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Advice to Grads: The Real Commencement Speech

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Advice for New Grads By Desiree Grace, River Heights Consulting Picture this: your friend and mine, Frank Hurtte, is invited to give a commencement speech. Before stepping up to the podium, he’d get a trim to sharpen that Colonel Sanders meets Midwest straight talk look. Then he’d sit down to prepare his remarks. As you might imagine, this discussion took place over a diet soda (generic, of course) for him and a black coffee for me. In my mind, new graduates need to understand a few fundamentals. To start, they must learn the strategy, goals, and culture of their new organization. Their actions and priorities should align with those elements. Even the language matters. For example, some companies use “sales” to mean top‑line revenue. Others use “turnover.” Learning the vocabulary is part of learning the job. Beyond that, new grads need to show up on time, follow directions, and be prepared. The homework doesn’t stop when you walk past the podium. In today’s world, no organization hire...
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Into the Unknown: A Practical Guide to New Territories

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Into the Unknown:  A Practical Guide to New Territories By Frank Hurtte Launching a new territory is one of the toughest assignments a distributor salesperson can take on. You walk into a geography where nobody knows your name, nobody is waiting for your call, and nobody has a reason to trust you yet. It is a blank slate in every sense of the word.  A lot of good people underestimate how much structure it takes to build momentum from scratch. The ones who struggle usually fall into two traps: They skip the process They give up too early  Both are avoidable, and both will cost you months of progress. Why Process Matters More Than Ever When you head into new territory, you don’t rely on luck to get you where you’re going. You rely on a map. A sales process works the same way.  The old “drive around and see who you can bump into” routine is dead. Customers are busier. Gatekeepers are gone. Random drop‑ins are rarely welcomed. Even seasoned sellers struggle to re...
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5 Ways to Fight Showrooming Frustration

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5 Ways to Fight Showrooming Frustration A Distributor Channel Marketing Moment By Desiree Grace   Showrooming – the ultimate time-waster and frustration-factor. It’s a battle out there. Customers arrive, get you excited, then leave. It’s worse than seagull management, you know, those folks who fly in, drop a lot of sh—, then leave. Showrooming customers are a close relative of that pesky bird. Surely, you’ve heard of Showrooming. This variety of birds is the annoying customers who waste your time in the showroom or counter. They suck up an hour from your lighting specialist, then buy the product online because someone is selling it for a few dollars less. They walk out smiling AFTER getting educated by your specialist or salesperson. The good news is you’re not stuck. There ARE ways to prevent this. Savvy retailers, like industrial distributors with counters or showrooms, are smarter than the average bird. These strategies work. You have options with successful track reco...
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How Do You Know if Your Sales Strategy is Broken?

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How Do You Know if Your Sales Strategy is Broken? By Frank Hurtte Many distributors struggle when asked to explain their sales strategy. With  a great deal of hand waving and stuttering , the conversation quickly turns vague and squishy. Sales leaders talk about relationships, service, responsiveness, and “taking care of the customer.” All important, of course. No customer enjoys working with an unresponsive supplier or a company that creates problems instead of solving them. But those statements rarely explain why customers actually buy. Listen closely, and you’ll hear familiar catchphrases: “Our strength is our relationships.” “Our people care more than the other guys.” “We give great service.” (What does that even mean?) “We go above and beyond supplier expectations.” True? Possibly. Strategic? Not even close.  You can bet your bottom dollar that every competitor can make the same claim There’s a simpler way to test the strength of a sales strategy. Instea...
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Are You Planning or “Planning to Plan”: A Distributor Reality Check

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Frank Being Frank: Anybody who’s spent time with me knows I love a good plan. In fact, I’m a loud‑and‑proud believer in annual planning. That’s the big stuff, looking back, looking ahead, and steering the whole business in a better direction. But here we're talking about distributor planning, which plays an entirely different role in DistributorLand. It’s not about setting the company’s course for the year; it’s about making sure you’re spending your time with the right customers and chasing the right opportunities. It's about keeping real business moving. Of course, it's a smaller scope, but it’s the kind of planning that turns intentions into action. And if you ask me, that’s worth doing every time. Are You Planning or “Planning to Plan”: A Distributor Reality Check By Frank Hurtte and Jenny Shannon Planning still sits at the top of the list for effective salespeople. Talent matters, but without a plan, even the most gifted seller leaves a pile of money on the tab...
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Why Your Business Needs a Brag Book

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Why Your Business Needs a Brag Book by Desiree Grace You know how new parents and grandparents always have a never-ending supply of photos to share every time you see them? They carry a digital brag book on their phone or, if they’re truly old school, tucked in their wallet just waiting for the next person who will listen.   Businesses should take a page from that playbook. Your digital presence should be just as current and just as proud. Set up and continually update your social media, your website, your lobby screens, anywhere people interact with your brand. Win an award? Share it.   Hire a new engineer? Share it.   Does your organization support a community cause? Shout it from the mountaintop. Bonus: You provide free press to the worthy cause you have helped. People want to work with winners. Regular updates remind customers, prospects, and even your own employees why your organization stands out. . It persuades them to buy from you ins...
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Why Relationships Alone Are Not a Growth Strategy

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Why Relationships Alone Are Not a Growth Strategy Stop Waiting for Competitors to Retire By Frank Hurtte Relationships matter. If everything else is equal, the salesperson with the relationship usually wins the order. But if your only competitive advantage is that customers like you, you’re setting yourself up for trouble. Your competitor has a relationship, too. And if your growth plan depends on waiting for that competitor to retire, transfer, or die, that’s not a strategy. That’s wishful thinking. I’ve watched salespeople play this waiting game for decades. Their “growth plan” often sounds like this: “I’ll keep showing up. I’ll answer the phone at night. I’ll jump when there’s a problem. I’ll build trust. And when the competitor eventually slips up, I’ll move up the food chain.” Relationships can open doors. The keyword is "eventually." Eventually might mean a year. It might mean five. I’ve seen reps wait a decade for a competitor to “finally mess up.” Meanwhile, the accou...
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