The Distributor Channel

Shouldn’t Distributors be Territory Experts? Let’s talk selling; not the normal distributor to customer kind pontificated on by consultants everywhere.  Instead, I suggest we explore the backwards sale aimed toward our supply partners.  We never talk about it, but I think every now and again we need a refresher. We distributors sell our value to supply partners in a number of ways.  For example, the gigantic catalog houses pitch their state of the art logistics team and their capability to get the manufacturer’s product from Port A to Point B in very short order.  For some mid-sized distributors, the supply partner sales story contains tales of supply contracts that “deliver” the MRO business of Fortune 500 manufacturing firms. Knowledge-based distributors in the automation world tout the solution building prowess of highly trained sales engineers.  The implied story is this: we can create new and wonderful applications for your product at OEMs who will push your produc