Unpacking Sales Outsource Solutions’ 2025 SHOW: Developing Deeper Relationships and Making Connections
May 26, 2025
By Blake Marchand
Sales Outsource Solutions (SOS) held the third edition of their SOS Show on April 10th at the Pearson Convention Centre. The show had a highly concentrated feel and was well attended throughout the show’s 11am-3pm run time with attendees made up of electrical contractors, utility and telecom professionals, engineers, and wholesalers.
“We do understand the importance to represent our principles to the market, to our distributors and make sure we have a good mix of contractors and end users, decision makers, engineers [attending the show] and I think we accomplished that to the best of our ability,” noted SOS Managing Partner, Trevor Elliott.
For SOS and the exhibitors, it is a two-day event. SOS brings in their sales team from across the country to be able to meet face-to-face with the agency’s Principal manufacturers, engage in training on their products and solution as well as discussing how they approach the Canadian market. The standard tradeshow element provides their manufacturers with an opportunity to make new connections in the local market, while giving end-users an opportunity to get a first-hand look at new products and solutions.
“We give them an internal training on the Wednesday and then the Thursday, we give them the external showpiece, and they really like the fact that they can come to Toronto for two days and train an entire group of our folks face-to-face [from] across the country,” said Elliott.
When it comes to the dynamic of the event’s internal first day, Elliott said, “They’re training us on their solutions and how to sell it to the market. The two-way street goes, ‘Hey, in Canada this is how we position this, how we go to market’, and helping educate the US manufacturers or global manufacturers.”
SOS’s approach to supporting their clients is to bring together a narrative for a vertical solution within the markets that they serve. Their line card is made up of companies with complimentary products and solutions – so ultimately, they are presenting the story of a particular project and how those products fit into the narrative.
“We’re trying to create content of a story with our line card around that market vertical,” Elliott explained.
“When we meet with a consultant or a contractor, we’re not saying, ‘Hey, do you want to buy an item we have to sell?’ That’s a pretty boring conversation, right? It’s not very integral, but if we position a solution and say, ‘Hey, we know that you’re working on building out a rail line. We can tell you right now when you dig the hole, you will need the box in the ground: that’s Old Castle; you have to connect the conduit: that’s Next Polymers; you have to pull the cable through, that’s Orion Cordage, you have to do splicing: we’ve got Plymouth Tape, your back up power is Ericson and Panduit to label everything.”
“A good Rep agency sells a concierge of end-to-end, solutions.”
As Elliott explained, SOS has positioned themselves as a ‘trusted advisor’ in bringing solutions to the market.
“If you wake up at two in the morning, if something on your project or job is nagging you, send us an e-mail. Just ask. You know, do you guys do this? Do you know where I can get this? We may not have the solution in-house, but we can direct you where you need to go,” said Elliott. “Even though this doesn’t make a transaction today, it makes a relationship for tomorrow because you’re that trusted resource.”
The SOS Show, which they host every year and a half, is a key aspect of that strategy by providing an opportunity for SOS to develop deeper relationships with the manufacturers they represent, and the manufacturers to develop deeper connections with end-users in the Canadian market.
