The Bloodhound Test: Can Customers Trust Your Brand? A Distributor Channel Marketing Moment ⏱️3 min read By Desiree Grace Authenticity: A Multisyllabic Fancy Word. Why should you care about authenticity in your marketing? Speaking frankly, customers can sniff out BS faster than a Bloodhound trees a raccoon. They know the difference between marketing fluff and the real thing. What Is Authenticity in Marketing? Authenticity in marketing refers to a brand's ability to communicate honestly and genuinely with its audience, reflecting its real values, purpose, and identity rather than presenting a polished or manufactured image. It means engaging deeply with customers, making them feel heard, and fostering trust and connection. Authentic marketing emphasizes transparency, reality, and consistency, allowing brands to humanize themselves and resonate with their audience. In simple terms, authenticity means telling the truth about who you are, what you do, and what you can...

How Do You Know if Your Sales Strategy is Broken? By Frank Hurtte Many distributors struggle when asked to explain their sales strategy. With  a great deal of hand waving and stuttering , the conversation quickly turns vague and squishy. Sales leaders talk about relationships, service, responsiveness, and “taking care of the customer.” All important, of course. No customer enjoys working with an unresponsive supplier or a company that creates problems instead of solving them. But those statements rarely explain why customers actually buy. Listen closely, and you’ll hear familiar catchphrases: “Our strength is our relationships.” “Our people care more than the other guys.” “We give great service.” (What does that even mean?) “We go above and beyond supplier expectations.” True? Possibly. Strategic? Not even close.  You can bet your bottom dollar that every competitor can make the same claim There’s a simpler way to test the strength of a sales strategy. Instea...

Lose the Order? Or Lose the Customer? A Marketing Moment By Desiree Grace For many salespeople, the knee‑jerk reaction is to tell the customer what they want to hear and figure out the rest later. That’s a BIG mistake. You may win the order, but what you lose is far more valuable: trust. Let’s get real. Lead times and supply chain snarls are still the norm. Every contractor, distributor, and panel shop is supporting a data center project with the patience of a toddler. The idea that you can “figure it out later” is wishful thinking. You may not be able to move mountains internally. And when you overpromise, you don’t just lose credibility with the customer. You lose it with your own team.  Your colleagues start wondering what else you’re not telling them. We all HATE losing orders. We wouldn’t be in this business if we weren’t competitive, driven sales professionals. But the worst outcome isn’t losing the order. It’s losing the customer.  Anyone who has spent more th...

When Marketing Forgets the Basics By Desiree Grace Last week, I was catching up with a friend who works in distribution. She dropped a line that made me stop mid‑sip: “My marketing department sucks.” That’s a strong statement. So I asked the obvious question: why? It turns out that her team launched a promotion without looping in IT or Logistics. Promotional pricing wasn’t loaded into the system. The featured product wasn’t even on the shelf. Someone in Marketing sent out the flyer, internally and externally, but skipped the operational steps that make a promotion actually work. Suddenly, her frustration made perfect sense. I’ve been fortunate enough not to experience this in electrical distribution or manufacturing, but I’ve seen similar misfires during my retail days. Few things sour a customer faster than hearing the dreaded word “raincheck.” Being out of stock or having to override pricing does more than slow things down. It also chips away at trust and the overall customer e...

Reflections from a Road Warrior: The Power of Clean Bathrooms and Good Coffee A Distributor Channel Marketing Moment By Desiree Grace Early in my career, I logged a lot of miles in a company car across the Midwest. One of the first lessons I learned was where to stop, and where not to stop, for coffee, fuel, and the inevitable bio break. I quickly became a fan of Casey’s, and there’s a lot we can learn from them. Casey’s understands how to deliver what matters. It’s not just the gas. It’s the clean bathrooms, the fresh hot coffee, the decent beverage selection, and the surprisingly good pizza. For road warriors, those details add up. Some aspects of their customer experience aren’t obvious, but they clearly figured out what their travelers value. Let’s be honest: not all rest stops are created equal. For those of us who prefer a non-unisex bathroom, ample paper products, and reliable soap, Casey’s is a safe bet. I’ve had more than one unpleasant surprise in less-than-sanitary gas...

In the interest of Halloween and all things creepy and scary, here are four signs your sales team might be zombies. Sales teams can sometimes resemble zombies, driven by habit and lacking strategic thought. These “undead” behaviors slowly drain company profits and undermine customer relationships. Here are four warning signs of brain-hungry habits, along with strategies to counter them. 1. Sale Zombies Don’t Understand Their Customers Successful salespeople align products with customer needs. However, many lack knowledge about how customers make money, their internal costs, or key challenges like labor expenses and material waste. Without these insights, they fail to offer meaningful solutions, missing chances to collaborate with specialists and partners. 2. Sales Zombies Don’t Recognize the Value They Provide Sales growth and commissions are not the real value of a salesperson's work. Strong sellers provide valuable services but often misjudge their economic impact, giving away c...

Since the launch of Industrial Supply Magazine nearly 14 years ago, I have had the privilege of authoring nearly 150 articles for their readers.   I love the publications because they serve the markets that I find most interesting.   I also know that many of my long-time friends read and find value in the messages contained on their pages.   Last year I was offered to host an ongoing column devoted to sales in our business and I accepted the new challenge.  Here is the good news, the bad news , and the great news . The good news – Quoting one of my heroes, Teddy Roosevelt, this column gives me a “Bully Pulpit” for talking about issues that I feel strongly about.  The Pulpit part implies preaching, which I promise to tone down.  But still, things like the sales process, getting paid for our knowledge, and fee-based services have been part of my lexicon since long before starting River Heights Consulting.  I guarantee I will constantly remind peo...

True Confessions:  I have never really cared for the use of the term “adult” as a verb.  Over the past few years, after h earing lame and seemingly made-up excuses from several people, I have decided it is appropriate in many ways, especially in the field of Sales.  We know we all got a little too comfortable with working remotely in our PJs and some are still fighting the return to normal. You see, I spent my entire life in one way or another tied to the selling process.  I self-categorize myself as a salesperson. I love everything about the whole concept of asking questions and presenting potential solutions to engaged customers.  I have made it my job to help others get started and grow in the business.  In the process, a trend has surfaced. I would call it a lack of Adulting. "Alexa, order me an alarm clock on wheels" Adults get to appointments on time. Let’s start with the simple premise, you tell someone you will be at their office at 9:00.  Cool...

Once again, working with Distribution Strategy Group has been a blast!  If you didn't catch the webinar on Competing and Winning with Value-Added Services, you can watch it >>>HERE<<< . Of course, we realize some people learn better from reading the material rather than from listening.  The webinar material has a whitepaper format that can be downloaded >>> HERE <<<. Special thanks to both Distribution Strategy Group and Epicor for putting on a first-class production!

It has been an honor to work with our friends at Distribution Strategy group again.  We recently spoke about how competition is in a state of flux.  We're no longer vying for the top spot with the typical competitor.  There are now strictly digital players without a name or face.  In this webinar, we tackle how to up the ante in a digital world to become a more strategic partner. Check it out >>>HERE<<< TIP: Frank feels he sounds much better, and possibly more normal, at 1.25 speed.  Give it a shot! Special thanks to Epicor for sponsoring this event.