Indian River Consulting Group's Pandemic Revenue Index of 12 distributors increased on a daily sales basis over the same week in 2019, although overall sales were down 12.7% and affected by the short Labor Day week.

Uline is recruiting warehouse workers in three Wisconsin cities by offering $6,000 bonuses and wages of $23 an hour to start.

Several "A" qualities describe resilient distributors, including audacity, action and acceptance, ActVantage founder Pradip Krishnadevarajan writes. "Many distributors aren't ready to take the risk and would rather wait until a competitor tries something or a major customer asks for it," he writes.

The world is in a "heightened state of cybervulnerability" because "human errors are more likely to be made remotely," says Joshua Motta, CEO of cybersecurity provider Coalition. The company has observed a 47% increase in ransomware attack severity and a 27% increase in funds transfer loss since the pandemic began, with the latter being driven by email intrusion, invoice manipulation and domain spoofing.

A new study from Google and Ipsos reveals an array of insights about business-to-business buyers and marketers during the pandemic, including that 51% of buyers have upped their search use and 64% are using more digital video. Additionally, 30% of buyers have added a new vendor or started a purchase in the last 30 days, and 59% say they're likely to change suppliers over the next month.

Salespeople can keep meetings interesting and engaging even while pitching by video, says Kellogg Sales Institute Executive Director Craig Wortmann. He recommends creating a "pre-flight checklist" to make sure technology is working and having all participants stand as they're on camera.

Delegation is a good way for managers to prepare for the next role, where they'll need to do less of the work and let their teams solve problems, writes Liz Kislik. "The strengths that make you terrific at hands-on delivery don't always serve you perfectly once you're responsible for juggling multiple teams, issues, and priorities," she writes.

Find quick solutions to persistent problems by encouraging risk, being open-minded and keeping your resolve, writes Dan Rockwell. "If you want your team to solve problems quickly, make failure an option," he writes.

Old school distribution is about stocking inventory, taking orders and serving demand. New school distribution is about innovating through customer services and working side-by-side with customers in the real world. The future of distribution is about solving problems in your customer's business -- often before your customer even knows a problem exists. Innovate to Dominate provides breakthrough ideas, lessons from leading distributors who are innovating and inspiration to help you lead your customers into the future and sustain your competitive advantage.

Designed for C-suite executives, these virtual roundtables provide actionable strategies that will help put your COVID-19 recovery plan in place. Companies belonging to this community are from distribution firms that exceed $1 billion in annual sales. You'll engage in robust conversations with your peers and hear from industry experts on topics to help your business transition to the new normal -- all in the comfort of your own office/home. Register today.

At this critical time, online payment acceptance can mean the difference in whether you're paid. Stream the podcast from NAW Trusted Partner Unified Payments to learn how replacing paper check acceptance with an easy-to-use "PayNOW" link on your website allows customers to pay invoices in real-time, online, with credit card and enhanced ACH.