The National Association of Wholesalers (NAW) publishes a daily email called SmartBrief.  It goes out to over 100,000 leaders in every “line of trade” in the distributor landscape – this is the biggest circulation of any publication electronic or otherwise.  Because our work is laser-focused on a very narrow group of Knowledge-based distributors, they rarely see our work.  As a matter of fact, in the course of 16 years of writing about our kind of distribution, we have only been recognized by NAW’s SmartBrief a handful of times.  Here is the article as posted in Industrial Supply Magazine and featured by SmartBrief.  For those needing to copy and paste, here's the link.  https://industrialsupplymagazine.com/pages/Print-edition---SepOct21_Hurtte.php Frank Hurtte, Founding Partner of River Heights Consulting, has been featured in dozens of national and regional trade magazines.  His easy-going demeanor and “Iowa-speak” make him a relatable favorite as a...

  True confessions, way back in the early stages of my career, a friend who knew I was in sales gave me  a Zig Ziglar calendar.  Each day came with random quotes from the famed sales trainer.  Quite frankly, most of them were throwaways that applied more to guys selling waterbeds or satellite TV contracts than to the electrical and automation products I was selling.  Sandwiched into those 365 days (maybe 366, it could have been leap year for all I know) were two quotes that I continue to share with others:   Thought One: “Enthusiasm for the product or service comes from product knowledge. How can we develop enthusiasm for something about which we have little or no knowledge?”    Thought Two: “Stop selling. Start helping.”   These should be the mottos of every salesperson on the planet regardless of industry.  If you consider yourself a Sales Engineer, they are mandatory descriptors.  For the past 40 plus years, I have considered my...