How to Identify and Keep the Right People in Distribution Read Time: 7 minutes By Frank Hurtte Deep Dive on People – The Right Kind of People In Part One of this series, we explored why people remain the most valuable asset in distribution. Now we turn our attention to identifying, developing, and retaining the right people—those who elevate your organization rather than quietly drain it. Distribution has always been a people‑driven business. Technology has improved, automation has expanded, and digital tools have become standard, but none of these replace the impact of a capable, motivated employee. The right people accelerate growth. The wrong people slow it down. And in today’s competitive labor market, the cost of getting this wrong is higher than ever. Let’s take a deeper look at what “the right people” actually means for distributors. The Right People Bring More Than Skills Skills matter, but they’re not the whole picture. The right people combine technical ability with curios...

Do People Still Make or Break Your Distribution Business? Read Time 7 mins By Frank Hurtte Let's talk about people. Why? Because without people, distributors aren’t distributors. They’re empty buildings with aging inventory systems, a few forklifts, and a collection of office chairs that have seen better days. When I talk with individuals looking to acquire distribution businesses, private equity, industry veterans, or even outsiders, the conversation always circles back to three things: profitability, customer relationships, and the stability of the team. Remove the last two, and the valuation drops to nearly nothing. In truth, without people, you don’t have customer relationships at all. That’s why talking about people isn’t just important; it’s essential. Distribution has always been a people‑intensive business model. Yes, we have warehouses, inventory, credit departments, ERP systems, and fleets of vehicles. But people are the engine. For every dollar of gross margin generated...

Once again, the whole topic of non-competes, non-disclosures have raised their ugly legal heads. A well-known electrical distributor recently appealed a lower court decision and the case is being revisited. Based on estimates from legal experts, the attorney costs alone are most likely pushing $25-30,000 for both sides; and this doesn’t account lost time and wasted energy. I would like to go on record as stating I believe every distributor needs to have and enforce their non-disclosure agreement. In distribution, we don’t have patents, top secret ingredients or other trade secrets. Instead, we have customer contacts, supplier relationships, market price data, a keen understanding of the competitive lay of the land and emerging employees. Some of us invest massively in product training, sales and other job related skills. And, when an employee leaves, we must make absolutely certain that minimal information goes out the door with that former employee. Most think of key emplo...

A recent article in Industrial Distribution covered a couple of points on salaries.  I thought it was worth sharing. Grads from Texas A&M's Distribution program are getting multiple job offers and that impacts starting salaries : Another top-notch university, Texas A&M, has an outstanding industrial distribution program and on its website points out that every student in its ID program had a job at graduation. Many of those students were offered jobs in sales engineering and sales management. The graduates received an average of three job offers, and the average starting salary was $52,000 with some receiving up to $70,000. The article quotes the Wall Street Journal on sales compensation: S ales reps who peddle technical and scientific products earned a median annual wage of $74,970 in 2012, more than twice the median for all workers, according to the Labor Department. A competitive hiring market for science a...