Monday, 9:15 a.m / Tuesday, 12:45 p.m.
Presenter: John Mitchell, CEO, Repfabric
Four game changers impact sales. Notice how engineers and buyers spend increasing amounts of time on their computers? Notice that your secret customer contacts can be found by anyone online? Do you spend too much time on tasks that don’t drive revenue? Do you struggle to meet your buyers’ expectations that you have all the answers at any moment? Using new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and the ability to see business trends instantly, how will you compete and thrive as these industry challenges intensify? This session explores how to lessen threats and reveals practical tactics to take advantage of the new era. Jump into this breakout today and be the game changer.
Design Registrations: What Works, What Doesn’t and How Valuable Are They?
Monday, 9:15 a.m. / Tuesday, 9:45 a.m.
Moderator: Steve Gomez, Sr. VP & Director of Sales Americas, Avnet
Panelists: Tobi Cornell, Vice President of Distibution. Kruvand Associates, Inc.; Amy Hain, Director of Global Accounts, RFMW, Ltd.; and Kurt Devlin, director of sales of Ohmite Manufacturing
Much has changed in the industry in regard to design registration programs.
Has the value of design registrations kept pace with these changes, and are they being utilized properly? What is the purpose of the design registration? What are best practices in executing a program? What roles and responsibilities do the rep, manufacturer, and distributor have in the DR process, and what contributes
to its success or failure? This panel has ideas and experiences to share on all of these questions, and attendees should be ready to add their input to the discussion.
Byron Holloway
Excel: Tips and Tricks for Busy Salespeople
Monday, 2:30 p.m. / Tuesday, 12:45 p.m.
Presenter: Byron Holloway, sales engineer, Fralia Company & Associates (also a former Microsoft-certified trainer)
In this seminar, the presentation will cover: basic formulas; absolute versus relative references (when to use $ notation in formulas); named ranges; data clean up (dates that come through as text strings instead of dates); lookup tables; pivot tables; dynamic ranges; hyperlinks; and third party tools. Although the format of this session is primarily a lecture, there will be a very detailed handout with step-by-step instructions and sample data so attendees will be able to complete the tasks on their own.
Your breakout presenter, Byron Holloway, has provided a link to access the files prior to his seminar. Because of the large size of this file folder, it cannot be uploaded to our conference Crowd Compass app or the ERA website. If you are registered for this breakout seminar and have not received or lost the email including the link, please email info@era.org.
Link to presentation files
Excel for Busy Salespeople – Video
Kate Rhoten
Fuel Up to Power Up
Monday, 2:30 p.m.
Presenter: Kate Rhoten, executive director, Manufacturers’ Representatives Educational Research Foundation (MRERF)
You’ve got the tools, the plans, the timeline and goals. To ensure sales success, expertise and resilience are critical. However, with every talent you identify in yourself or your team, with every skill you insist on learning, with every new tool you purchase, frustration at the finish line can too often finish YOU.
“To Develop and Certify Selling Professionals” has been the focus of MRERF, the Manufacturers’ Representative Educational Research Foundation for more than three decades. Founded by ERA members and dedicated to ensuring rep success, MRERF stands with you as you sort and strategize to maximize your assets, communicate more effectively and sell more.
Invest in yourself and your team. Take the time here to reevaluate what’s in, or missing from, your sales toolbox. Use or identify those tools you need as FUEL to POWER UP your strategy and craft no less than three workable, realistic actions to directly impact 2018 sales. Your tools, your future.
Chuck Tanzola, CPMR
Global Principals and Suppliers: Addressing Cultural Differences and Diversity
Monday, 2:30 p.m. / Tuesday, 2:15 p.m.
Moderator: Chuck Tanzola, CPMR, vice president of business development, Fusion Sourcing Group
Participants: Ken Bellero, president, Schaffner EMC, and Tom Wichert, executive vice president of Sales and Marketing, TDK Lambda Americas
As a North American-based manufacturers’ representative or distributor, do you find yourself increasingly selling products from international manufacturers? As an internationally-based manufacturer, have you noticed that supplying to the North American market may be vastly different than within your domestic market?
The world continues to get flatter, so if you answered yes to either of these questions, then you have no doubt experienced the intersection of a diversity of cultures and customs, all of which profoundly influence how people think, communicate and behave globally. Within this diversity are found challenges and opportunities alike. And, if you did not answer affirmatively, you likely soon will.
This breakout session will explore areas of cultural difference, foster an interactive discussion of both the inherent challenges and opportunities, and provide insights from experienced industry veterans who thrive within this environment on a daily basis. Attendees will gain a new appreciation for the nuances of cultural diversity, undoubtedly take away tips and tools to better navigate the breadth of variety found within the global market, and maybe even recognize some past “oops” incidents.
Harnessing the Power of Three: Creating Goals, Identifying Roles, Bringing Value and Generating Results
Monday, 9:15 a.m. / Tuesday, 12:45 p.m.
Moderator: David Foster, Americas channel manager, industrial solutions, Sensata
Panelists: Julie Carr, Distribution Sales Manager, MacInnis Group; Brian Flynn, Vice President of Sales, Sager Electronics; Holly Good, National Distribution Sales Manager, Cornell Dubilier Electronics, Inc.
The collaborative strength of the rep, manufacturer and distributor in engaging a customer is well known, but are you applying the same powerful approach to other goals? Harnessing the “Power of Three” to other aspects of your common goals can produce the same positive results that are evident on a buddy call. Come and contribute to a panel discussion on the best practices that can be applied to collectively creating and achieving common goals.
Bryan Shirley, CPMR
How Changes Have Impacted the Buying, Selling and/or Merging of Rep Firms
Monday, 10:45 a.m. / Tuesday, 12:45 p.m.
Presenter: Bryan Shirley, CPMR, ERA Consultant
Learn the recipe for the most successful methods of buying, selling or merging rep firms. With your inputs and experiences, this interactive session will focus on what tools you need today to create the most successful next deal when you buy or sell a rep firm. This seminar will cover in-depth details on the three primary aspects: 1) valuation; 2) structure of the deal (payments); and 3) making it work — with the rep firm team, the manufacturers, distributors and customers. The discussion also will focus on successes (and pitfalls) and whether a deal is internal (i.e., a succession plan to sell to one or more current employees) or external (i.e., a sale or purchase of another rep company).
Innovation and Disruption: Adapting to Change
Cameron Ward
Monday, 10:45 a.m. / Tuesday, 2:15 p.m.
Presenter: Cameron Ward, Senior Vice President – Global Innovation, RS ComponentsDisruption is happening everywhere and even more so in the electronics industry. Barriers to entry are reducing; and technologies — such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and industrial IOT, along with many others — are impacting and influencing the world more and more. Marketplaces are emerging; single board computing and the Maker Movement continue to grow; and customers and suppliers are pushing their partners for more innovative solutions outside of traditional product and services. What can companies do to potentially turn disruptive innovation into opportunity? Don’t miss this discussion of how innovation and disruptive new technologies and business models are changing the way customers want to work and the opportunities for partners to provide solutions and services beyond just products.
Charles M. Cohon
The Quick and the Dead
Monday, 9:15 a.m.
Presenter: Charles M. Cohon, CEO and President, Manufacturers’ Agents National Association
If you are a rep, there is a fork in the road up ahead. And it’s coming up quickly. Pick the right fork, and the best manufacturers will be lined up outside your door waiting to give you their lines. Pick the wrong fork, and you’re dead. And all the manufacturers lined up to give their lines to the industry’s best reps will be principals that used to be on your line card. No succession plan? No heir apparent? You’re dead. No communication plan for your principals? You’re dead. No website? Still using an AOL email address? You’re dead. Is it too late to pick the right fork? Not if you’re motivated and ready to embrace the needed changes. In this seminar, the discussion will focus on how to plan and execute those changes for your firm … unless you’d rather just be dead.
John Simari
Cesare Giammarco
The Rep Value Proposition: Taking a Fresh Look at Manufacturers’ Reps – A Framework for Discussions
Monday, 10:45 a.m. / Tuesday, 9:45 a.m.
Presenters: Cesare Giammarco, ERA Consultant, and John Simari, Simari Consulting, ERA Consultant
Participants: Tim Conlon, ERA Consultant; Tom Griffin, CPMR, President, Catalyst Sales, Inc.; Alex Iuorio, Senior Vice President, Supplier Marketing and Business Development, Avnet Electronics; and Mike Lasley, President, ION Associates
Manufacturers’ reps are a critical element of sales channel strategies. In today’s fast-paced, ever-changing industry it is essential that manufacturers have a current view of how reps address the most critical needs, from advocacy to expertise to customer experience. This also applies to distributors who work with reps in a collaborative selling effort on behalf of those manufacturers.
In this session, the presenters will walk through a framework to have that discussion with manufacturers. Because each company is unique, no one presentation will meet all situations. This is true for manufacturers that have strong rep engagements as well as those that might be considering a rep model. For distributors, viewing the rep value from the perspective of the manufacturer will enhance the effectiveness of the teaming. Developed by individuals with extensive experience at manufacturers, the materials discussed and distributed in this session can be tailored to fit most any situation.
Adam Glazer
Gerald Newman
Reviewing, Revising and Negotiating Sales Rep Agreements
Monday, 2:30 p.m. / Tuesday, 9:45 a.m.
Presenters: ERA Legal Counsels Gerald Newman and Adam Glazer, Schoenberg, Finkel, Newman & Rosenberg, LLC
ERA’s legal counsels will lead an interactive discussion designed for reps when dealing with contracts. The session will begin with a review of basic rep contract law, including provisions that should be included and those that should be excluded. The attendees will then review and revise an actual rep agreement — identifying and focusing on the most important provisions — and will determine what changes can and should be made. The end product will be a set of revised contract provisions that reps can keep in mind for future negotiations.
Holly Myers, CPMR
Zach DeVillers, CPMR
Sales Techniques Swap Shop
Monday, 9:15 a.m. / Tuesday, 2:15 p.m.
Presenters: Zach DeVillers, CPMR, Director of Sales, Brainard-Nielsen Marketing, and Holly Myers, CPMR, Sales and Marketing Manager, Wallace Electronic Sales
Now more than ever, there is a need to find new ways to reach customers, get face-to-face (F2F) time and stay relevant. This session is meant to be an open forum on best practices covering prospecting, preparation, how to get the F2F meeting, the actual F2F meeting and post-sales call follow up. Based on an ERA survey with 100 responses, there is plenty to talk about. With the engagement of and contributions by the attendees, everyone will walk away with new sales strategies. Note: A best practices ERA white paper is planned, based on the results of the survey and this breakout.
Debbie Castrodale
Unselling in 2018: Are You Having the Right Collaborative Conversation?
Monday, 10:45 a.m. / Monday, 2:30 p.m.
Presenter: Debbie Castrodale, Founder, The Unsale
The marketplace isn’t static; why are you still using the same sale “scripts” and methodologies? In this session, you will learn: how to understand and position sales as a collaborative process versus a role and a methodology; why and how you should stop “push” selling and “pull” your customers towards your offering; how innovation and disruption are affecting your ability to talk to customers and what to do about it; what your conversation components should include to get customers to take your call and invite you into their conversation; when and where “the conversation” starts plus why and how you can gain early traction on the path to sales; why the most successful companies “live” in a different operating model; and what skills you need to use or acquire to be a best in class sales organization or sales representative. Come prepared for an active discussion and for some next steps you can implement immediately for better sales outcomes in 2018.
Graham Kilshaw
Your Company’s Marketing Toolbox: How You Can Build a Successful Marketing Plan for Only $500 a Month
Tuesday, 9:45 a.m. / Tuesday, 2:15 p.m.
Presenter: Graham Kilshaw, CEO, ITEM Media
With the changing dynamics in business relationships, it’s more important than ever to take control of your marketing efforts. As marketing has grown increasingly digital, a successful marketing plan now requires a combination of content, technology, data and people — a combination that may seem out of reach to many companies. How can you create a cost-effective, practical digital marketing plan that supports your industry partners, while generating the measurable sales results and ROI you need to succeed — all for only $500 a month?
This interactive workshop will take attendees through the steps in building an affordable and realistic marketing strategy, while providing the opportunity to ask questions and contribute thoughts along the way. Some of the topics discussed will include how to: prepare your email list for marketing; identify easy-to-use marketing tools; deliver the right content at the right time; develop key accounts with unique messaging; repurpose content to minimize workload; automate marketing activities; and bridge the gap between broad and targeted marketing activities. By the end of the workshop, you will have completed a checklist of next steps and developed a toolbox of marketing technologies that you can take back to the office and begin implementing immediately.
