A Broker Opens Doors. Someone Still Has to Own the Account.

A broker proposal arrives with a list of buyer relationships and a commission line that looks lighter than payroll. Building an internal desk looks slower and more expensive. The comparison feels obvious until the first account needs a forecast, a deduction resolved, a launch chased, and a decision that falls outside the broker’s selling scope.

A broker can represent the line. The brand still has to own the account.

Start With the Work, Not the Org Chart

Sales in CPG is not one task. It includes opening accounts, preparing buyer conversations, managing follow-up, coordinating launches, maintaining item information, tracking forecasts, resolving issues, and protecting the relationship between reviews. A broker and an in-house seller may both touch that list, but they do not necessarily own the same parts.

Write down the work each account requires before choosing who performs it. If the need is access and broad coverage, a broker may solve the immediate constraint. If the need is daily coordination, deep product fluency, and tight control across a small set of important accounts, an internal desk may carry more of the actual load.

Know What a Broker Actually Provides

A broker brings relationships, market familiarity, and a portfolio that can justify regular contact with buyers. That can shorten the path to a conversation you would struggle to earn alone. The tradeoff is attention. Your line shares time with other lines, and the broker will naturally prioritize work that can move through the portfolio efficiently.

That is not a failure of the model. It is the model. A broker is most useful when the assignment is clear, the materials are ready, the follow-up path is defined, and someone inside the brand can answer quickly. Handing over a territory without those conditions does not create a sales function. It creates another place for requests to wait.

Compare the Full Cost of Coverage

Commission versus salary is an incomplete comparison. Add the internal time required to manage the broker, prepare meetings, supply data, chase next steps, and service accounts after the sale. Then compare that with the salary, tools, management time, and ramp required to build the desk.

Look at the shape of the account base. A broker can make sense when many possible accounts need light coverage and access is the bottleneck. An internal seller can make sense when fewer accounts require frequent work and the value of learning stays inside the company. The right math is cost per account properly covered, not the cheapest line on a compensation sheet.

Keep Account Control Inside the Brand

The buyer should know who at the brand can make decisions. Contact history, commitments, pricing, forecasts, and open issues should live in systems the brand controls. If the relationship exists only in a broker’s inbox, you do not have a durable account record. You have borrowed visibility.

Set the communication rules before the first introduction. Decide who joins meetings, who sends recaps, who can approve terms, and who owns escalation. The broker can lead the conversation without becoming the sole holder of its history. That distinction matters when the representative changes, the territory moves, or the brand brings the account in-house.

Pay for the Outcome You Assigned

Compensation should match the work. Define which accounts and products are commissionable, when credit is earned, how existing accounts are treated, and what happens when more than one person contributes. Ambiguity here turns every win into a negotiation and encourages attention toward the easiest credited sale rather than the account work the brand needs.

Do not use compensation to avoid management. A commission plan cannot replace a territory brief, account priorities, or a review cadence. Whether the seller sits inside or outside the company, the brand needs to inspect the pipeline, challenge assumptions, and confirm that promised follow-up happened.

Choose a Model You Can Change

The first choice does not have to be permanent. A broker may open a region before the account base can support a dedicated hire. An internal desk may own core accounts while brokers cover territories where access matters more than daily coordination. The seam between the models is where control is usually lost.

Plan the transition while the relationship is healthy. Keep records current, make account ownership explicit, and define how introductions and handoffs work. The decision is not broker or employee in the abstract. It is which model gives the account the coverage it needs while leaving the brand with the economics, knowledge, and control to run it.