A Perfect Failure Part 5: Do Perfect Products Exist? 🕒 3 min read  By Frank Hurtte Customers aren't shopping for perfection. They're spending money to solve a problem. Successful automation product manufacturers invest between five and eight percent of their sales revenue in R&D, trying to build better products. That's a serious sum, yet after watching product development for decades, I've learned that every engineering improvement usually comes with another compromise. Technically superior products lose business because they weren't available when the customer needed them. And I've watched “good enough” products become outstanding solutions simply because they kept a line running. Sometimes C+ is good enough. Not because customers don't value excellence, but because the best solution isn't always the technically perfect one. A C+ product that is available, serviceable, and keeps the customer's operation running can be worth far more than an...

Encoding & Decoding: Learn the Language of Your Customers A Distributor Channel Marketing Moment 🕒 3 min read time  By Desiree Grace You wouldn't try speaking Spanish to a Polish person, would you? Of course not! Experienced travelers know the importance of learning a few basic words and polite phrases when they head out on adventures, and good marketers should do the same. How you communicate matters. When we review the Communication Model, we see that what you mean to say and what your intended recipient hears don't always match up. Converting your ideas into a message that resonates with your target market requires research and understanding of your customers, plus careful attention to the details of "Encoding." The Encoding Side: How You Shape Your Message Word Choice is incredibly important. Knowing the right slang terms to use can make the difference between your target market thinking you're a "tool" (negative connotation) or "sick...

A Perfect Failure Part 4: Expecting Your Suppliers to be Perfect 🕒 2 min read By Frank Hurtte Expecting perfection from suppliers is like expecting the weather forecast to be right every day. Helpful, usually. Perfect, never. Some salespeople expect the regional sales manager to know every answer, the application engineer to solve technical problems with a snap of the fingers, and the factory to deliver every order the next day, come rain, shine, or global supply-chain crisis. That's a fairy tale, not a reality. I've worked with hundreds of manufacturer representatives over my career. A few were exceptional. A few probably couldn't be trusted to water houseplants. Most fell somewhere in between. The common denominator wasn't perfection. They were all human beings trying to serve customers in an imperfect world. Customers don't judge us by whether our suppliers occasionally stumble. They judge us by how well we respond when the organic material hits the rotat...

A Perfect Failure: Expecting Your Company to Be Perfect (Part 3 of 6) 🕒 2 min read By Frank Hurtte People inside your company are prone to making mistakes. The warehouse ships the wrong part. Customer service transposes two numbers. Accounting sends an invoice that leaves everyone scratching their heads. Inside sales misunderstands a purchase order. It happens. Such are the travails of working with humans. One of the biggest surprises of my career was discovering that customers are generally more forgiving than salespeople expect. They understand mistakes happen because they run businesses too. What they don't tolerate is finger-pointing, excuses, or silence. I once watched a salesperson spend fifteen minutes proving a mistake wasn't his fault. By the time he finished, he'd convinced the customer nobody else inside his company could be trusted either. Accountability has rescued more customer relationships than perfection ever has. Companies don't earn loyalty by avoid...

A Perfect Failure: Wait Until You Catch Up (Part 2 of 6) 🕒 2 min read By Frank Hurtte Every salesperson on the planet shares the same fantasy. Someday, they're going to get caught up. Every email will be answered. Every quote will be completed. Every CRM record will be updated. Every voicemail will be returned. They'll finally lean back in their chair, admire a perfectly organized desk, and shout hurrah. Here I sit, almost five decades into my career, and that day has never arrived. I leave the office with twenty emails in my inbox and return the next morning to find sixty. I'm convinced my to-do list breeds after dark. Nobody has explained the biology. How does 20 become 60 overnight? Quotes multiply. Meetings appear on the calendar without permission. Customers somehow develop emergencies while I'm sleeping. If you're waiting until you've caught up before you begin prospecting, you've unintentionally created a permanent excuse. Successful salesp...

Choose Your Channel Wisely (Or End Up in a Dead End) A Distributor Channel Marketing Moment 🕒 3 min read By Desiree Grace Would you go on a road trip or a boat trip without a map or GPS? Sounds foolhardy and a little scary, too. Nobody wants to run out of gas or end up in a fleabag motel. When communicating with your customers, you need the advertising equivalent of a map : the communication model and a clear sense of direction . You need to know where your customers are and where you’re going. That’s where channel choice matters. Would you try newspaper classifieds to reach Gen Z? Would you contact industrial hand‑tool customers on Instagram? Of course not. These ridiculous examples illustrate the importance of understanding the Communication Model. Good communication means defining the correct target market, refining your message, speaking to people in their language, amplifying your message above the noise or clutter, paying attention to feedback, and, for today’s discussio...