Put AI Where the Money Is: Why the Front Office Comes First
Nearly every distributor I talk to feels they should be doing something with AI, and much of that conversation starts in the back office, with purchasing and forecasting. Those projects can save money, but orders are won or lost in the front office. One of our customers, Kregg Cheek, put it better than I can. He runs LH Industrial…
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Fastenal Firing on All Cylinders, Driven by Large Accounts, Market Share Gains and Data Centers
Fastenal delivered 15.5% revenue growth and record operating-income growth as large accounts, manufacturing demand, digital programs, and embedded inventory solutions drove market-share gains. Gross-margin pressure…
5 reasons your sales incentive program isn’t working (and how to fix it)
Effective sales incentive programs help reps understand what to do, see their progress and earn rewards they want. Confusing rules or unclear communications discourage participation,…
Changing Sales Team Behavior with Targeted Guidance
TL:DR Sales dashboards reveal what happened, but they rarely change behavior on their own. Distributors can improve execution by turning ERP data into timely, specific…
Joint Calls, Why Distributors Suffer from a Split Personality?
TL;DR: Joint calls create opportunity only when distributors balance supplier access with firm account ownership. Keep Factory Fred informed, use his application knowledge, set commercial…
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Changing Sales Team Behavior with Targeted Guidance
TL:DR Sales dashboards reveal what happened, but they rarely change behavior on their own. Distributors can improve execution by turning ERP data into timely, specific cues that tell each rep which customer to contact, why, and what opportunity to discuss—aligning daily sales actions with strategic growth, retention, and inventory priorities. Lessons From a Sales Analyst One of my first career…
Joint Calls, Why Distributors Suffer from a Split Personality?
TL;DR: Joint calls create opportunity only when distributors balance supplier access with firm account ownership. Keep Factory Fred informed, use his application knowledge, set commercial boundaries before problems surface, maintain multiple customer relationships, and make the distributor indispensable through expertise, inventory, problem-solving, and relentless follow-through. Joint Sales Calls – Appease Factory Fred? I’ve been thinking about joint calls lately. You…
Why Industrial Parts Are So Hard to Identify and Match
Manufacturers maintain proprietary part-numbering systems, while distributors map products to their own SKUs, creating inconsistencies across ERP and product-data systems. A part fails. The line is down, and every minute costs money. The replacement might be on a shelf ten miles away. Before anyone can pull it, someone has to answer one question: what is this part? We call it…
Meridian360 – 5 Tools in 1 to Drive Sales Intelligence
Every salesperson has blind spots and no sales manager has enough time to coach their salespeople before each sales call like they would like to. Further, no salesperson says “boss, thanks for all of the reports you offer me that I am supposed to review, decipher, and determine what to discuss with my customer.” The reality is your sales team…
Your Best People Are Retiring and Nobody Wrote Any of It Down
While inventory may site on your balance sheet as your most important financial investment, every distributor owner and manager knows that their people are their biggest asset and can also be their biggest liability. They are an asset as they are the #1 differentiator within your business. Without them, a distributor is a vending machine. People interact with customers, with…
Myths of Selling to a Surplus House
Myths of selling to a surplus house All of them keep the profitable check on someone else’s desk instead of yours. Every distributor and industrial plant is sitting on a bloated storeroom or warehouse full of parts, most have already talked themselves out of selling it. Usually for years. The reasons sound reasonable, in your head anyways. That’s exactly what…
Customer Stratification Delivers Focus, Profits
Industrial supply distributors sit in the middle of a demanding value chain: manufacturers rely on them to place products close to the market, while customers rely on them for availability, technical support, delivery, credit, and problem solving. That middle position creates opportunity, but it also exposes distributors to margin pressure, inventory risk, and rising service expectations. Customer Stratification Provides Dashboard…
Joint Calls, Am I Suffering from a Split Personality?
I’ve been thinking about joint calls lately. You know the drill… taking supply-partners out to visit your customers. As I sat down to write about the subject, I found myself conflicted. To the point of wondering if I were developing distributor directed personality disorders. As I sorted through dozens of conflicting thoughts, I even found myself putting a face on…
