The Art of the Ask A Distributor Channel Marketing Moment 🕒 3 min read By Desiree Grace Does your pre-teen daughter ever greet you with a hug? If so, like me, you know she wants something. I have to give her points for effort and leveraging affection as a potent negotiating tool. While that only works in our personal lives, there's much to be said for the art of the ask. I recently received a letter from a customer demanding "your very best pricing for our new distribution center." There is so much that was wrong with this request. 1. I did not know the person sending the letter. 2. No conversation, text, or introductory email preceded the demand. 3. Nothing reciprocal was mentioned, such as increased purchase volume, displacement of a competitor, or even preferential treatment during their next planning session. I had to wonder if the woman who sent the email was fresh out of college, having barely passed her Negotiation 101 course, or if she had simply had a bad start ...

A Perfect Failure Part 5: Do Perfect Products Exist? 🕒 3 min read  By Frank Hurtte Customers aren't shopping for perfection. They're spending money to solve a problem. Successful automation product manufacturers invest between five and eight percent of their sales revenue in R&D, trying to build better products. That's a serious sum, yet after watching product development for decades, I've learned that every engineering improvement usually comes with another compromise. Technically superior products lose business because they weren't available when the customer needed them. And I've watched “good enough” products become outstanding solutions simply because they kept a line running. Sometimes C+ is good enough. Not because customers don't value excellence, but because the best solution isn't always the technically perfect one. A C+ product that is available, serviceable, and keeps the customer's operation running can be worth far more than an...

What 250 Years of Independence Teaches Us About Sales 🕒 4–5 min read By Jenny Shannon There’s something powerful about celebrating a country’s 250th birthday . A quarter of a millennium. Generations of people who built, rebuilt, and carried forward the idea of freedom , not as a perfect concept, but as a guiding one. And when you think about freedom like that, it becomes more than fireworks and long weekends. It becomes a reminder of the responsibility that comes with helping others make choices. That’s where sales comes in. At its best, sales is an act of service . It’s not persuasion, it’s stewardship. It’s helping someone move from uncertainty to clarity, from hesitation to confidence , from confusion to direction. Freedom in sales looks like: Giving people honest information Removing friction and pressure Respecting their timeline Empowering them to choose what’s right for them When you do that well, you’re not “closing deals.” You’re honoring the same spirit that’s carried ...

How Do You Know if Your Sales Strategy is Broken? By Frank Hurtte Many distributors struggle when asked to explain their sales strategy. With  a great deal of hand waving and stuttering , the conversation quickly turns vague and squishy. Sales leaders talk about relationships, service, responsiveness, and “taking care of the customer.” All important, of course. No customer enjoys working with an unresponsive supplier or a company that creates problems instead of solving them. But those statements rarely explain why customers actually buy. Listen closely, and you’ll hear familiar catchphrases: “Our strength is our relationships.” “Our people care more than the other guys.” “We give great service.” (What does that even mean?) “We go above and beyond supplier expectations.” True? Possibly. Strategic? Not even close.  You can bet your bottom dollar that every competitor can make the same claim There’s a simpler way to test the strength of a sales strategy. Instea...

Lose the Order? Or Lose the Customer? A Marketing Moment By Desiree Grace For many salespeople, the knee‑jerk reaction is to tell the customer what they want to hear and figure out the rest later. That’s a BIG mistake. You may win the order, but what you lose is far more valuable: trust. Let’s get real. Lead times and supply chain snarls are still the norm. Every contractor, distributor, and panel shop is supporting a data center project with the patience of a toddler. The idea that you can “figure it out later” is wishful thinking. You may not be able to move mountains internally. And when you overpromise, you don’t just lose credibility with the customer. You lose it with your own team.  Your colleagues start wondering what else you’re not telling them. We all HATE losing orders. We wouldn’t be in this business if we weren’t competitive, driven sales professionals. But the worst outcome isn’t losing the order. It’s losing the customer.  Anyone who has spent more th...

Against the Grain: How Guinness Wins in a Declining Market By Desiree Grace If you’re still recovering from St. Patrick’s Day or catching your breath after your March Madness bracket busted, it’s the perfect moment to appreciate a bit of irony. After the Super Bowl, St. Patrick’s Day, and the biggest tip-off of the year, overall beer consumption in the U.S. continues to decline. But not all beer. Guinness is growing, up roughly 14% in some markets, and in some areas...demand has even outpaced supply. Not bad for a beer that’s been around since 1759. In a shrinking category, Guinness is going against the grain. Why? Most explanations stop at surface-level observations: lower alcohol content, strong branding, social media buzz. All true. But they miss the deeper point. Guinness hasn’t just sold more beer. It has turned a commodity product into a controlled, shareable experience. That distinction matters. Guinness Isn’t Just Selling Beer, It’s Selling the Pour Yes, younger consumers, esp...

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...

The Five North Stars of Value‑Driven Selling In a previous article, I argued that the biggest barrier to value‑driven selling isn’t compensation or field capability. It’s a leadership mindset. Let's be real, you can’t train your way out of a leadership problem. Many distributor leaders say they want value‑driven selling, yet they continue rewarding behavior rooted in reactionary, relationship‑based selling. They ask for new outcomes while protecting the old model. Let's face it, it's hard to move forward when your incentives are stuck in the Clinton era.  Back in the prehistoric days of the 1990s, at least if you measure by the absence of email, smartphones, or Google, I found myself wrestling with the same problem. After some soul‑searching, I developed five “North Stars” to guide how we should operate.  At the time, I wasn’t trying to define value‑driven selling. I was trying to keep the business from sliding into commodity territory. It wasn’t a theory. It was a necessit...