I wrote this article for a major publication back in 2007. Just yesterday, a client reminded me of its contents. Apparently, he runs everything on a 90- day window. And while you may choose to update the technology referenced, the idea works, whether you are a product specialist, salesperson or manager.  -Frank           The Product Specialist’s Window of Opportunity Picture Benjamin Franklin – old Quaker outfit, printing press in the background – sitting at his writing desk. He coins phrase after phrase, a number still popular in daily life 250 years later. “The early bird gets the worm,” “a penny saved is a penny earned,” “a stitch in time saves nine,” and the lesser known; “Make a plan – live the plan.” Just for fun, let’s test this 250 year old kernel against the grit of our own laptop toting, blackberry driven life. Distributor managers put together a financial plan at the beginning of every year. Typically, this plan revolves aro...

Special Pricing Agreement and Thoughts about Ship and Debit Programs Click here for a brief tutorial on Ship and Debit Programs. Special Pricing Agreements (SPA) have been around for a very long time. The concept is simple; a manufacturer uses their distribution channel as a vehicle to service a customer who requires very low pricing to match some commercial situation. The details of the commercial situation aren’t really all that pertinent. They can arise due to customer potential, competitive pricing pressure, or supply contracts driven with large mega-corporations. The point is normal distributor margins no longer support the selling price and the distributor plays a critical role in providing some service to the customer. In years gone by, distributors involved in these situations purchased products earmarked for the special priced customer at sub-distributor price levels. The freshly purchased (at lower than normal cost) products were either brought “into stock” to sell...

Santa Shares All…. Six Lessons for Distributors For those of you who don’t know, Santa Claus and I have a special relationship.  It began way back when I was still knee high to a short elf. It seems my grandfather, who was a jolly sort of guy himself, somehow connected with Mr. Claus.  Imagine being 3 or 4 years old and learning Grandpa and Santa were buddies. Special feeling?  You bet. I knew it was real when Santa greeted my Grandpa with, “Hey Red (my Grandpa’s nickname,) how late did you stay down at the Eagles’ Club last night?  If they weren’t pals, how in the world could this jolly red suited man know these details? Santa knew me by name too. Really! And from that day back in the early 1960s on, Old Santa and I have enjoyed a close and special friendship.  According to Santa, yours truly has managed to make the “nice” list for 5 of my 59 years, but this story is not about me, it’s about distributors. During a slow point down at the local mall,...

Distributor Newsletters, Naughty or Nice—You be the Judge We’ve been analyzing a bunch of Distributor newsletters and blog sites lately. Yep, just like Santa, we’re quietly watching you to see who has been naughty and who has been nice. We’ve learned a valuable lesson. Watching nice boys and girls at work is fairly boring. Poor old Santa probably gets much of his weight problems from eating while he’s bored stiff. There’s nothing exciting about nice. Have we been sniffing Christmas tree needles again? No, there is a point to this. The Nice Distributor Kids fill their newsletters and blogs with product facts, specifications, and catalog cut sheets. This is what the customers are supposed to want, right? Well….we don’t think so. Reading through the product spec sheets disguised as distributor newsletters is so dull, even Santa would find himself chugging down a dozen cookies and warm milk to get through them. Customers who are probably only marginally interested...

Distributors as Bankers? High interest rates must be on a lot of peoples’ minds these days. During the past month I have received several emails asking my opinion on the distributor’s role as the extender of credit; the organization providing some of the funds necessary for their customers’ operating capital. Let’s look at the current situation: customers who expect extended terms seem to be multiplying like cockroaches in a roadside diner. In the good ole days, customers paid their local supply house distributor at the end of the next month. Some of us even offered special discounts for those who paid by the 10th of the month. Somewhere in the late 1990s, a number of large companies (reportedly led by GE) unilaterally made the decision to pay their local distributors in 60 days rather than the normal 30 days. The conversation went something like this: “The time and effort required to process your invoices takes us longer than 30 days. So, we’re going to start paying in...