Pardon me while I rant . One of the original self-proclaimed experts I just finished reading an article by a fresh faced, newly minted and self-proclaimed sales expert. Quite frankly, I don’t remember if she called herself a business coach, sales trainer, consultant or something similar, but her message stressed the point of helping salespeople in two ways: 1) Avoid measuring selling activities as these metrics frustrate new salespeople who struggle to get into the rhythm of setting appointments, making follow-up calls and learning about customers. 2) Measure sales output. Things like numbers of orders generated, gross margin and incoming requests for quotes. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Terrible advice, possibly the worst advice since the neighbor told Noah to expect a drought. And, the whole thing was prominently published in an online distribution magazine. Let me explain why I this frustrates me. Coaching salespeople based on their output doesn’t work. Allo...

The Challenge – How to Incentivize a Distributor Photo from zazzle.com Purchasing Professional After writing tons of articles on the sales process in distribution where I brutally vilify purchasing and procurement types, I received an email with the following: “Frank, you often make sweeping generalizations about purchasing types. As a former sales guy, I tend to agree with most of what you say. However, my organization (a distributor) has a couple of purchasing people. And while I certainly don’t push them to lie, cheat or steal from our vendors, I would like for them to be more proactive in helping our business make money. Do you have any recommendations for points we should intensify them on? Is it possible for them to do more than just enter orders with our suppliers?” This was a very good question and one I hadn’t thought about for quite some time. There are many purchasing folks working in distribution. These folks are critical to our organization. Most are har...