We are currently in the process of researching the top sales leadership duties of knowledge-based distributors.  We know that the assortment of responsibilities ranges from the mundane to strategic, with many of the activities divided between several people.  It is also important to note that both the size and the age of the company can change the number of tasks assigned to an individual, regardless of title.  As companies grow, so do the total number of leadership duties. As we sat down to prepare this list, it was quite small.  It has now grown to a lucky 13 list of major categories, which includes the following: 1. Direct Customer Interaction 2. Joint Calls with Team (i.e. coaching calls) 3. Sales (people) management ( i.e. reviews and training) 4. Sales (people) Strategy/Policy and Direction (i.e. number of calls required) 5. Pricing and other price guidelines 6. Analytics (i.e. customers who are profitable) 7. Supplier Relationships 8. Supplier Stra...

Most of you don’t know, but River Heights Consulting is located in Davenport, Iowa. Maybe you've seen the Quad Cities on the Today Show recently.  The Mississippi River at Davenport is standing in the midst of a flood of historic proportions. Downtown had a break in the floodwall and water is cascading down Second Street like a raging mountain stream. Just moments ago, my phone convulsed in a wild, continuous modulating buzz. Not knowing whether it was the result of my last coffee spillage or something else, I grabbed it quick and was met with an Emergency Flood Advisory. Without all the extraneous noise, allow me to share a “Distributor Advisory”. Based on the prognosis of Brian Beaulieu and the folks at ITR’s latest report, we are in for a slowdown end of this year and early 2020. Quoting a published piece paraphrasing the words of Alex Chausovsky who serves as the Director of Speaking Services at the same company: “…according to ITR, the U.S. economy has peaked in terms...

Created by Kues1 - Freepik.com Looking back at American manufacturing, a New Renaissance took place in the latter two decades of the 20th Century.  It started slowly, but by the mid-1990s, companies large and small began to apply principles tied to lean manufacturing and the related quest for continuous improvement. Coming out of the movement was the “Black Belt.”  Initially, Black Belts worked entirely within the manufacturing process; leading teams through what was once viewed as the hazy world of plant floor work and material flows. By the turn of the new millennium, the concept had been pushed to other processes. Things like order flows, procurement systems and even human-centric processes were scrutinized.  Similar to the manufacturing world, massive improvements were made.  Companies enjoyed new found efficiencies and gained a competitive advantage. One person saw the advantage of putting the same principle to work on the pricing process.  Enter ...

You see us write a lot about pricing and pricing strategies.  For most distributors, the obvious advantage of a disciplined pricing process is the corresponding increase to the bottom line. Research conducted by David Bauders and Strategic Pricing Associates of Cleveland, Ohio indicates that most distributors see a margin bump of more than two points. At the same time, examination of the Profit Reports generated by a number of distributor associations indicates the bottom line advantage enjoyed by the “upper quartile” members – those who outperformed 75% of their colleagues - comes from more than “just” a margin advantage. We discovered these upper-end players were at the vanguard of distributor organizations using Strategic Pricing Associates data driven pricing process. We wanted to explore two points: What non-pricing benefits/advantages have they discovered as they implemented the SPA process? How has this migrated into the overall company culture? We spoke with Ja...

When I ask the question “Do you have sales meetings?” most often the answer is to the Without teaching about the science of selling, your meeting room may as well be empty affirmative.  Weekly, monthly, quarterly or something else is the standard answer.  But when it comes to content, a few follow up questions are often needed.  That’s when the truth comes out; distributor sales meetings are rarely about sales.  Oh, sometimes the numbers are reviewed.  Goals are generally discussed near the beginning and ending of each year.  And occasionally, distributors talk about the need for results on some supply-partner’s new product line.  Rarely, if ever, do distributor leaders actually talk about the science of selling. Over the past few days, I have participated in over a half dozen conversations (phone, email and social media) on the topic of sales meetings.  Allow me to highlight.  In one conversation a manufacturer asked one of their...

It’s happening again:  Big Manufacturers Tightening Up their Supply Chain Over the past several years Mega-Manufacturers have settled on a strategy to sustain profitability in a slow growth economy: Tighten up their supply chain.  To the unaware, this sounds like a solid strategy.  Improving the flow of goods, creating more symbiotic relationships with those providing services, eliminating waste, streamlining, re-engineering and a tassel of other business buzz words, all resonate with Wall Street types.  Distributors have been through this a couple of times before, but unfortunately a good many sales managers have forgotten the lessons.  Many of our Millennial-generation sellers were still in school.  But, this is another page from the playbook of previous recessions.  Recalling the pain of the mid-90s, 2001-2002 and the Great Recession, allow me to review. Our largest customers jauntily inform us they “love” doing business with us....

Do you have salespeople who seem to create their own pricing rules?  Are you missing out on margin by those who are afraid to miss out on the deal?  Strategic Pricing Associates is hosting webcast coming up on December 8th at 2:00pm Eastern to address such issues.  How to Stop Undisciplined Discounting and Track Sales Force  Accountability  features Sid Hendry of Gulf Controls and Dave Lienert of SPA .  It's only 60 minutes out of your day and will be well worth it!  Click HERE for more details and registration.

A couple of weeks ago I published an article called Pricing Professional – The time has come . The piece outlined the need for distributors to consider how they run their business and develop a new position. We hit on why the person who typically handled ‘pricing tasks’ was likely more of an administrator responsible for loading the prices of income purchases rather than a margin building professional. We pushed for distributors to consider the impact of a true pricing process and the qualities of the person best equipped to make the pricing process work. Somewhere along the way, we touched a nerve. Building a pricing process is a viewed as a top secret strategy. While a number of our readers commented, it seems no one wants to go on record with their plans. Here is a sample of the way the emails began: “Hope things are going well. While you'd probably prefer I comment directly on the post I really don't want our competitors to know we're doing this. So feel ...

It just dawned on me; the way distributors view training is skewed. After observing hundreds of  confabs carrying the “Distributor Sales Meeting” moniker, I would characterize the content as product-centric community bulletin boards with an occasional dash of something else. Here’s my unscientific rundown of content: 49% New Product Introductions Everything you ever wanted to know about some new product. Often these are conducted by Supply-Partner field sales teams with little grasp of the local customer mix, competitive landscape or the sales team’s technical abilities. Only rarely is customer application information discussed. 20% Existing Product Re-Launches We started selling this product a year ago. After limited success, we decided some of the sales team didn’t pay enough attention to the product minutia shared last time. So here we are back with more information, only this time the sales guys ask a little better questions. 15% Delivery/Logistics Issues Tim...