AHTD: Sleep is Essential, but...

By -

Sleep is essential but…



Dr. Matthew Walker is the foremost expert on the subject of sleep.  According to his research missing an hour of sleep can be harmful to your health and mental well-being.  I recently read his groundbreaking book, Why we Sleep, and armed with detailed explanations as to the importance of sleep, I was forced to make a hard decision – sacrificing sleep versus spending an extra couple of hours engaged in some incredibly interesting conversations.



You can imagine which I chose...



Last night a small group of automation experts shared their thoughts on the impact of “reshoring” on the automation industry.  Here are some questions to ponder:

·         What regions will be most positively impacted by reshoring? 

·         Will the flow of manufactured products change from an east-to-west flow to a south-to-north supply chain?

·         Will the companies designing this new manufacturing be North American, European, or Asian based?

·         As the new facilities are brought online, which product standards will be most prevalent?

·         Will services be required and how might North American distributors and automation solution providers be involved?

·         Will the new facilities lean more heavily on “open source” automation equipment?

 

Going to bed late with all this on a person’s mind made for some interesting dreams…

My actual bed at the conference hotel.







Frank Hurtte, Founding Partner of River Heights Consulting, shares his personal experiences with 28 years of "in the trenches" training and 17 years as a consultant.  He serves as a personal coach to industry leaders across many lines of distribution.  As a past 

Frank is also a sought-after copywriter of marketing materials for technology companies.  His charismatic, yet laid-back, easy-to-follow manner makes him a favorite among public speakers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

50 Questions for Distributors

By -
Image
Last week I wrote an article titled “Six Questions that Demand an Answer.”  Sharing the article with a few trusted advisers, I received one consistent bit of feedback best summarized by this response. “Frank, I agree these are questions we must ask ourselves; they caused me to pause and ponder.  I used them as an exercise with my team to think about our overall strategy.  I believe taking the time to think about our business from an outside perspective to be justified and worthwhile.   Sometimes it’s hard to do this subjectively.  I would like to see more questions just like these.” The following is my first round of questions.  I have put them into categories to make them easier to digest.  Some will apply to your position, some will not.  I suggest spending a moment visiting these topics with members of your own team. A note:  The readers of this blog come from a variety of backgrounds, hold a diverse collection of positions within distribution and come from a number of
Read more

Ship and Debit Programs

By -
Image
Special Pricing Agreement and Thoughts about Ship and Debit Programs Click here for a brief tutorial on Ship and Debit Programs. Special Pricing Agreements (SPA) have been around for a very long time. The concept is simple; a manufacturer uses their distribution channel as a vehicle to service a customer who requires very low pricing to match some commercial situation. The details of the commercial situation aren’t really all that pertinent. They can arise due to customer potential, competitive pricing pressure, or supply contracts driven with large mega-corporations. The point is normal distributor margins no longer support the selling price and the distributor plays a critical role in providing some service to the customer. In years gone by, distributors involved in these situations purchased products earmarked for the special priced customer at sub-distributor price levels. The freshly purchased (at lower than normal cost) products were either brought “into stock” to sell
Read more

Where are the Sales Calls?

By -
Image
Sales managers are under pressure to increase sales calls and productivity. This leads to scrutiny of call reports, which often reveal poor results.  To improve their reports, salespeople are counting drop-by visits with no customer contact as sales calls, which is ineffective. Several factors contribute to the lack of customer visits: poor time planning, inefficient travel, failure to make appointments, getting caught up in trivial tasks, excessive focus on customer emergencies, and complex individual situations.  To address these issues, you need a coaching plan. Over a 6-8 week period, sales managers should review each seller's planned activities for the upcoming week, log data on their plans, and compare them with the actual results. This allows for the identification of: • Scheduling issues.  Are they really planning ahead? • Issues with setting appointments.  Do they need some coaching here? • Emergencies that took them out of the field.  Are they justified or just con
Read more