The hot new form of AI is rapidly spreading into the business world. Two distributors describe their AI journeys.
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Regardless of how we got here, what many of us discovered is a career that offers more than just selling and moving boxes.
WMS, LMS, OMS, WES, YMS: whatever acronym we use, they’re all tools, but they’ll never replace the need for leadership.
Upcoming Programs
Join us on June 4, 9 PT/12 ET, as we delve into strategies for leveraging these platforms to boost sales and stay competitive.
Join us on Thursday, June 5, 2025 at 9 PT/12 ET for a new AI News and Gurus: The Show for Intelligent Distributors
Join us on June 11, 2025 at 9 PT / 12 ET as we delve into the current state of distributor pricing and costing
Join us on June 18, 9 PT/12 ET, to explore the data infrastructure behind the electrical, HVAC, and plumbing industries, and where it’s headed
Trent Gillespie will detail approach to AI in a keynote entitled “Designing an AI-enabled business” at Distribution Strategy Group’s Applied AI for Distributors conference.
Whatever else happens in the world, your competitors will use AI to drive performance.
In logistics, we track everything: fill rates, dock turns, labor ratios. But leadership? That’s harder to quantify.
Recent Reports
In this episode of Wholesale Change (May 27, 2020), Distribution Strategy Group’s Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein discuss why you might have built the
I think a good rule of thumb for distributors is that you can’t complain about your e-commerce failure if your problems are self-inflicted.
A sales call guide can be a useful tool to help salespeople connect with prospects and ensure they are firing on all cylinders with
In this episode of Wholesale Change (May 20, 2020), Distribution Strategy Group’s Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein discuss the importance and future of marketplaces
Distribution Strategy Group’s Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein discuss the importance and future of value-added services in wholesale distribution. They also discuss why distributors
In a survey, we found that more end-users are embracing online shopping and buying for business out of necessity in light of COVID-19.
Small customers may not generate the sales volumes needed to support them as you would support your larger customers, but they usually generate higher
Increasing market share is good. However, increasing wallet share is even better because it is usually far easier to sell additional products to existing
We recently published an article on selling value internally along with selling externally to prospects. Because while many distributors have spent time creating a
Despite the many columns and webcasts predicting distribution’s post-pandemic “new normal,” it’s going to be a long time before our industry settles back into
It’s probably even more important for your long-term success to take some time now to revisit why you are in business and what customers
Pursuing new customers in existing markets can be an expensive proposition if not done with proper planning, analysis and execution.
Well-run companies know that customer retention is critical to long term success as a business. For some companies, an annual increase of 1% in
While some distributors have spent time creating a value proposition that employees can recite by heart, when it comes time to really talk about
You must look closely at the business you want to acquire from your competitors, in order to define a specific strategy. Do you want
It’s a great idea and it requires thoughtful planning. Most distributors want to increase sales by entering new markets — but what does that
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An Amazon Post Full of Nonsense Carries a Serious Underlying Message We all know the world is not fair. For one thing, celery is
Antisocial Distancing: The Best Worst Advice on Working from Home As the COVID19 pandemic sweeps across the globe, it’s causing sickness, death, and economic
During a Crisis, You Must Know the Lingo to Join the Convo Early in my career, I was terrified of math (due to post-algebra
My colleagues have written some great articles about the uncertainty around the COVID-19 outbreak. This article is geared toward what distributors can do right
Distributors are facing unprecedented uncertainty due to the impacts of the global COVID19 outbreak. While many safety and janitorial supplies wholesalers are seeing some
What’s the difference between customer service and inside sales? What are the skills sets distributors should look for when hiring for a successful proactive
Many taglines distributors have embraced are far too general to have any differentiating impact. Here are seven taglines you should avoid – and why.
This is a sample intro paragraph and can be used to introduce readers to your article. This is an example of a WordPress post,
In general, distributors’ ongoing shift to digital is a good thing; depending on the segment, customers do prefer to be communicated with digitally.
About 90% of respondents in our annual State of Distributor Marketing survey with Modern Distribution Management think they are delivering more value than their
There’s plenty of opportunity in B2B e-commerce right now. Even distributors and manufacturers who have yet to implement e-commerce capabilities can still get in
To many distributors, e-commerce and e-business sound interchangeable. Yet, there are important differences in the definitions.
Your top 10% of customers are covered by field sales. How are you reaching the other 90%? The very largest of a distributor’s accounts