For the association, 2023 was another year of growth in which we implemented many of the ideas from the strategic plan. We added a dedicated social media team, a weekly enewsletter and enhanced industry press partnerships, especially member spotlights and this column featured in The Wholesaler magazine. 

September’s AIM/R 51st Annual Conference in Sandestin, Fla., was a great success, with more than 500 participants. The level of professionalism and quality content presented by the conference committee left everyone heading home with actionable ideas to improve their businesses.

AIM/R’s board of directors met in May to review and update our strategic plan for moving the association forward. The overall goal is for AIM/R to become more valuable to its members and offer them resources 24/7, 365 days a year. 

In this column, I would like to share where we are and what we are working on to become a better organization. The key is becoming a better resource for rep agency and manufacturer members.

We identified four major areas in which we can grow: 

 Outreach. Communicate to our members in the industry and increase advocacy of the right values through the industries we serve.

 Resources. Identify other offerings for our membership and potential members to thrive and succeed.

 Events. Identify where to be to advocate for AIM/R, whether it’s our annual conference or participating in additional association events and other gatherings.

 Education. AIM/R is committed to advancing members’ knowledge, standing and professionalism through in-person events and ongoing virtual sessions, newsletters and AIM/R mentoring programs.

Outreach and Resources

Ongoing outreach is an important pillar in the value we provide each agency that invests in AIM/R to ensure they get a return on investment of their time in the association. We added social media channels to communicate immediately on the activities of the association and our members. 

We provide regular articles and member spotlights in industry magazines, such as The Wholesaler. We are partnering with other associations — HARDI, DPHA, CIPH, MANA — to reach out to potential new members and grow the network of manufacturers’ reps working on their businesses. 

As we look forward, we have allocated budget space to enhance current marketing materials to better educate potential new members on AIM/R’s benefits.

We also recognize that we can elevate direct communication, so we are reviewing internal applications, such as the association management and customer-relation management database of members and their employees. Research continues on new association management software that will allow us to interact better with members and for members to interact better with association staff.

Some of the requirements of this new software will be a new website that is more interactive, user-friendly and easier for members to update their company information. It will address the need to easily register for events and offer a robust way to communicate with current members and target new members. The website would ideally include a centralized library of information and educational downloads in the members-only area to help members in their businesses.

Development and implementation of a Rep Toolkit, a resource library of templates for onboarding new employees, ideas for operations, technology and tools for management for both inside and outside sales, is a key initiative on the strategic plan.

Events and Education

AIM/R on Tap, our monthly, live e-learnings, will be expanded. These virtual sessions remain relevant to the members with topics on operations, human resources, legal and sales. 

The association needs to grow its membership to offer more resources. The strategic plan includes many avenues to accomplish membership growth, including working with manufacturers and asking them to encourage their reps to join AIM/R. 

Manufacturers can share our Sales Meeting Kit to communicate AIM/R benefits at sales meetings. Most current AIM/R members are in the plumbing industry. However, the strategic plan allows for the diversification of our members in industries such as HVAC, decorative plumbing and other related industries.

AIM/R’s board of directors agrees that the association needs to work with manufacturers that currently do not use reps to educate them on the benefits of the rep function. The goal is to identify potential targets to reach out to and actively target them. 

Through relationships with other associations, AIM/R can educate reps and manufacturers on the benefits of our association. Board members are attending other association conferences this year, such as the ASA NETWORK, the HARDI Annual Conference, the CIPH Annual Business Conference and the DPHA Annual Conference.

The development of an onboarding process for new members is also in progress. An AIM/R task force is identifying ways to make this happen so a member can use all the benefits of being a member from day one. 

The board supports anonymous benchmarking for its members to better understand key parts of their businesses. Once this information is collected by an outside firm and is correlated, it can be very useful for members to see how other companies of similar size perform in key areas, including compensation, expense and profit ratios, recruitment, hiring and employee retention. 

Only participating members receive the final report to analyze their own businesses. We will make improvements to the survey tool and data-gathering process to make it simpler for members to participate, as an increase in participation among members will present more comprehensive data for everyone.

We are also proud to announce that AIM/R has formed a compassionate foundation dedicated to the development and advancement of the independent manufacturers’ rep community served by AIM/R. The exact details of the foundation are still being developed. One goal of the foundation is to provide CPMR scholarships in honor of individuals who invested so much into AIM/R and advancing the manufacturers’ representative model.

This association of volunteers looks forward to making AIM/R a key part of manufacturers’ representatives’ business development in 2024!  

Jeff Blair is the president of Barclay Sales Ltd. and Barclay Sales Alberta. He has been with the company since 1985 and has been president since 2008. Blair is on AIM/R’s Executive Committee and serves as senior vice president of industry and PR, as well as Conference 2025.