I have long suggested distributor salespeople read the publications covering their customers’ industries. Back in the  old days, I signed up for subscriptions to magazines covering everything from food processing to the mining and quarry publications. About one a week, I would devote a leisurely evening to skimming through the articles. Why? It, simple, because I wanted to know what might be on my customer’s mind. To an extent, I still look into topics I believe impact the operations of distributors’ customers. As I perused Plant Engineering Magazine, a publication serving customers of many knowledge-based distributors, I came across an article I believe needs to be examined. This article is titled “ 2018 Maintenance Survey: Playing Offense and Defense ” and offers some thought provoking stuff. Allow me to share. Two ways of of viewing Maintenance The author believes the whole topic of maintenance could be broken into a couple of components. First, as a defensive ...

Lately, Manufacturer and Distributor Joint Marketing Plans have been on my mind. This time of year I generally take a lot of calls from distributors and their supply partners on the topic. Allow me to share a few random thoughts. There are two varieties of plans which seem to go by the same name. Let’s look at both of types: Rebates designed to drive distributor behavior and reward performance. These plans typically create an incentive which comes as a rebate based on the distributor following some guideline. For example, if the distributor carries all of the manufacturer’s products, they get a bigger rebate than the wholesaler who simply cherry-picks the best of the supplier’s product line. Other versions of this type of plan incent distributors for having a specialist, properly trained staff, the right level of demo equipment or the proper inventory. I like these plans as they drive the behaviors and incent the distributor for being more than just a logistics arm for the ...

I cannot accurately comment on the “good old days” of Computers were a bit scarce when these suits were popular! distribution; I wonder if anyone truly can.  Despite growing up in the industry and launching my career back when our country’s President was a Peanut Farmer, I don’t have a handle on historical perspective much longer than a few years ago.  A person would have to be wearing blinders; however, to have missed what I feel are the top changes in distribution over the past four decades.  I believe these five things have dramatically changed our industry: Improved shipping logistics from UPS and others – This increased the coverage area for many distributors. Computerization – Believe it or not, distributors didn’t have this in the 1970s. Fax Machines – Customers expected faster response times and started asking for written quotations and confirmations of order dates.     Email –This game changer moved expected response times to near in...

This week marked a first for Frank Hurtte and River Heights Consulting.  After 13 years of consulting, speaking, blogging and writing for national trade publications, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) recognized Frank's work in their SmartBrief publication.  This online publication "filters thousands of sources daily to deliver the most relevant industry news in partnership with more than 180 trade associations, professional societies, nonprofits and corporate entities."  The NAW works with over 30,000 companies.  This is a great honor to also be shared with Rich Vurva of Industrial Supply Magazine.  Click HERE  for the full article. ______________________________________________