Here’s the challenge, with just over four months till year end, everyone is looking for a plan to eke out a few more sales dollars. I firmly believe there’s still time to make a difference. Further, if done correctly, the plan can impact the future as well. One of the most tried and true methods for creating quick success comes via targeting. This process comes from the extensive research we have carried out in the preparation for a book on targeting at distributors. The beauty of the effort arises from three important points: 1) Current customers are the focus of your efforts, eliminating the need for time consuming prospecting, cold calls and the endless phone tag associated with it. 2) It can be combined with normal daily activities to drive the sale of new products. 3) Success comes quickly and is easily measured. How to get started Distributors are often noted for a few of their flagship product lines. Typically, these top five to ten product lines represent over 60 p...

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the various software systems designed to assist in its implementation have been hot topics historically across distributor-land.  The truth is, many companies made the purchase, launched their efforts with the greatest intentions and then stumbled on the execution of such systems. Lack of performance has many root causes.  Some of the early CRM packages lacked important features, such as the ability to sync data with Outlook (which is commonly used by salespeople to manage calendars, contacts and daily activities.)  Other times, the distributor failed to understand how CRM systems interacted with their business, making the whole thing an exercise in dead-end data entry.  A few times, technical issues like the ability to quickly enter and access data from remote locations, made the process unmanageable.  In my opinion, however, will power could be characterized as the biggest driver of less than stellar results....