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...

Gardening Your Way to Sales Growth Lesson Two: Stay Committed to Business Development By Desiree Grace I love raspberries. I love them so much that I’ve planted, nurtured, and harvested them at three different homes. But raspberries aren’t easy. They demand time, patience, commitment, and an understanding of what they need to thrive. Growing raspberries reminds me a lot of business development. That connection came to me recently as I picked my second massive basket of berries in just two weeks. Lesson One: Understand the Needs We won’t dive into targeting today. That’s a topic for another post, but once your target is clear, the real work begins. My target was raspberries. Yours might be local contractors, the transportation sector, or power utilities. Business development, like gardening, takes research, homework, and a lot of questions. Know your target. What do they like? What helps them grow? Raspberries need sunlight and room to spread. Your contractor might thr...