If someone said they were a "self-employed manufacturer's representative," what does he really do?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

Are there fabulous job opportunities in the growing field of independently representing manufacturers?

[Crabby Appleton]

1. Amway salesperson

[LeftinOH]

2. Drug dealer, or mule

[OllieLotte]

3. I might be able to give you a bit of an idea.

I do not think this is the same as a manufacturer's rep. that works for the manufacturer. Although I'm certainly no expert. Usually it is a contract to sell a manufacturer's products in a specific market. For example suppose that you lived in Utah and a tennis racket manufacturer from Europe was branching out to sell snow skis. They might contract with you to promote and sell their product in ski shops. Because they are new to the market, they might not be able to hire their own salesman to cover the territory (benefits, car etc) so there is less risk to hire an independent rep. Likely you would only be paid on what you sold. They might sell direct to these shops and you would get a commission based upon the sales, likely AFTER the ski shop paid their bill.

I work in the electrical industry and they are quite common. We call them Rep Firms. A rep might sell wire, transformers, motors etc, from different manufacturers.

One of the problems in our industry is if the rep does a real good job, builds up the business, then it becomes cheaper for the manufacturer to get rid of the rep and hire their own salesman. So be wary of how the contract can be terminated.

I hope this helps, I'm sure their can be more wrinkles on this than a seersucker suit. Good luck to you.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. I would think they could possibly be representing several diverse

product lines for different various and sundry corporations and are therefore an independent agent and must file a 1099 at the end of the year.