Notes for owners · Channel and customer growth
Every buyer came through one agent: opening a second route without losing the agent
How a Puducherry industrial estate unit that gets every buyer through one agent can deal with those buyers directly for service and reorders, and add one more route of its own.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
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"All our buyers are in Chennai, and every one of them came through the same agent." It works until the agent retires, falls ill or takes on a bigger unit's line. Do not cut the agent out. First, start dealing with the agent's buyers directly for service and reorders, with the agent's knowledge and commission intact, so each buyer knows your name and your quality person. After that, open one route the agent does not control: a marketplace listing for standard items, or a researched list of buyers outside the agent's territory.
Why one agent feels safe until the day the agent stops
The agent has done real work: found the buyers, sat with their purchase managers, smoothed over late deliveries. You make the parts.
The risk is what you do not have. Ask whether anyone on your side knows the buyer's quality head by name. Drawings and revisions may arrive only through the agent's WhatsApp. Rejections may reach you as "the customer is not happy". If a purchase manager changes jobs, the new one has never heard of your unit, only of the agent.
Check one thing first: how the money moves. If you invoice the buyer and the agent takes a commission, the buyer already has your name on a vendor list, and the work here is mostly about contacts. If the agent buys from you and resells, the buyer may not know you exist. That is a stockist, not an agent, and the route is the agent's to sell. Talk to the agent about it before anything else.
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Read the agreement before you call anyone
Find whatever was agreed: a letter, an email, a commission note on an old invoice. Look for three things. Does the agent have exclusivity for a territory or for named buyers? Is commission owed on repeat orders from buyers the agent introduced? Can you appoint anyone else?
If nothing is written, the practice of the last few years is the agreement, and the agent will see it that way. Where the paper is unclear, ask your own lawyer before you change anything. The aim is to know which buyers belong to the agent and stay that way, so the second route goes elsewhere.
What moves direct, and what stays with the agent
Going direct does not mean taking the buyer. It means the buyer can reach your unit on the things only your unit can fix. Use this split as a starting point, and change it to fit what was agreed:
| Activity | Who handles it from now | How to put it to the agent |
|---|---|---|
| Quality complaints and rejections | Your quality person, directly, with the agent copied | "You should not have to carry a gauge report between us." |
| Drawing changes and revisions | Your engineer, directly, agent copied | "One less step for a wrong revision to slip through." |
| Delivery schedule changes | Your dispatch person, directly | "They can ring the person who loads the truck." |
| Reorders of existing parts | Direct, with the commission paid as agreed | "The commission does not change." |
| New parts for the same buyer | The agent leads, your engineer joins | "You keep the relationship, we bring the drawing answers." |
| Payment follow-up | Your accounts, directly | "It is our invoice, so it is our job to chase." |
| New buyers outside the agent's list | You, through your own route | "These are buyers you were never calling on." |
Make the change with the agent present. Ask the agent to take you on one visit to each buyer and introduce your quality and dispatch people. Leave a single sheet with their names, numbers and what each handles.
Choosing the second route
Pick one route, not three. The rule is simple: decide by what you make.
Some units sell standard items with a name a buyer would type: enclosures in stock sizes, fasteners, brackets. For them, a listing on IndiaMART or a similar marketplace brings enquiries they can price from a rate card. IndiaMART and marketplace lead management sorts the serious enquiries from the price-checkers.
If you make parts to the buyer's drawing, a marketplace brings little, because nobody searches for a part that has no name. Build a list instead: forty or fifty named buyers in Hosur, Bengaluru or Coimbatore who use the process you are good at. For each, find the engineer or purchase person who decides. Sales database building does that research, and route-to-market and distribution strategy decides which route fits before you spend on either.
Skip the marketplace if nobody at the unit can reply to small enquiries the same day. A listing that goes unanswered teaches buyers you are closed.
For example: a sheet-metal unit in Mettupalayam
Imagine a unit in Puducherry's Mettupalayam industrial estate making sheet-metal enclosures for electrical panel builders around Chennai. The details are illustrative. One agent has brought every buyer for years.
Worried about the dependence, the owner listed the unit on a marketplace. Within weeks, one of the agent's own buyers found the listing and asked for a rate. The owner quoted below the agent's price to win the enquiry. The buyer mentioned it to the agent. The agent stopped answering the owner's calls, and the buyer, unsure who to deal with, delayed the next order.
The repair took a meeting. The owner went to the agent, explained the listing, and agreed two rules in writing. One price per part, whatever the route. And the agent's commission on any order from the agent's buyers, however that order arrived. They then made joint visits so each buyer met the unit's quality and dispatch people. The marketplace listing stayed, aimed at panel builders in Hosur and Bengaluru, where the agent had never called.
When to leave it as it is
If the agent is young, shares every enquiry and copies you on drawings already, most of the risk is gone. Keep going and add the second route quietly. If your unit is at capacity, a second route only produces orders you cannot make. And some buyers insist on one point of contact. Respect that, and get your name on their vendor list through the agent instead.
If your real worry is one huge buyer rather than one agent, finding a second buyer when one plant buys most of your output covers that case.
Put a name beside each of the agent's buyers
List every buyer the agent brought. Beside each, write one person there who knows your unit without the agent: a quality head, a stores in-charge, anyone. Every blank line is a buyer who leaves when the agent does, and the joint visits should start with those. If you want help agreeing the split with the agent and choosing the second route, tell us what you need.
