Distribution Events
Thought Leadership and Software for Wholesale Change Agents
Sales & Marketing
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The 6 Cs of Unifying Your Employees Under One Message
Some of the best distribution companies have unified the diverse voices that make up a business into one message, both internally and externally. I call this Many Voices, One Message. The idea is a staple of the B-to-C world.
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Why the Trend Is Your Friend
Data points in time indicate a real trend either up or down less than half of the time. By tracking trends, we can do a better job matching our expenses and cost-to-serve with the business, without fuss or emotions.
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Think of Your Company as a Portfolio
You are familiar with the portfolio concept if you own any kind of equity, bond, real estate or other investment fund. If you’re familiar with the major investment companies – such as Charles Schwab, Vanguard, Fidelity, BlackRock – you are familiar with portfolio strategies.
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Additional Value Creation: The Real Bottom-Line Drivers in Distribution
Many independent distribution companies wonder why their gross margin, net profit and attendant multiples are inferior to their $2 billion-plus sales, national-market, publicly held competitors. These competitors may have many structural advantages:
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The Value of Thinking Like An Investor
In this article, I will discuss a useful approach, the Private Equity Investor Framework, which will help you think like an investor to improve and grow your business. You don’t have to be a trained financial professional to use and apply it.
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The Case for Proactive Selling
If created and managed well, outbound and inbound calling programs can be very effective. What’s more, implementation does not have to be expensive or overly complex.
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2012 State of Inside Sales in Distribution
For many, inside sales involves ordering, technical support, returns handling and credit management. Rarely does it involve proactive, outbound sales. Simply put, those with the title “Inside Sales” spend little or no time actually doing inside “sales” because they lack the time, training or aptitude or skills to be successful.
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The Economics of Cross-Selling
Up-selling and cross-selling are the two primary means of growing an account. Among these, cross-selling is paramount. Here’s why: many distributors have regular customers who buy the same set of 10 to 20 SKUs over and over, yet, they have thousands of other products that could be sold to those same customers.
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How Distributors Position their Business, Part I
The research performed included interviews with nearly 10 distributor senior executives and an online survey taken by 170 participants across a variety of distribution sectors. There was heavier participation from industrial, electrical/electronics, building, safety, hardware, and chemicals and plastics.
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How Distributors Position Their Business, Part II
It may be that many distributors are just guessing when it comes to positioning and messaging. Their beliefs about what attributes are important to emphasize in messaging and positioning is based on scant market research.