It took me aback to find my trusty Rolodex on display in a museum on my recent trip to NY. Happily it was in an exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt highlighting good design, not obsolete technology. But still, it made me realize that it might be time for a new approach to the challenge of tracking who reps which line.

Why is this important? Because we all need to go out of our way to make sure that sales reps get credit for our orders, even those written at a trade show. We know that if we don’t, the rep system will collapse and we won’t have the benefit of the expertise and service offered by good sales reps.

The problem that we face is staying on top of changes in representation. We’re located between Minneapolis and Chicago, so we sometimes feel like our part of Wisconsin bounces back and forth between the two major centers.  Territories are always being realigned, and we are rarely informed by vendors when a change is made.

The Rolodex card for some of our long-time vendors has a long list of rep names crossed out, with new ones written in below.  Each card also lists some other key facts about the line: name, address, phone, email, web address, fax number and a brief description of the products.  I also note the year and month we started buying from the company, and where the first order was placed.

It’s more important than ever to make sure that reps get credit for orders written at a gift show, and of course it’s not practical to carry a Rolodex along. That’s a second reason that I think it may be time to update my technology.  As Business News gleefully proclaims, “The days of the Rolodex are over.”  They offer a number of smartphone apps to replace the lovely round-edge Rolodex cards, but you could also us any computer database program — or even an alphabetized Word document.  That way you can whip out a printed vendor list at the next trade show and know at an instant whether you have a rep who deserves credit for the order you’re writing.

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder