Amazon has pledged to meet goals of the Paris climate agreement 10 years early, CEO Jeff Bezos says. Part of that effort includes the recent order of 100,000 electric delivery vans to make its fleet run entirely on renewable energy.

FedEx is cutting its Express air service and taking dozens of planes out of commission after this year's peak season as it deals with weakening air cargo demand, economic concerns and fallout from ending its Amazon ground and express delivery contracts. FedEx hadn't considered Amazon a threat until now, and CEO Fred Smith says he now considers it one of FedEx's competitors, along with UPS, DHL and the US Postal Service.

Software and people together are needed for distributors to manage and capitalize on data, says Maureen Barsema, Revere Electric Supply executive and co-owner of BJ Electric. "Dedicated resources assigned to your data will enable the company to discover paths of opportunity and directionally grow to a more sustainable future," she says.

Jessica Huhn offers comprehensive advice on how business-to-business marketers can boost their lead generation efforts, including best practices for designing lead capture forms and landing pages. She provides tips on how to encourage prospects to visit landing pages, such as enticing them with valuable free research and offering them other content of value such as whitepapers and ebooks, and explains how to build trust through customer testimonials and a quality website.

Highspot Chief Marketing Officer Jon Perera discusses how technology is changing sales enablement to ensure better alignment between marketing and sales teams and how business-to-business marketers can increase conversions and customer retention. "Companies must radically change their approach to account-based selling by building trusted relationships over time from the first-touch onward," he says.

Challenging, empowering and rewarding employees gives them freedom to act and explore, which builds trust and confidence, writes Justin Kanoya. "This type of leadership can result in a person being led to create the best version of themselves," he writes.

Listening is about learning and perceiving, not about waiting until you can jump in, writes Lolly Daskal. "When you listen and you are able to form connections with what is being spoken, you'll find you're well prepared to help people put their thoughts in context and decide what to do next," Daskal writes.

Register today for the NAW 2020 Executive Summit: INNOVATE TO DOMINATE, January 28-30, 2020! Our program will provide for you a road map to innovation. You'll ignite your innovative mindset as you peer into the future of wholesale distribution, explore marketplace platforms, and examine the points of view of today's business experts and next-generation distribution entrepreneurs who are creating new business models to satisfy industry and customer needs, and create new demand. Get all the details and register today!

For many distributors, gaining control over pricing is their last "unplowed field." "Strategic Pricing for Distributors: Tools and Rules for Building Higher Margins," a NAW Institute perennial best-seller by industry expert Brent Grover, is a combination of business novel and guidebook with real-world lessons for distribution managers. It takes you through a plan using market-driven pricing guidelines and tools for reaching and sustaining strategic pricing improvement -- and ultimately increased profitability.

Billion Dollar Company CEOs, CFOs, operation executives, CHROs, CLOs, and CIOs attend these roundtables to benchmark solutions and strategies from distribution executives who are at the top of their game. The companies invited into this community are from distribution firms that exceed $1 billion in annual sales. Participating in this 24-hour, results-focused business meeting is one of the best ways to learn from your C-suite peers in distribution -- who aren't competitors! Register today.