“Customer intimacy is our stock and trade, our most valuable asset and the reason our supply partners select us as their channel to market…” was the message shared with Supply-Partners during conversations regarding the addition of new product lines, territory expansions and other relational interactions. I totally agree with the statement, but... The question is, what are distributors doing to get a better picture of their customer’s interests? I believe not enough. For years I have encouraged distributors to take a deeper dive, to employ new techniques and look at their customers from a different angle. One way is to use a Voice of the Customer Survey as a tool. More progressive members of the distributor community have made the leap and the findings have been eye-opening. The question becomes why aren’t more using this time-tested tool? Join me as we review the most common reasons why some DO NOT use survey techniques. Reason One: We already know our customers. With s...

For the seasoned professional reading, you may scoff at this piece and see it as a restatement of the obvious. I am a veteran of thousands of customer/client lunches. Back when I was a young pup-seller, I was instructed to take customers to lunch, but not given much guidance to do so. It was the day of the two-martini lunch. For some strange reason, maybe it was my rebellious streak, I decided not to do the martini part. But I made a number of observations around the whole customer lunch thing. First, lunch with customers expanded my day. I could make a lunch appointment for 11:30 am and create time for another call. In a territory which covered most of the state of Iowa, finding time for another call was difficult. Customers tended to open up during our lunch times. They told me about their families, personal interests, career goals and often provided coaching. It was over lunch they shared the names of other people I should call on and often gave me pointers for my own pe...