by Frank Wells
Techrep Marketing is launching a new business unit to cover the state of Florida. The expansion makes Techrep arguably the largest manufacturers rep firm in the country "geographically and in population coverage," says Jeff Mac, president of Techrep Marketing, covering some 18 percent of the nation's footprint, and almost a third of the nation's population. "Launching a new company is never a small task," Mac elaborates. "It takes a massive amount of planning and implementation, but is something that we have been working towards for years."
Though Techrep's line card (including Sennheiser, Genelec and Switchcraft, among others) varies somewhat by region, and is deeper where they are already well established, the company will initially represent QSC and Universal Audio in Florida, along with products they distribute like the JoeCo BlackBox recorder.
Rep firms are somewhat invisible to end-users, though they play an important role as middleman between manufacturers and retailers/dealers in the promotion of products, in regional tech support and educational outreach, and in order processing and distribution. Mac and partner/CEO Ted Bahas, both of whom are active in the field even with the greater administrative responsibilities that have followed the company's growth, founded Techrep in 2000 with a unique approach to marketing their clients' products. "The biggest thing we do different is we run the rep firm like an event company," says Bahas. Techrep typically arrives at a dealer for product demonstrations or product training with a self-contained, turnkey presentation system, incorporating elements from the various products in their lines. In addition, "All rep firms are outsourced sales companies," Mac explains, "our approach is to provide outsourced regional management," which is "pretty different than what most rep firms are doing." Techrep follows a "best practices" driven business model, that Mac says dovetails with that of QSC.
