The Distributor Channel

Let’s face it, summer time is filled with distractions.  Our customers are distracted; they have vacations, kids playing Little League, golf leagues, cabins in the woods, lawns to mow and who knows what else.  This distraction is contagious.  Being people too, distributor folks get caught up in all the summer stuff.   Sometime around September 1 st , we snap out of our summer induced behavior and put our noses to the grindstone.  For the next week or so, we are going to talk about a few fall tune-ups for distributors.  Think summer end elixir for a better year end.  If ever you planned to institute a new habit, this is the time.  For the next four minutes, let’s think about selling time.  We’ll ask a few questions:  How much time do our salespeople spend selling?  What distracts them? How might we put the beauty back into the process? How much time do salespeople spend actually selling? Based on observations of hundreds of salespeople and dozens of distributors, the a

Talk to any sales manager and they will tell you they want their team to be proactive.  Proactive as in sales calls, targeting, prospecting and product introductions.  Planning and setting detailed customer-centric goals is also viewed as proactive.  Sales managers preach proactivity.  Detailed studies of distributor salespeople, however, reveal a lot of folks who are anything but proactive.  In spite of the directives from their managers, a lot of these guys seem happy in their roles. Defining Reactionary Sales… A good many knowledge-based distributor salespeople have quietly slipped into what I call the reactionary sales model.  Here is the premise of their system: ·          The seller becomes engaged with the customer .  Sometimes this is an inherited relationship, other times, it builds gradually over time as the seller proves their worth as a provider of sound advice, support and technical assistance. The seller builds a level of trust and becomes one of those called in

Online order entry seems to be the next big thing in distribution.  Reading the distributor trade press, we are deafened with calls urging distributors to invest in the technology.  For some, the idea makes sense.  But before whipping out the wallet, let’s put some thought into the subject.  All of these experts trot out Amazon, W.W. Grainer and a handful of online retailers as the poster children of how online order entry has changed our world.  No doubt about it, these folks are growing their business at the expense of brick and mortar based organizations.  True confessions here, I am a dedicated Amazon shopper; buying everything from books to dog treats.  That being said, we aren’t talking apples to apples here. I believe most solutions oriented distributors cannot afford to make a play in the “internet store” business.  Here’s how I came to this conclusion: ·          Most solution providing distributors operate within a prescribed territory (often referred to as