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...

"Locking in" business without knowing more about your customer looks more like this. Let’s think about quantity discounts.  For many folks the idea of “locking in” business by offering up a special discount seems to make sense when future potential is involved.  Here’s how it works.  Acme Manufacturing has yet to purchase your new product but based on your knowledge of the Acme’s size and an intuition that Acme could buy lots of your product, you provide a discount.  Our analysis of many first time sales situations, indicates a couple of key points:   First, the discounts are provided unilaterally, with no probing of the customer’s current purchase price.  What’s worse, we see this tactic used with new, emerging technologies and products never before introduced to the customer.  Sometimes, the seller offhandedly informs the customer, “The normal price for this product is $1,000, but I am going to knock off a hundred dollars so your...