Adios 2021, Hola 2022... For most of my career, I have taken the week between Christmas and the New Year to reflect on the previous year and plan for the next.  Let me share a few thoughts…   Ten questions that demand answers Our mission as distributors, and those who work in distribution, must include this Top 10 : 1.     How can we make life better for our customers in the next year? 2.     What can we do today that makes it harder for our competitors to attract our customers? 3.     What might we do in the future to attract new customers? 4.     Precisely why do our best customers buy from us? 5.     Which customers drain our profitability and how might we move them into a positive revenue position? 6.     Are there new products we should be selling that we are not currently selling? 7.     Is the productivity of our team better or worse than our competitors? 8.  ...

Winter had just spread its frosty mitt across Iowa.  For the first time since late February, the thermometer was pointing to the low teens, the winds howled with the force of the Polar Jetstream, and the cold bit through my clothes as I stumbled into my office.  It was late into the evening as I sat down at my desk to review some client projections for 2022 and add comments to their business plan.  I was nose down to the computer when I was startled by a bang and a crash coming from the roof of the office.  A word of explanation, the River Heights Consulting office is an 1871 house located at the top of one of the high bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River in Davenport Iowa.   150-year-old construction is known to creak and sometimes break.  I jumped up looked out the back door to see if house parts were laying on the ground.  There was nothing evident, so I resumed my work.  Seconds later,  I heard an expected, perhaps even autho...

Several years ago, Jenny tied the end of year planning season to the dreaded Mid-Western season of raking leaves.  The two share several similarities. Here is the shortlist: 1. Leaf raking and annual planning are dreaded by most people. 2. You never really get into a zone, because by the time you get into the groove the work is done for the year. 3. If you ignore either one, next year you will regret it. 4. The longer you put the activity off, the harder it will be to finish. 5. An early start saves a lot of work at the end of the season. One big difference is this:  You can’t hire a neighborhood kid to do your end of year planning.  With this point in mind, we thought we would share a few things to think about for your 2022 plan. If you are planning for 10 percent sales growth, you better think again Reports from across half a dozen industry sectors indicate that manufacturers are laying down a steady stream of price increases.  One distributor told us ov...

As we conduct voice of customer type activities, one thing has become obvious:  It’s hard to get good unbiased information from every customer type.  When an opportunity arises, distributors must be all ears.  Sometimes the message brings a smile to our faces, other times… well, it’s a hard pill to swallow.  But still, it is the voice of the customer.  Listen, ponder, think, and if appropriate, react. Recently, a good friend and client sent me a link to a post from Reddit.  My friend is a technical guy, and a distributor, so one post jumped out at him and certainly intrigued me.    This should be required reading for every distributor regardless of the product you sell.   Why?  This post provides an unvarnished view of how customers see distributors.  Some of the comments posted in response are painful while others will make you smile, but it must be read. For those of you who perhaps don’t follow such things, Reddit is the se...