A Perfect Failure Part 4: Expecting Your Suppliers to be Perfect 🕒 2 min read By Frank Hurtte Expecting perfection from suppliers is like expecting the weather forecast to be right every day. Helpful, usually. Perfect, never. Some salespeople expect the regional sales manager to know every answer, the application engineer to solve technical problems with a snap of the fingers, and the factory to deliver every order the next day, come rain, shine, or global supply-chain crisis. That's a fairy tale, not a reality. I've worked with hundreds of manufacturer representatives over my career. A few were exceptional. A few probably couldn't be trusted to water houseplants. Most fell somewhere in between. The common denominator wasn't perfection. They were all human beings trying to serve customers in an imperfect world. Customers don't judge us by whether our suppliers occasionally stumble. They judge us by how well we respond when the organic material hits the rotat...

A Perfect Failure Part 3: Expecting Your Company to Be Perfect 🕒 2 min read By Frank Hurtte People inside your company are prone to making mistakes. The warehouse ships the wrong part. Customer service transposes two numbers. Accounting sends an invoice that leaves everyone scratching their heads. Inside sales misunderstands a purchase order. It happens. Such are the travails of working with humans. One of the biggest surprises of my career was discovering that customers are generally more forgiving than salespeople expect. They understand mistakes happen because they run businesses too. What they don't tolerate is finger-pointing, excuses, or silence. I once watched a salesperson spend fifteen minutes proving a mistake wasn't his fault. By the time he finished, he'd convinced the customer nobody else inside his company could be trusted either. Accountability has rescued more customer relationships than perfection ever has. Companies don't earn loyalty by avoiding ever...

The “Situation” Every Leader Should Avoid " 🕒 3 min read  By Desiree Grace Your body’s hotter than a brothel in Guam." Singer‑songwriter Johnny Blue Skies drops this line in his song Situation , where he describes becoming infatuated with a woman, losing all good sense, and landing himself squarely in a “situation.” It’s a great song with an even better lesson. Give it a listen ,  though I cannot recommend the video . Johnny Blue Skies’ lyric captures the exact tension leaders face today: the pull of short‑term gratification versus the discipline required to make decisions that support long‑term organizational health. Some sales leaders and salespeople find themselves in a similar predicament when they become overly fixated on an attractive bonus. They forget that certain decisions require consideration of company goals, organizational alignment, and overall brand reputation. These situations are the professional equivalent of the aforementioned object of Johnny’s infatuat...

Selling With Heart: The Things You Can't Teach     ⏱️ 4 min read By Jenny (May) Shannon My dad, a lifelong salesman, passed away 5 years ago today. The timing always feels off, with the anniversary landing just after Father’s Day. But grief doesn’t have a calendar. Fortunately, this isn’t about grief. Frank likes to say no one is born a natural salesperson. And he’s right, for the most part. Most sales skills must be taught. But my dad was the exception that proves the rule. My dad was a lot of things: a salesman, a community builder, a man of faith, a guy who could make friends in the grocery store line, and someone who believed a bowl of ice cream could fix almost anything. He lived big, right up to the day he took his last ride on his Goldwing and finished his final scoop of chocolate. He sold for IFP long before CRM systems, smartphones, or even the idea of work-life balance. He carried a StarTac until we practically pried it out of his hands. He never met a stranger...

How Smart Distributors Spot Problems Before They Become Expensive For years, distributors have treated Voice of the Customer surveys like something you send out there to customers without much follow-up. But after running dozens of these projects, we’ve learned something a little surprising: some of the most eye‑opening insights come from your own people. No one likes to admit it, but the hesitation usually starts the minute we ask a sales team to help promote a survey. Some worry customers will think it’s intrusive. Others are convinced management will use the results as a scorecard. A few swear surveys are pointless because “we already know what customers think.” And almost everyone quietly wonders what happens if the feedback is negative. But here’s the funny part. Once the final report lands, those same teams almost always say the survey helped them understand their customers better. The resistance was never about the survey itself. It was about not knowing what to expect. ...

5 Ways to Fight Showrooming Frustration A Distributor Channel Marketing Moment By Desiree Grace   Showrooming – the ultimate time-waster and frustration-factor. It’s a battle out there. Customers arrive, get you excited, then leave. It’s worse than seagull management, you know, those folks who fly in, drop a lot of sh—, then leave. Showrooming customers are a close relative of that pesky bird. Surely, you’ve heard of Showrooming. This variety of birds is the annoying customers who waste your time in the showroom or counter. They suck up an hour from your lighting specialist, then buy the product online because someone is selling it for a few dollars less. They walk out smiling AFTER getting educated by your specialist or salesperson. The good news is you’re not stuck. There ARE ways to prevent this. Savvy retailers, like industrial distributors with counters or showrooms, are smarter than the average bird. These strategies work. You have options with successful track reco...

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...

Choosing the Right Sales Model: Direct, Rep Agent, or Hybrid By Desiree Grace Years ago, American music icon Willie Nelson said, “Indecision may or may not be our biggest problem.” Let’s spend a few minutes addressing the issue of selecting the right sales model. Direct? Rep agent? Both? Decisions, decisions. It’s an important choice. How you structure your sales coverage affects market reach, cost of sales, and long‑term growth. Many companies underestimate how much this decision shapes their long‑term sales performance. Should your sales strategy rely on a company‑employed direct sales force, or should you hire a commission‑based rep agent? While there is no black‑and‑white answer, both options have strengths and trade‑offs depending on your market, product complexity, and growth strategy. Let’s start with the direct model. When you are the sole employer, you are the focus of the salesperson’s time and effort. They are not distracted by other product lines. Their mission, e...

Why Top Performers Push Back and Why You Should Listen If leadership mindset is the biggest organizational barrier to building a value‑driven sales strategy, then your most experienced top sellers are the most predictable human barrier. That’s not a criticism. It’s a pattern as old as distribution itself, practically a data point in the evolution of our species. When distributors shift from relationship‑based selling to a more knowledge‑based, value‑driven approach, the loudest and most articulate resistance rarely comes from weak performers. It comes from the people who have lived at the top of your sales rankings for years. And that resistance has two very understandable roots. 1. Success makes change feel unnecessary and risky. Top sellers are change‑averse for one simple reason: their current model works. It has paid mortgages, funded college educations, and earned them internal status. They know their territory, their customers, and exactly how much effort it takes...