Frank Hurtte's September/October piece in Industrial Supply Magazine challenges distributors to think beyond yesterday's catalog. In "Wired for Sales," he explores why the real competitive advantage isn't in what you carry; it's in how quickly you help customers adopt what's new. Read the full article HERE . Frank Hurtte is Founding Partner at River Heights Consulting and a 40+ year veteran of the distribution industry. He specializes in helping distributors commercialize innovation and build competitive advantage through strategic sales development. His work appears regularly in Industrial Supply Magazine.

Tone Deaf Marketing: Out of Bounds A Distributor Channel Marketing Moment 🕒 5 min read  By Desiree Grace My sister's mother-in-law is not known for her tact or her situational awareness. The Good-Good golf guys, however, make her look like Miss Manners. If any of you have been following the debacle that was their video riffing on "Obsession," you'll know that the "star" of the video on their YouTube channel shoved a woman to the ground with a comment about "Don't touch my new Callaway club!" I'm paraphrasing, but in today's day and age, when the world of golf is courting more females to take to the sport, this video could not be more tone-deaf. When it comes to marketing, as in the case of Good-Good, it's always better to err on the side of caution and do some test marketing . Sadly, both Callaway and the Good-Good team approved the video. Callaway was smart to partner with a popular YouTube channel and group of influencers. Wh...

Joint Calls: Are You Leaving Money on the Table? Stop Chasing Today's Order and Build Tomorrow's Business 🕒 6 min read By Frank Hurtte I've been making joint sales calls for almost half a century. First as the field rep for Allen-Bradley, then as a distributor trying to build a business where none existed before, and finally as a consultant assisting distributor salespeople to expand their skills. Some were great. Some were a waste of everybody's time. And a few left me wondering why we didn't just meet for breakfast and save the gasoline. Joint calls are nothing new in distribution. A supply-partner salesperson comes to town. The distributor salesperson clears some space on the calendar, lines up three or four customers, everybody jumps into a nondescript sedan, and off they go. But here's my question: Why are you making the call? If the answer is, "Because Fred from the factory is in town," you have already flunked the first test. Each call needs mo...

Can You Beat Amazon at Their Game? 🕒 5 min read By Frank Hurtte The vultures are circling again.   Every few years, the doomsayers resurface: Amazon's eating distribution. E-commerce is the death of wholesale. Distributors are obsolete. The headlines are predictable. The advice? Equally predictable and predictably wrong.   Build your own Amazon. Hire consultants to help you compete on speed and price. Invest millions in e-commerce platforms. Match their logistics. Underprice the giants.   If you take that advice, you'll lose. And you'll waste time, money, and energy doing it. Here's why: You're competing on their battlefield instead of yours. W hat Amazon Does Better (And Always Will) Let's be honest. Amazon, Grainger, Faire, and the newer B2B marketplaces have invested billions in logistics, data, and algorithms. A mid-sized distributor can't match their speed or price. Competing on those terms is like a neighborhood bookstore trying to o...