The Manufacturer / Rep Alignment Ecosystem
A little background … Channel Marketing Group manages Industrial Supply Trends as a service to the industry. Our core business is consulting with distributors, manufacturer reps, and manufacturers in the electrical, HVAC, and industrial supply business. One of our clients is NEMRA, which is the association for electrical reps. A couple of engagements have included developing their Rep of…
Spotlight
2026 Q1 Pulse of Industrial Supply Survey
Last year we launched our Pulse of Industrial Supply survey, and subsequent report, to democratize information and provide distributors, reps, and manufacturers free marketplace information.…
Unlock Margin and Cash Flow Through SPA Enterprise Governance
SPAs, whether you define them as special pricing agreements or ship and debit initiatives, are a way to simultaneously capture business and ensure, perhaps improve,…
Winning Orders with AI-Powered Sales Quoting & Ordering
Last month I participated on Prokeep’s webinar on order quotation and order automation. For a pre-launch event, the attendance was great. Winning Nowadays Goes to…
AI for HR
How AI Can Transform HR for Industrial Distributors The Bottom Line: People are a distributor’s largest asset — and AI can now automate the HR…
Explore
Winning Orders with AI-Powered Sales Quoting & Ordering
Last month I participated on Prokeep’s webinar on order quotation and order automation. For a pre-launch event, the attendance was great. Winning Nowadays Goes to the Quickest – Customers Don’t Have Time to Waste Customers want speedy responses to quote and questions. The reason – they are running fast. Not enough time, or maintenance labor, to get all the work…
AI for HR
How AI Can Transform HR for Industrial Distributors The Bottom Line: People are a distributor’s largest asset — and AI can now automate the HR burdens that slow leaders down. HR expert Tracie Sponenberg identifies five accessible, affordable AI tools distributors can pilot today to streamline onboarding, scheduling, performance reviews, employee experience, and HR Q&A. For industrial supply distributors, their…
Distribution Sales Managers: What Top-Performing Sales Teams — And How Leaders Create It
If you lead a sales team for an industrial supply distributor, you already know the pressure. Margins are tight. Competition is aggressive. The number of SKUs continues to grow. We win customers, or current customers leave, for a lower price or faster order turnaround. Customers expect speed, technical accuracy, and competitive pricing. And every year, sales expectations increase, regardless of…
Manufacturers … “Why You?”
For manufacturers, getting your message through the channel, let alone to end-users, can be a challenge. Most are conditioned (could be trained, sometimes it’s historical repetition) to promote features and benefits. And it is always the latest products (which is interesting given that, while they track NPI … the percentage of business driven by new product introductions … there are…
The Friction Gap: Why the Industrial Buyer Journey Has Stalled
Sales cycles are getting longer. Win rates against ‘no decision’ are climbing. The instinct is to blame the buyer for going dark, but the real issue is that the industrial buyer journey has evolved past the channel’s ability to support it. Craig Martin is President of C3 Team, a strategy and marketing agency that works with industrial manufacturers on growth,…
Stanley Black Decker Earnings: Margins Up, But Volume Softness Raises Channel Questions
What Stanley Black Decker Earnings Tell Us About Channel Demand The latest Stanley Black Decker earnings tell a split story. Margins are improving, but the volume underneath is soft, and the gains are coming from pricing and cost structure rather than demand. For distributors and contractors who sell, stock, and rely on DeWalt, Craftsman, and Stanley products every day, that distinction matters. It…
Eaton Q4 2025 Earnings: What Distributors Should Know
What Eaton Q4 2025 Earnings Signal for Industrial Distributors Eaton Q4 2025 earnings delivered record numbers, but the real story for the industrial channel sits underneath the headline. Data center demand is reshaping where Eaton invests, how it allocates capacity, and which segments get priority. For distributors and reps carrying Eaton products, the implications go beyond a strong quarter. The company is making…
MSC Industrial Revenue Growth Hits 4% as New CEO Takes the Helm
MSC Industrial revenue growth of 4% in Q1 2026 looks healthy on the surface, but the details underneath tell a more nuanced story. The distributor, one of the largest metalworking and MRO suppliers in North America, reported results on January 7 that beat earnings expectations while simultaneously raising questions about demand fundamentals. For industrial distributors and channel partners watching the broader market,…
