Sandler Partners Arms Agents With Commission Recovery Team, Sales Psychology Training As Economic Changes Loom

Master agent Sandler Partners wants partners to be prepared for anything, including economic changes or missing commission payments.

"We want to help our partners survive, grow and thrive no matter what the economy is like," said Alan Sandler, founder and managing partner of Hermosa Beach, Calif.-based Sandler Partners. Sandler said that for partners, uncertainty always exists. Some years, that uncertainty is related to customer buying trends due to economics, and in other years, it's centered on merger and acquisition activity of the vendors partners rely on, and which technologies will be adopted by their customers.

"For the past few years, the economy has been on fire and agents have had a good chance to be successful. This year, we think as the overall economy changes with the new tax laws and raised interest rates, it will tighten the money supply," Sandler said ahead of the Sandler Partners West Coast Summit this week in Los Angeles.

[Related: Mark Zandi: Economy Is Booming, But Trade, Interest Rates Pose Risk]

Understanding the psychology behind the sales process will help partners brace themselves for any changes, Sandler said. This year at Sandler Partners' annual partner event, the master agent is focusing on training solution providers on the psychology of influence on sales, as well as traditional technical training and complex deal scenarios.

During a strong economy, businesses base their budgets on productivity-enhancing tools without necessarily centering their buying decisions on saving money. In a weakened economy, however, the relationship and trust between partners and their end customers takes the front seat as cost-cutting becomes important again, Sandler said.

"Likeability and reciprocity are very important. There will be fewer customers wanting to buy fewer things, and we want to help our partners continue to work with their existing customer base by enhancing and nurturing their existing customers and try to highlight the training and expertise that have made our own channel managers so successful in closing deals," he said.

Founded in 2003, Sandler Partners has experienced financial growth ing each quarter. "We went through a down economy and still continued to grow … so we feel like those [partners] that have the best understanding and training on sales will be able to survive through an economy that may not be growing as fast as it has been recently," he said.

Sandler Partners revealed that, in addition to helping partners boost their sales, the master agent has recovered more than $5 million in unpaid or underpaid commissions for agents through its Commissions Integrity Program. The commissions recovery team consists of 15 employees, with nine staff members dedicated to proactively working on audits on their partners' behalf. The team has opened more than 800 tickets on average each week, and this year alone found nearly $1.3 million in service provider errors and unpaid commissions for partners, the company said.

Solution providers frequently face recurring revenue compensation issues due to factors such as new services being added to existing accounts, misunderstandings regarding renewed contracts, or payments that might fall through the cracks because of vendor acquisitions.

"It's just another thing we’re doing that's especially important in times like this to really make sure we're protecting our agents," Sander said.

Sandler Partners also has a team dedicated to negotiating and renegotiating carrier agreements to make these contracts as "evergreen" as possible. Partners tend to sell more evergreen agreements because they know their commissions will be protected, which is an increasingly important feature for many agents as the economy changes, Sandler said.