Getting There First and Don’t Be a Problem Solver Special Note: While this method solves the problem, it requires little skill or forward thinking. This story takes 3 minutes to read. If you are in a time crunch, skip the story and jump to the moral of the story. A few years ago we studied the Mechatronics Industry, which is the marriage of mechanical systems (gears, belts, electric motors and hydraulics) and electronic systems (computers, PLC’s, sensors and digital screens). Along the way, our work discovered mechanical distributors were almost always the first to learn of customer projects. Why? Customers designed mechanical portions of their system ahead of the electronic portion. In all but a few situations, the mechanics were engineered 60-90 days ahead of electronic controls. We believed this gave the person selling both the mechanical components and electronic controls a competitive advantage over a “controls only” seller. Knowing about and working on solut...

My assistant came back to the office today with a distinct look of disgust.  Apparently she did some last  minute dress shopping over lunch.  She went on to explain how infuriating it is when a salesperson tries to cram a “hideous mess of a dress” on to anyone willing to buy.  She further explained how she had met this salesperson before and was given a song and dance about how great an outfit looked, when clearly it was just meant for a mannequin.  This trip, she tried to avoid this salesperson and with good reason.  While I laughed at her fitting room trials, I couldn’t help but think about how it’s not just mall employees who push their way in for a buck. Tips for the New Guy – Don’t sell a square peg for a round hole Want to ruin your career?  Just establish a reputation as a guy who “force fits” the wrong product into customer applications. Customers will never forget or forgive you for it.  I call the practice selling square peg...

This month the fine folks at InTech Magazine were kind enough to ask me to write an editorial on the automation market.  My guess is they really wanted someone who was “long in the tooth” to comment on the cavalcade of changes in product technology – "a back in my day the PLCs ran on kerosene" sort of piece.   Being a distribution guy, I penned “ Selecting an Automation Distributor?  It’s about finding the right stuff ”.  In the automation world, over 89% of the customers buy from distributors.  Yet many are tossing dimes down the drain because they aren’t tapping into the right distributor services.  Catch us on Lulu.com In the article I charged customers with asking their distributors these questions: ·          What can your organization do to improve the uptime of my facility? ·          Do you have a plan to help us drive down our cost of doin...