Visiting Regional Sales Manager Help
CLS has developed this Help Page to assist visiting Regional Sales Managers prepare for their trips and maximize the return on their time and travel cost investment.
If you’re planning a visit to the southern California area, please contact Marcus Cone via email at MarcusC@californialightingsales.com or by phone at 626-775-6111 (office) or 714-319-0930 (cell) to confirm your appointment. Don’t book an appointment through members of our outside sales team since they may not be aware of conflicting commitments CLS may have already made on the date you wish to visit.
We also ask that you be prepared to discuss the objectives for your trip 6-8 weeks in advance and provide as much detail as possible since that will give us the time and information to plan accordingly. Many sales managers book multiple travel dates over an entire year in the December-January timeframe, but we gladly accommodate those who schedule visits on an as-needed basis as well. Getting into top accounts can take several months of planning and many of them only allow lunch ‘n learns once a week, so competition for those time slots is fierce.
If you wish to make a presentation to our outside sales team, remember that CLS sales meetings are now held every other Monday at 3:00pm, limiting sales meeting opportunities to fewer than 22 per year once holidays and other events are factored in. The 30-minute main presentation slot at our Monday meetings will be reserved for the visiting Sales Manager and the audience will consist exclusively of CLS employees after we have excused other manufacturers and visitors.
The suggested itinerary for your visit:
The SoCal design community has standardized around a hybrid workweek where most employees work from home Monday & Friday and work from the office Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. As a result, we have moved our in-person sales meeting to Monday in our Irwindale office, freeing up our sales team to maximize face time with customers Tuesday through Thursday.
The following RSM travel itinerary is recommended for visiting RSMs.
- Monday – Travel day (arrive by noon if presenting to our sales team)
- Tuesday & Wednesday – sales calls and related activities
- Thursday – Travel day
Note: 3-day visits can be arranged if you prefer, please let us know your needs in advance.
LAX is your recommended airport for arrival and departure and the surrounding area (LAX/El Segundo/Culver City) has a number of hotel choices featuring all the major chains.
Here are some other tips for making your visit a success:
Please let us know as far in advance as possible which samples and literature you’ll need CLS to bring to your presentations. Samples are often in the field and can take several weeks to recover from specifiers or from mock-ups; plus, we may need to order additional literature.
Assume every customer will have a different interface connecting their TV or monitor to your laptop/tablet. To ensure a successful presentation, bring multiple cable adaptors including HDMI to USB, USB-C, etc.. Save your presentation to a flash drive as a last resort! Bring a 12’ or longer extension cord.
If your sample kit doesn’t include a felt pad or tablecloth, please bring one so that damage to customer’s conference room tables is minimized.
Please make arrangements for your own rental car and we strongly suggest paying for a GPS navigation system if it is not standard. Navigation software similar to Waze is also a benefit, although there are strict fines for using cell phones while driving. Our territory is huge and our traffic is ridiculous, so a GPS can often save enormous amounts of time and frustration both on the freeways and in densely populated urban areas. We discourage using Uber and other ride share services given the distances and unpredictable nature of LA freeways.
If you’re not familiar with driving in the greater LA area, please talk with your salesman about traffic time vs. miles travelled. (Yes, it really can take 45 minutes to travel 5 miles at certain times of day.) A quick conversation with your salesman can prevent cancelled sales calls and even worse, grumpy clients. Three or four sales calls can take up a full day in many of our metro areas once you factor in travel time. Some areas will also require extra time for parking, so we recommend you ask your salesman for tips!
Bring cash for parking attendants & tolls and quarters for meters. Many clients work in multistory buildings and parking can be quite expensive ($30 and up in the downtown area) and much of it is cash-only. In some other areas it’s easier just to park in the street for those quick sales calls, but nearly all street parking in metro LA/West LA/Hollywood is metered or restricted to permit-holders.
If you have cases or boxes that weigh more than 25 lbs, please let us know so we can sort out the logistical requirements beforehand. Some members of our sales team may have difficulty helping you carry that 75 lb case up two flights of stairs. Some of our clients do NOT have elevators, so a bit of planning here goes a long way. There is no loading dock at CLS’ offices so please make sure you coordinate your sample and literature needs with Marcus ahead of time.
If you have food restrictions or allergies, please let us know, we are happy to accommodate these when we place catering orders. CLS generally offers to pay 50% of lunch ‘n learn catering costs during visits made at the request of the regional manager.
Time permitting, please work with the CLS sample and literature personnel to ensure your sample products are in optimal condition and that literature is current and amply stocked.