As our products become more technical and demo units get more complex and, in many cases, harder to lug around, one might wonder how much time is spent handling the logistics of a customer demo.   Thinking further, most distributors have moved out of run-down warehouses on the bad side of the tracks and invested in modern facilities equipped with classrooms, demonstration areas, and other niceties.  Yet, many wholesalers struggle to convince customers to drive across town to participate in a demo or attend important seminars.  Internal tradeshows and other selling events often fall between the cracks with important customers.    Forward-thinking distributors are maximizing their time and efforts by practicing what we call “selling wholesale”.   Let’s spend just a moment defining the selling wholesale concept.  The practice involves moving customers out of their own facility to meet you at some central point.  In an ideal world, the c...

Last week I threw out some thoughts on sales training for distributors.   The response was great, but I received more than a half dozen challenges from inside sales groups.   The overall feedback could be summarized as: Don’t forget about Inside Sales.   The comments reminded me of a couple of points: Outside Sale people may make the phone ring, but it is the service the customer receives when they call that keeps customers coming back (aka customer retention). Most customers gauge Distributor customer service by the quality of the Inside Sales team. Historically, distributors have focused on outside sales improvement… Experience shows when distributors invest in skills training (which is meager at best,) they tend to focus on the outside sales position.  A quick “Google Search” on the topic of “distributor sales training” brings up something like 28,600 results.  While I didn’t read all 28 thousand of them, I did look at the first twenty listi...