Have you tried to fit a square peg in a round hole?  It's a quick way to ruin your career ?  Just establish a reputation as a guy who “force fits” the wrong product into customer applications.  Customers will neither forget it nor forgive you for it.  Here’s a quick example.  I had a friend in the 80s who was so selfish he tried to make the wrong product fit for the customer.  My friend worked for a company that was offering a bonus for selling a particular product.  However, the product didn’t work as intended.  This friend and his customer spent weeks trying to make it work, but it was just the wrong product for the job.  Back then, without the internet or user groups, the customer realized that others had experienced the same problem.  The customer felt cheated and mistreated.  My friend, while happy with his fat bonus, ended up losing the customer's trust for the sake of a quick profit. He essentially sold something unsuitable ...

A news flash just revealed over 2.8 Billion people currently live under some form of travel restriction. Here in Iowa, we are not under the same stringent guidelines as New York or California, but most sensible folks are limiting their exposure to others. Working from home, not traveling unless necessary and certainly curtailing all social interactions. Call it what you may, but for the sake of discussion, let’s say we’re quarantined. The readers of this group are still working; most from home and all working diligently to keep business flowing. But, the logistics of working from home creates extra time. For instance, we have no commute, no need to dress for work (some of you may even be reading this while donned in purple sweatpants) and no errands tied to daily work routines. Since our social life is limited to the spousal unit and maybe kiddos, we’re not required to attend networking events, parties, coach soccer practice or wait in line at our favorite restaurants, we’ve go...

We recently wrote an article where we asked the question, “Who’s doing the work?” By sheer coincidence, the last few days I have received several calls from distributors complaining about supply-partners who practice “saturation” distribution. To define the saturation approach, allow an explanation. Some manufacturers believe customers have a natural desire to buy their product and to hedge their bets, they decided to sign up every company willing to place a stock order and, maybe, place their products into inventory. Some distributors even say things like, “Acme Anvil allows everybody with an oversized garage and a business card to be one of their authorized distributors.” While the situation may not be anything like the previous (distributor provided) description, it does present a bit of an issue for distributors who are actively selling the products. Let’s break distribution down into two basic categories and do a bit of comparison. Introducing the Logistics Distributo ...

Let’s start with a premise: Your customers are busy, very busy. Most will soon tire of even the most conscientious salesperson who stops by to talk about the weather, how they are doing and other idle chit chat. Earlier we talked about customer-focused first-time sales calls which provided you with background on the customer. These will open the door to future calls, but even these soon become tiring if the salesperson lacks the proper product and application knowledge. While I generally don’t feel as though the selling methods expounded by the late Zig Ziglar apply directly to our work, one quote from Zig continues to ring in my mind. This may not be an exact quote – as I am going from memory, but here goes: “Enthusiasm for the products and services comes from product knowledge and talking with satisfied customers. How can we develop enthusiasm for something about which we have little or no knowledge?” To be a professional, you simply must learn about the products you offe...

Most distributor salespeople identify themselves as solution sellers.  Yet, experience dictates only a few dedicate the time and resources to truly comprehend the drivers behind customer decisions.  When questioned, most struggle to understand customer issues outside of their own products.   Truth is, their version of solution selling is mostly service and support wrapped around the technologies they sell.  While this wrapping of service and support probably does justify the “solution seller” mantra, I believe we, as sellers, will soon be obsolete if we don’t move our attention to providing solutions which push beyond supporting our line card.  Many agree with this opinion, but just don’t know how to get started. For years, I have advocated for distributor sales professionals reading the trade publications covering their customer’s industry.  Because so many of our readers are actively calling on manufacturing facilities, I thought I would shar...