In the last three articles, we talked about the post-Pandemic  “new normal” and how life will change for distributors, customers, and suppliers.  In each post, we explored how we might position ourselves for greater success by anticipating these changes.  In the next few articles, we will spend some time thinking further about customer shifts.   Research, unrelated to distribution, has shown keen interest in several initiatives being studied by our customers.  In most instances, the interest was there ahead of the COVID shutdown, but economic storms tend to accelerate trends and push new ideas to the forefront of business executives’ minds.  Very few of these changes are as pronounced as the growing interest in robotics.  If you believe the researchers (and I do) the growth in all things robotic will come like a gigantic 64-foot wave sweeping into Honolua Bay in Hawaii.  As an industry, we are faced with a couple of choices.  We can hum ...

  After the Pandemic – Working Remotely The Customer Situation   The distributor world revolves around customer needs.   Our customer needs are an ever-evolving thing.   Knowledge-based distributors exist exclusively because of our willingness to follow, and sometimes, lead customers through their changes.   Thinking about the evolution of distributors, before the early-80s distributors all operated about the same.   Their sales efforts were mostly personality-driven and local inventory was the drawing card.     To illustrate this, allow me to journey back to the early days of my career.   The standard delivery from my factory in Milwaukee to Iowa – just over 200 miles – was five working days.   If a distributor did not have the product in stock, the customer could be out of business for a week.   This all changed when UPS and Fed-Ex entered the scene.   With local inventory out of the equation, smaller independent di...

Here is a good news/bad news kind of story.  Distributors across North America are investing to create webstores and an enhanced online presence – that’s the good news.  Conversely, the bad news is many of them have yet to establish any real level of expertise in the whole digital experience.  Simply put, they’re online but not good at it. Unlike traditional distributor selling where customer experience is based on local competitors and the guy on the other side of town, the customer compares their online experience to global options.  Customer experience with Amazon, Target, Costco, and others sets the bar for expectations.  We can’t have a schlocky webstore and expect great results.     To set the stage, one of the megatrends of the pandemic has been growth in web-based buying.  For instance, according to emarketer.com (Oct 12, 2020), e-commerce sales have grown by 32.4 percent while brick and mortar retailer sales have declined by 3.2 perc...

Several years ago – June 7, 2013, to be exact, I hit on the  topic of direct sales. Ever being the purveyor of catchy phrases, I called out the practice for what it can be and often is - “More Channel Killing Blunders: Direct Sales Policies.” Being an easy touch for requests from readers, especially those who flatter me with kind words and mentions in their group posts, I decided to touch the third rail on more time. Moistening my finger, I have fortified myself for hate mail and ardent argument. Receiving these questions from a friend in Latin America where the water drains in a clockwise direction, the Southern Cross (constellation Crux) serves as a navigational guide and I am happy to say distribution flourishes. I decided to share my thoughts with everyone. ⦁ What would happen if the manufacturer had to deal with all the contractors and electricians in the country? ⦁ If a manufacturer chooses to “cherry-pick” some of the best geographies to work direct, who handles t...

Last week I received a question which is worthy of sharing. This was more than just a question; it was positive reinforcement. There are executives in the manufacturing world who believe distribution is key to their success. Thinking further, some of these leaders are exploring ways to help their distributor channels improve and prosper.   This was the question: In a world where some of our competitors are quick to take business direct and bypass the distributor all together, what can a distributor-friendly manufacturer do to help their distributors outperform the pack? Since I believe manufacturers need to get their distributor channel "into shape" for the fight – a battle for the very market distributors and their partners created, I felt it appropriate to share some thoughts.   The following things are imperative to the health of the channel: 1) Shed distributors who are not performing.   We analyzed one manufacturer’s channel and discov...

source: Linkedin In our  last post , we discussed people; hiring the right people, building a solid distributor-centric onboarding process and the advantages of retaining experienced workers. Today, let’s turn the tables a bit and look at coaching and managing the very life blood of distributors – the people. Front-line managers make a difference According to work done by the Gallup organization first detailed in First, Break all the Rules , employees join companies but quit because of bad managers. Realizing the management structure of many distributors appears flat on paper with everyone reporting to just a few people, many of these front-line managers may not even have a m anagerial title. We might call them something like warehouse lead, inside sales supervisor, senior buyer, or perhaps they carry no real title but direct the work of others. To a lot of your workers, they are the “go to” person and reflect the day-to-day voice of the company. Oftentimes, they have n...