Why Relationships Alone Are Not a Growth Strategy Stop Waiting for Competitors to Retire By Frank Hurtte Relationships matter. If everything else is equal, the salesperson with the relationship usually wins the order. But if your only competitive advantage is that customers like you, you’re setting yourself up for trouble. Your competitor has a relationship, too. And if your growth plan depends on waiting for that competitor to retire, transfer, or die, that’s not a strategy. That’s wishful thinking. I’ve watched salespeople play this waiting game for decades. Their “growth plan” often sounds like this: “I’ll keep showing up. I’ll answer the phone at night. I’ll jump when there’s a problem. I’ll build trust. And when the competitor eventually slips up, I’ll move up the food chain.” Relationships can open doors. The keyword is "eventually." Eventually might mean a year. It might mean five. I’ve seen reps wait a decade for a competitor to “finally mess up.” Meanwhile, the accou...

Gardening Your Way to Sales Growth Lesson Two: Stay Committed to Business Development By Desiree Grace I love raspberries. I love them so much that I’ve planted, nurtured, and harvested them at three different homes. But raspberries aren’t easy. They demand time, patience, commitment, and an understanding of what they need to thrive. Growing raspberries reminds me a lot of business development. That connection came to me recently as I picked my second massive basket of berries in just two weeks. Lesson One: Understand the Needs We won’t dive into targeting today. That’s a topic for another post, but once your target is clear, the real work begins. My target was raspberries. Yours might be local contractors, the transportation sector, or power utilities. Business development, like gardening, takes research, homework, and a lot of questions. Know your target. What do they like? What helps them grow? Raspberries need sunlight and room to spread. Your contractor might thr...

12 Ways to Win Distributor Mindshare (Even If You're the Smallest Vendor)  By Desiree Grace You are number 47, and they’re now serving number three. The big idea: Experience dictates that the typical distributor manager has time to manage between 5-7 supplier-partner relationships effectively. These management duties typically involve such tasks as ensuring proper sales activities and engagement, continual oversight of sales volumes, promotional activities, and participation in supplier-partner initiatives.    Typically, the 5-7 lines receiving support are the largest suppliers to their organization.   This creates a daunting task for smaller manufacturers or those just launching in the market. Further, this situation is known and appreciated by most progressive distributors, however, the time constraints outweigh the concern. A few have assigned duties for championing the cause of new products/technologies to category managers, specialists, or, in some instances, s...

It’s National Memory Day It seems like I discover a new holiday every day.  Today’s special day is promoted as a day to celebrate our memories.  As you might imagine, I have many memories.  For example, I still remember June 6, 1977.  On that fateful day, I walked into the main lobby of the Allen-Bradley building at 1202 South Second Street in Milwaukee.    I had on a newly acquired three-piece gray suit and a conservative blue tie.  The weather was warmish, I was nervous, and I can still recall feeling a bit uncomfortable in business. I can remember a few other important days in my career.  I won’t bore you to tears with the details, but memories, being little snapshots of life, have a way of sticking with us.  But the mind is a strange thing, while bits of minutia linger, other important points slip through the cracks disappearing forever.   What slips through the cracks? Routine and often repeated activities can be the first to go....

I love a good challenge.  While talking about sales training with a sales manager from another industry, I made the statement, “Our kind of selling is different.”  The sales manager, who fancies himself as an expert and comes from a consumer-based background, took offense.  He asked me to differentiate our type of sales from the sales background he experienced.   Transactional sales Thinking back on the several hundred books on selling that I have read, I would characterize all but a handful as focusing on transactional selling.   Transactional selling is focused on making a one-time sale and then moving on to the next customer.   This type of selling is often used for commoditized products or services.   Think about the last computer you purchased.   Did the company create or provide anything that caused you to want to continue your relationship?   In my mind, the salesperson's goal was to make the sale – period.     O...