The Distributor Channel

It just dawned on me; the way distributors view training is skewed. After observing hundreds of  confabs carrying the “Distributor Sales Meeting” moniker, I would characterize the content as product-centric community bulletin boards with an occasional dash of something else. Here’s my unscientific rundown of content: 49% New Product Introductions Everything you ever wanted to know about some new product. Often these are conducted by Supply-Partner field sales teams with little grasp of the local customer mix, competitive landscape or the sales team’s technical abilities. Only rarely is customer application information discussed. 20% Existing Product Re-Launches We started selling this product a year ago. After limited success, we decided some of the sales team didn’t pay enough attention to the product minutia shared last time. So here we are back with more information, only this time the sales guys ask a little better questions. 15% Delivery/Logistics Issues Time is

Check out the 67th Survey of Distributor Operations: The Value of The Distributor as compiled and  presented by Industrial Distribution magazine.   Anna Wells delivers a comprehensive review of the results of the annual questionnaire that was sent to nearly 27,000 Industrial Distribution subscribers. In all honesty, I debated this post for a good portion of the day.  And while my assistant cringes any time I want to write a post advertising my newest book or article, it was her idea to post this.  After all, the above information is a great way to get a feel for the Distributor mind and see how you compare. You may be surprised by some of the answers.

I just had a conversation with an old friend; somebody I worked with back in the 70s.  We were both young Turks on the training program of a major manufacturer. Armed with freshly minted engineering degrees and lots of ambition, we felt we were poster children for “manifest destiny” or at least something like that.  Early on we kept in contact, but then life happened.  And now, after all these years, thanks to the good folks at LinkedIn and unusual last names, we reconnected. Did someone say FREE SUPPORT? It turns out we both ended up in distribution.  I asked him to tell me about his business.   Somewhere midway through the description he said, “We are a high service distributor in our market.  We have engineers, highly trained sales people and we provide tons of free support for our customers…” With mass quantities Starbucks caffeine already surging through my veins, my blood pressure did a flip-flop.  My muscles tightened, the fight or flight instinct kicked, my throat t

Just back from a whirlwind tour of distributor locations. There’s plenty to be thankful for. Business is still doing pretty well. Most of the sellers we hired last year have gotten traction at their assigned accounts. The same goes for the inside support and customer service people: the number of lines entered each month has risen steadily. Things seem to be progressing nicely with one exception: margin squeeze. There are a lot of excuses for the lower margins. The internet boogieman, new competitors, purchasing people flexing their muscles taking more aggressive stands all get mentioned during the first few minutes. We talk about manufacturers being to blame for a portion of the woes. I ask a few more questions about the market. Then we turn to price points. When asked how customer price levels are established, I repeatedly hear the same story. “The salesperson sets the price, they’re the closest to the customer and understand the commercial situation.” Then it da