When asked if he is taking advantage of any new technological tools to advance his rep business, Josh Gordon, a publishing industry rep and author of Selling 2.0 (Amacom), answers, "That's an interesting way to ask the question. In most cases it's just the opposite. I think of technology as being inflicted upon us."

He explains: "With the advent of email RFP's [requests for proposals] and strategic buying websites that you need to log onto to provide product and sales data, reps are being put at a greater distance from their buyers. These tools are not being initiated or implemented by the rep but they are increasingly becoming part of the rep's world - and not necessarily in a good way." On the rep's side, he adds, "everyone has a computer, sends out emails, and uses contact management software," but that's not enough to tip the balance in the rep's favor.

While that may be true for a one-man shop like Gordon's, however, technology does offer some economy of scale benefits to larger rep firms. Dave Rossi, president of Empire Technology Group, and electronics industry rep firm that is adding territories and taking on additional sideline businesses such as design work and engineering, says that his firm has been able to centralize the IT function for its various territories and businesses and expand its data storage. "At last count, we had four terabytes of storage in our facility," he says. A terabyte is 1,024 gigabytes. And because he and his reps now use Trios - a three-in-one electronic device that includes phone, email, and PDA (personal digital assistant) --- "everything is now on one portable device. So the good news is you're continually connected." But, he adds, "The bad news, too, is that you're continually connected.

Data standardization issues

But being connected and being able to transfer data electronically creates another host of rep issues, particularly regarding data standardization. "A lot of the data on rep websites and running through reps' back-office systems isn't even rep data," says Gregg Marshall, a former plumbing industry rep and now executive directory of the Gift and Home Trade Association (GHTA), "it's data that's coming from the manufacturer directly." And in an industry like the gift industry, where agencies may be representing 20 or 30 suppliers and handling thousands of SKUs, that can be a major roadblock.

"This is an industry with tens of thousands of SKUs, and just getting product data out of the manufacturer and into a rep database or into a website database so that it can be used either by the customer or by the rep to help make sales is a major deal," says Marshall.

GHTA is doing its part by initiating the standards discussion through technology meetings at its annual conferences. "For the first time, the industry has seriously started to get together and take notice that everyone is doing these things differently, and that there are great economies of scale if we can create data transfer standards and templates," Marshall says. Just providing product photos for rep websites is a major undertaking, for instance.

"We're trying to standardize how you name and format .jpgs for pictures of products," he says. "When you have no handle 4,000 or 5,000 pictures at once, this is a big deal."

Other industry associations have similar technology standardization initiatives underway.

Getting data into the hands of customers

While some reps are fielding websites that are best described as "online resumes," with little data beyond the rep's line card and little functionality beyond an email link, other reps are taking a cue from consumer websites that allow for more sophisticated data presentation, online ordering, automatic email acknowledgment, and order tracking, among other things.

The gift industry, in particular, because of the high number of products handled by the typical rep, has seen a lot of more high-end websites, says Marshall. "These aren't one-page websites, they're 10,000-page websites," he says, and include sophisticated search features, customer order information, and other features.

Peggy Lichty, of Peggy Lichty & Associates Inc., a gift industry rep, agrees. "More and more of the agencies in our industry are adding functionality to their websites and becoming order-capable," she says.

But this may not be the biggest technology development in the industry. More important, perhaps, is the fact that reps are creating more sophisticated order tracking and data management systems, so that they can take the data they receive from manufacturers and the data they receive from customers to put together more accurate and more finely segmented point-of-sale information for customers.

"A lot of the retailers we sell to don't have the technology, so if we can bring more results-oriented reports to show them --- programs that will show them what their sales look like not only for every product category but for every SKU," Lichty says, "that will hopefully build our business while it builds their business. So one of the things we're doing is refining our technology and adding layers to it so we can provide more of that information."

But while sophisticated websites and data management technology may offer advances, don't imagine that it will mean that rep agencies won't have to put feet on the street, Lichty adds. "We're still a very hands-on type of industry. Customers still want to see and feel and touch. They want to smell the candles."

What it may mean, however, is that with more sophisticate websites, more targeted data, and electronic access via email and PDAS, the rep won't have to call personally on the same customer as often.

Contact: Josh Gordon, Gordon Communication Strategies, jgordon5@verizon.net; Peggy Lichty, Peggy Lichty & Associates Inc., peggylichty@plareps.com; Gregg Marshall, Gift & Home Trade Association, gmarshall@giftandhome.org; Dave Rossi, Empire Technology Group, www.etgsales.com