Let’s face it, summer time is filled with distractions.  Our customers are distracted; they have vacations, kids playing Little League, golf leagues, cabins in the woods, lawns to mow and who knows what else.  This distraction is contagious.  Being people too, distributor folks get caught up in all the summer stuff.   Sometime around September 1 st , we snap out of our summer induced behavior and put our noses to the grindstone.  For the next week or so, we are going to talk about a few fall tune-ups for distributors.  Think summer end elixir for a better year end.  If ever you planned to institute a new habit, this is the time.  For the next four minutes, let’s think about selling time.  We’ll ask a few questions:  How much time do our salespeople spend selling?  What distracts them? How might we put the beauty back into the process? How much time do salespeople spend actually selling? Based on observations of hun...

Talk to any sales manager and they will tell you they want their team to be proactive.  Proactive as in sales calls, targeting, prospecting and product introductions.  Planning and setting detailed customer-centric goals is also viewed as proactive.  Sales managers preach proactivity.  Detailed studies of distributor salespeople, however, reveal a lot of folks who are anything but proactive.  In spite of the directives from their managers, a lot of these guys seem happy in their roles. Defining Reactionary Sales… A good many knowledge-based distributor salespeople have quietly slipped into what I call the reactionary sales model.  Here is the premise of their system: ·          The seller becomes engaged with the customer .  Sometimes this is an inherited relationship, other times, it builds gradually over time as the seller proves their worth as a provider of sound advice, support and technical assistan...

Online order entry seems to be the next big thing in distribution.  Reading the distributor trade press, we are deafened with calls urging distributors to invest in the technology.  For some, the idea makes sense.  But before whipping out the wallet, let’s put some thought into the subject.  All of these experts trot out Amazon, W.W. Grainer and a handful of online retailers as the poster children of how online order entry has changed our world.  No doubt about it, these folks are growing their business at the expense of brick and mortar based organizations.  True confessions here, I am a dedicated Amazon shopper; buying everything from books to dog treats.  That being said, we aren’t talking apples to apples here. I believe most solutions oriented distributors cannot afford to make a play in the “internet store” business.  Here’s how I came to this conclusion: ·          Most solution pro...

In a recent conversation with a very progressive distributor, we touched on an age old topic: the activities of factory salespeople.   To give you a flavor for the call a bit about the distributor.     They are extremely qualified, technically competent and have demonstrated the ability to drive their business forward.  In a time when most distributors in their sector are struggling, their sales are still pushing upward; well ahead of the industry average.  At the highest levels, their supply-partners admire their work, but there is a strange disconnect at the local level.  The local factory sales guys don’t seem to get along with the distributor folks.  Things get complicated from here.  The distributor, being technically qualified, well trained and totally familiar with their supplier’s products doesn’t need a lot of support.  In a couple of instances, it turns out the distributor team is actually more savvy on the products and app...

An engineering funny that had me laughing a bit more than necessary.  Tomorrow is Friday.  A great time to catch up on paperwork, follow up on calls, and check in with your favorite bloggers.  I'll be honest, my last post concerning CRMs was not well received.  I have a feeling so many of you just hate the THOUGHT of a CRM that you didn't even read the article!  Trust me, if you are a hater, and I can't say I have always loved them, there is something useful for you as well.  Brian Gardner knows what he's talking about!  That being said, I happen to love a little controversy.   Send me your hate mail concerning CRMs as I think this point needs some attention as well!  As usual, you will get a postcard from Iowa for submitting your idea!

Thinking about Money? Thinking about Sales Process? Thinking about CRM? (A Book Review) Talking to distributors, we have discovered that many of them have made big investments in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems.  Many of them have pushed their salespeople to track customer contacts and enter opportunities.  Candid conversations reveal, however, that the vast majority still feel like they are not getting their money’s worth from their CRM system.  This brings us to the subject of this post: a book by SalesProcess 360’s Brian Gardner. Brian brings a wealth of information to the topic.  He has decades of industrial sales experience.  He worked as a salesperson, sales manager and as a software developer.  Make no mistake, this book isn’t a 100 page advertisement for some software platform.  Instead, it’s about sales process and applying technology to automate the sales process. Mr. Gardner reverses the process most distribut...