Four years ago, when Terry Wybel of the Wybel Marketing Group in the Midwest saw the number of independent accounts drop, he joined with three other regional rep groups—Faherty & Associates (West Coast), Melman-Moster Associates (New York, New England, Mid-Atlantic) and Southern Territory Associates (Southeast and Southwest)—to form a national sales group, Continental Sales Inc. "In my opinion," Wybel told PW, "those groups that are primarily regional groups have no future. It's financially impossible to make a living in the Midwest unless you have Borders and Levy."
Currently, Continental Sales has 35 clients and handles distribution for 15 of them. For Continental's overseas clients, like the U.K.—based MQ Publishers and Carnot USA, the U.S. publishing arm of a French company, the fulfillment piece is especially important. "Our European clients don't want to shop for a fulfillment service," Wybel said. Originally, Continental handled sales while Weatherhill took care of the pack, pick and ship part of the business. But when Weatherhill decided to get out of the fulfillment business, most Continental clients moved to Client Distribution Services in September. "We clearly felt that CDS was the best option," saidWybel. "Going forward, with the stability CDS will provide, I won't say our sales are going to grow exponentially, but they will grow dramatically." In the period leading up to the transition to CDS, Continental's total business was growing at 15% annually.
