‘Tis the season—the big holidays are in the rear-view mirror, and the new year is just over the horizon.  Everyone from the TV weatherman to your mother-in-law is spewing some New Year’s resolutions.  Ironically, the experts tell us the following: 1.      88% of people who set New Year’s resolutions fail them within the first two weeks  (Source: “New Year’s resolutions: Why do we give up on them so quickly?”) 2.      20% of those making resolutions will actively keep themselves accountable when sticking to their goals, but it’s unclear what percentage of these individuals ultimately succeed (Source: “New Year’s Resolutions Statistics and Trends [2024]”) 3.      9% of people who make New Year’s resolutions are successful in keeping them , while 41% of Americans who make resolutions indicate a significant failure rate (Source: “Studies Show  91 Percent  of Us Won’t Achieve Our New Year’s Resol...

Does anyone out there love playing Darts? It’s great for beers with buddies in the bar, but not so great for designing sales territories. Once or twice in my past life as a sales rep, it felt like someone higher up used a map and a dartboard to design sales territories. It's time to take a thoughtful, analytical, and strategic approach to designing and organizing our sales territories. It's important to communicate the strategy and the data behind any changes thoroughly and respectfully to all stakeholders. That includes the sales reps, the internal support teams, and the customers.  Any significant or impactful changes also need clear and proactive change management. Here's why. Your sales territories need to align with your strategy. Let’s say you want to add industrial contractors to your mix, as you’ve learned most industrials in your market outsource some or all of their maintenance to outside industrial contractors. Your overarching strategy is to diversify your cust...

We love hosting guest bloggers!  Special thanks to Desirée for being a longtime colleague, friend, and now contributor to The Distributor Channel.  Be sure to subscribe to see more of Desirée's features in the future!   There’s a Holy Trinity that exists in March, and it’s not a religious one.  It’s the Holy Trinity of Executing Your Strategy: 1. Plan and Set Goals 2. Execute the Plan 3. Review the Plan Assuming you have a plan, and it runs on a calendar year, after Quarter 1 it’s time for a Quarterly Business Review (QBR).  Dust off that plan you made back in November or December of last year, schedule time with your Sales and Operations teams, and review your progress.   What should be included in that review? For starters, see how you are tracking against your goals.  If you are way off target, either to the positive or the negative, it’s time to drill down and figure out why.  If you are not close to meeting...

It’s June 30 th and the half-time buzzer is about to sound.  It’s half-time for 2023, and I believe distributors should take note.  Since sports history is full of great half-time stories, I took a few minutes to reflect on some momentous events.  Here’s a sampling of three amazing half-time meetings: ·         Super Bowl 2017 - The New England Patriots were trailing the Atlanta Falcons by 18 points at half-time.  During the break, head coach Bill Belichick and his coaching staff made critical strategic adjustments to counter the Falcons' dominant performance.  The half-time adjustments paid off as the Patriots staged an incredible comeback, scoring 25 unanswered points to tie the game and force it into overtime.  Ultimately, the Patriots won Super Bowl LI in the first-ever overtime Super Bowl, completing one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history. ·         Super Bowl I 1967 - At hal...

Are you sticking to your business New Year’s resolutions? Or should I back up and ask if you even made any resolutions in your business? I recently read that about 72.4 million Americans (18 and older) were planning to make resolutions for 2020.  Here are the top five resolutions: 1. Exercise more 2. Lose Weight 3. Save money or at least spend less of it 4. Learn a new skill or hobby 5. Quit smoking Notice how none of these are business-related? Sure, you might want to save money if you are one of the top dogs at your organization, but most salespeople aren’t as concerned. While you likely set goals for the year, goals are different than resolutions. Goals are measurable and come with a timeline.  Things that might fall under goals include: 1. Monthly/Quarterly sales numbers 2. Number of weekly sales calls 3. Number of new customers obtained 4. Percentage of Gross margin achieved 5. Number of vacation days scheduled I bet I surprised you with that last o...