When someone invents an innovative product, there’s a likely path that is followed. Usually after selling people on the idea, then scaling operations to fulfill orders, there’s a point where the entrepreneur can’t make all the sales themselves. They need help.
Some companies will hire a salesperson or two, train them and send them out into the world. Or they can hire a firm that already knows how to sell and can do it all for them.
That’s exactly what Alpha West Marketing Group does. Jared Schwab is vice president: “I want to continue to make pool professionals in builder, service, repair, retail, etc., aware of great products that can help them with pool care or enjoyment of their customers’ pools,” Schwab says.
Alpha West is the link between manufacturers and their customers, not only providing sales and marketing support but also customer service, helping retailers, builders and service companies with product questions and support, as well as business advice and training.
Schwab spent one summer as a pool technician in 2006, then became an independent manufacturer representative in 2007. “We have been able to represent dozens of amazing companies, many which we still do today,” he says. “Some have been acquired or went a different direction with their sales force as they scaled. I’m here now because I can continue to learn and invest in an amazing team of professionals.”
Schwab says he will bleed pool water long term, partly because of the friendships as well as the opportunity it affords him.
