For Distributors ONLY - The Way We Were....

1978 Bowdoin College Graduation Picture

Back in 1978 the world seemed to be a much simpler place to me. Now while I acknowledge that this may be due to the fact that I was in my “creative” phase of life, a lot of things were definitely easier when it came to conducting business. 

For example: there were only two ways to make a sales call 1) in person on a face to face call or 2) by phone. 

Now fast forward 35 years to 2013 and there are a dozen ways to communicate with your customers today. Nothing is any simpler unless you consider the process of me combing my hair (see inset).

2013 Vernon Company

In fact I think it is fair to say that things are exponentially more complicated to run a distributorship today. 

It is for this reason that many distributor salespeople and owners have made the decision to align with a established companies that have a proven track record in the industry. 

We hear it every day in the press about how difficult it is to run a small business today.Obamacare appears to be the hot topic in recent months. How does a company navigate all these new rules and regulations. 

With respect to our industry can I say PRODUCT SAFETY?

It is clear that large distributorships do not have all the answers however they do have more resources to find the answers. A small distributor owner is left with two options with respect to many of these new modern day issues.

The first option is to invest a good deal of time and effort to learn about the issue. This time and effort spent is time and effort that is not spent in selling or  growing their own business. 

The second possible course of action is to do what I believe a lot of small distributors do today. I call in the "ostrich with their head in the sand" technique. This does work....for a while but....

 

 

Small distributors are getting pulled 19 different directions today and there are more and more costs that are really making it difficult to make a living. 

This is where aligning with a larger distributor organization might make more senses today than ever before. Yes it is absolutely true that you give up a percentage of the profit however I make the case that you never kep 100 % of the profit even as a business owner. A small distributor has lots of costs that an employee or independent working for someone else will never have in addiiton. There is a dirty little four letter word that creeps into the conversation. That word is:

T-I-M-E 

Small distributors find themselves wearing many hats. Every time they take off their selling hat to put on their customer service hat or their managing hat or their supplier relations hat this represents time that they are not selling! And this costs them MONEY!

Exploring the options of aligning with a larger companies is more popular today than ever before. Consider the fact that they can help you in the following areas:

1. Cash Flow                           
2. Supplier Credit                                   
3. Purchasing Power  
4. Preferred Pricing 
5. Advanced Commissions     
6. Product Safety Expertise
7. Direct Importing                
8. On Line Stores                                                    
9. Fulfillment Services
10. Team Camaraderie                           
11. Personalized Websites                                   
12. Marketing Support
13. Customer Service                             
14. Product Research                                            
15. Order Entry
16. Credit and Collections                     
17. Proactive Marketing Services                      
18. Sales Meetings

The question that one must ask themselves is the following. What is it worth to have a partner who will assist me in these areas?

Also you can turn the tables and ask yourself how much does it cost me today to perform these tasks?

The answer may be telling!

To continue conversations or to engage in an open dialogue please feel free to reach out to me at let's talk 

The Promotional Products "Dating" Game

I bet that I got your attention...didn’t I? As the Vice President of Sales of a large organization with 325 account executives I am constantly amazed at the variety of “characters” that we have representing us.

There is an old saying that there is someone in this world for everyone and while I think this refers to a romantic link, I also think it is also true of promo salespeople and promo buyers. What do you think?

Do you ever look at someone walking the show floor and say “I wonder who buys from him or her”? Come on...be honest! 

To be fair I believe if you had a huge room full of promotional product buyers we would be equally amazed at the variety.

So every day all across this country, buyers are checking out salespeople to see if they are compatible. Can they get along? Will the relationship be mutually beneficial? Interesting angle...isn’t it?

I can imagine a number of readers are thinking of dirty jokes right about now. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Here I am trying to talk about the very serious issue of working hard to make sure that as a promotional products distributor you do everything in your power to make sure that you are meeting the needs of your buyers and you are thinking about sex. Wow! 

The reality today is that buyers do look for salespeople that compliment them. I talk about the fact that salespeople need to decipher to code, the secret code to find out what makes buyers tick. 

1. What do they want? 
2. What do they need? 
3. How do they like to communicate? 





Can I see you again?

Do you know? Do you care? If you do not know, do you know how to find out?

One solution would be to hire some high priced consultants to work with you and your salespeople. Of course, another solution might be to encourage salespeople to ask the buyers what they want and why? Ask them how they like to communicate.

 Let them know that you do not want to assume anything because you know that wrong assumptions can lead to wasted time or incorrect decisions that make everyone look bad.

One piece of advice that I give our managers is to always go into a situation with an objective in mind. It may be a short or long term objective.

My objective in the aforementioned scenario is that I want all of our account executives to get a “second date” with every one of their buyers. This is how the relationship will grow and develop!