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 … [Read more...] about Your Best People Are Retiring and Nobody Wrote Any of It Down
Insights
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 … [Read more...] about Myths of Selling to a Surplus House
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 … [Read more...] about Customer Stratification Delivers Focus, Profits
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 the whole … [Read more...] about Joint Calls, Am I Suffering from a Split Personality?
Q3 Pulse of Industrial Supply Survey Open
The industrial market continues to be one the economic highlights and that, coupled with data centers, is helping to drive the industrial distribution segment. While many may wonder how data center construction benefits the industrial distribution industry, there are three elements: Fastenal reported a strong August. They were up 16.6% (15.5% in the US) with their OEM … [Read more...] about Q3 Pulse of Industrial Supply Survey Open
NetPlus Q3 Outlook: Focusing on Fundamentals
NetPlus Alliance distributors reported another quarter of growth after the close of the second quarter. According to its Q3 Outlook report, "members remain focused on sales fundamentals while many upgrade their systems and processes." The Industry Outlook, a quarterly report based on a survey of NetPlus members, tracks business results and trends in the industrial and … [Read more...] about NetPlus Q3 Outlook: Focusing on Fundamentals
3M Shares 1st Half Insights
Recently I received some information that 3M shared regarding first half insights: The key takeaways are not so much the market, or sales, performance, as that is company-specific and/or projections from Cleveland Research, and the information is as of June. The key is considering market trends. Key "strong" markets are: Further, anything tied to data centers ... … [Read more...] about 3M Shares 1st Half Insights
The Parts Nobody Wants to Hold
The Parts Nobody Wants to Hold — and Why You Need Someone Who Will Surplus houses exist because the industrial supply chain produces inventory nobody can afford to keep — and everybody eventually needs. Every Shelf Charges Rent Holding inventory in any industry costs 20–30% of its value, annualized. Capital, storage, insurance, shrinkage, labor — the meter runs whether … [Read more...] about The Parts Nobody Wants to Hold
Why Routine Decisions Keep Finding the President
President's Need to Operationalize Trust You built a good company. That is not the problem. The problem is what a good company does to the person who runs it. Somewhere between your first few million and your current size, you stopped doing everything yourself and built a real organization. You hired people better at sales than you. You built a purchasing function that … [Read more...] about Why Routine Decisions Keep Finding the President
Grainger Grows – High‑Touch Momentum, Tariff Rebates, and the Demand Cycle
Grainger, considered the industrial supply industry’s leading distributor, or at least bellwether as it relates to offered services and products, reported 2Q 2026 results on August 4, with sales of $5 billion, up 10.3%, or 13.7% on a daily, organic constant currency basis). Grainger achieved operating margin of 16.1% on a reported basis, up 120 basis points y-o-y. Growth was … [Read more...] about Grainger Grows – High‑Touch Momentum, Tariff Rebates, and the Demand Cycle
