Harboring an ugly gray and decaying complexion, shuffling forward with an unworldly gate, with outstretched arms  flailing and uttered chants of “Brains, Brains, must have Brains,” Apocalyptic Zombies trudge down the hallways of distributor sales offices. Brain hungry undead are scouring our buildings for prey. Surviving on gory morsels of mental morrow called common sense, ever present Zombies have circled the sales group and stand ready to make mincemeat of your team. Unwarily, your salespeople stand in line to “feed” the monsters. They are easy prey. What’s worse, they may not even realize the damage has been done. Allow me to be your post-apocalyptic tour guide as we look for signs of devastation and learn the proper methods destroying the brain hungry beasts. Searching for telltale clues to zombie infestation requires a quick eye. Sometimes you have to read between the lines to really understand the extent of the carnage. First, let’s explore the situation with a c...

As you relax comfortably reading this article, vampires are plotting a diabolical simple strategy.   Their evil aim: suck the precious life’s blood from your unsuspecting business.   Like a hungry swarm of vampire bats menacing overhead, they’re everywhere.   And, based on the latest “as seen on TV vampirology”, they can feed for years before they finally finish you off. Before you start stringing up garlic necklaces for your staff and reading through ancient and musty lore of Transylvanian past, let me say these aren’t physical forms.  Rather, they come in the way of old time myths disguised as modern business practices.  So join me as we talk our way through the vampires in the Industrial Supply Business. The evil deeds of dastardly fellow, known as Count Purchasing, are legendary.  You could probably add a few anecdotal stories of your own.  But in our world, the greatest disaster to innocents with salesperson business cards comes w...

You see us write a lot about pricing and pricing strategies.  For most distributors, the obvious advantage of a disciplined pricing process is the corresponding increase to the bottom line. Research conducted by David Bauders and Strategic Pricing Associates of Cleveland, Ohio indicates that most distributors see a margin bump of more than two points. At the same time, examination of the Profit Reports generated by a number of distributor associations indicates the bottom line advantage enjoyed by the “upper quartile” members – those who outperformed 75% of their colleagues - comes from more than “just” a margin advantage. We discovered these upper-end players were at the vanguard of distributor organizations using Strategic Pricing Associates data driven pricing process. We wanted to explore two points: What non-pricing benefits/advantages have they discovered as they implemented the SPA process? How has this migrated into the overall company culture? We spoke with Ja...

Earlier this month I was asked to lead a discussion on the future of distribution.  In this case, we focused in on the future of members of the Fluid Power Distributors Association (FPDA).  Since many of our readers are not FPDA members, allow me to provide a bit of background.  The members of FPDA tend to be deeply involved in providing customer solutions.  In many ways they epitomize the knowledge-based distributor.  Their products are complex, sellers understand product technology and application nuances, customers lean on the distributors to provide technical support and most offer up additional fee based services. Referring to the infographic below and the evolution of the distributor model, FPDA distributors are the poster perfect picture of the Knowledge-based distributor.  Deep product expertise, product specialists, customer centric engineering and solution selling is their mode of operation.     While the argument for Amaz...