There are a huge number of benefits to working with independent sales reps and Manufacturer's reps. Aside from the obvious being the lower risk and significant money saving over hiring an in-house employed sales team, let's take a look at what makes this type of sales professional invaluable for company Principals.

The Difference Between Employees And Independent Sales Professionals

Firstly let's take a look at the difference between an employee and an independent sales professional.

An employee is paid a basic wage by a company regardless of the amount of new business closed. A wage is put in-place to secure or essentially purchase that person's full time and dedication to one company.

A formal contract of employment is also drawn up between the company and employee which protects both parties.

Some laws protect employees from unfair dismissal and can include continuing to pay a wage while that person is off work sick or even on paternity leave for extended periods of time for example.

Failure to follow the law or breaching a contract of employment can result in legal proceedings and it can often be very difficult to let go of an employee that isn't working out how you planned initially.

An independent or self-employed sales representative is a sales specialist that runs their own business and provides sales as a service to companies on a contractual basis. Independent agents pay their own taxes and incur their own expenses. While a contract will still be in-place to define the specific relationship between the two parties, the terms are very different.

A self-employed sales contractor chooses to forgo a regular wage because they are typically entrepreneurial, have a vast amount of experience and contacts within their particular industry and understand that they can make far much more money by representing multiple company Principals and selling a number of non-competing products and services into their existing networks of contacts.

Where a company's in-house sales team may not have a network of existing contacts, a freelance sales agent that has a large network of contacts they already sell into can introduce your company to Markets which may have been previously very difficult to penetrate.

There's huge value in being able to tap into a reps network which shouldn't be taken for granted.

A great example of this was when Intel bought Digital Equipment Corp's semiconductor business. They used an outsourced independent sales team to sell three of their product lines into markets where its normal salesforce had no prior experience or contacts.

Aside from the costs associated with finding and paying for new physical premises, recruiting new sales employees, training, and onboarding, the broader issue is much slower growth given the length of time it takes to expand into new territory physically.

Companies can now by-pass this by working in conjunction with a freelance sales force and tapping into their existing customer base and networks in those regions.

"What’s great about B2B commission-only sales reps is that they can quickly open up new territories. We’re now making movements into Singapore and Hong Kong simply because we’ve been able to partner with the right sales agents in those regions without having to open new offices across Asia" - Deepak Shukla, Pearl Lemon

Similarly, we’re seeing a rising trend in the number of sales professionals transitioning from employment to self-employment.

The ability to take advantage of a digitally connected world, where decision makers are comfortable making high-value purchases over video conference calls, means that sales professionals are no longer restricted to relying on a single entity to pay them a salary and provide the products and services they can sell locally.

Instead, self-employment means the ability to build diverse sales portfolios, save time and expense on travel and ultimately reap higher rewards as a result.

When searching for an employed sales force many companies are restricted to finding top performing sales professionals in a limited geographic region.

Unless that person is willing to uproot and move - which can sometimes involve selling property, taking children out of school and also asking your significant other to move with you - it's unlikely that you'll be able to convince that person to start representing your company.

When recruiting a self-employed sales force it becomes a very different matter. Not only are most independent sales people at the top of their profession - as a result of becoming self-employed after many years as a company employee - but due to the fact that they work remotely, companies have access to a much larger talent pool of potential reps.

This is also where other sales job platforms fail as they don't address the issues that come with managing a remote working sales force.

CommissionCrowd not only makes it extremely easy for company Principals and sales agents to search for each other and connect, but once that connection has been made our online platform makes managing that relationship effortless.

Everything from training, file hosting and sharing, sales pipeline management, communicating in real-time, lead allocation, integrated CRM and even paying and receiving commissions is quick and easy.

CommissionCrowd makes connecting easy and streamlines remote working relationships so that both companies and self-employed sales agents can focus all of their time and energy on selling.