Americold reported 11.4% revenue growth in 2020 as the pandemic increased the need for retail cold storage, says Americold CEO Fred Boehler. "What we eat and where we eat will change, but we're going to eat," he says.

Warehouse operators that want to start using robotics should have a handle on stock-keeping unit and order data, then ask vendors how products will work in particular environments, industry experts say. It's also best to start small, ensure software functionality and know the right product dimensions and weights for piece-picking robotics.

Digitization can offer organizations cost-effective, efficient, customer-driven and competitive supply chain management techniques. To start digitizing, supply chain leaders should look to innovate with track and trace technology, radio frequency identification and Bluetooth tech, 3D printing, robotics and Industry 4.0 tools such as big data and in-depth analytics, writes C S Ellis' Matthew Bratherton.

Free trials and one-call closing models can be effective ways to shorten sales cycles, writes Zac Muir. Reject the assumption that sales cycles require a minimum amount of time and try using sales engineers, support teams and other roles creatively to speed up selling activities, Muir suggests.

A few ways for distribution salespeople to get better results from virtual sales calls include asking everyone to have their cameras on, recording calls with the customer's permission and using no more than 20 words per slide, said Marcus Sheridan at a recent event.

Employees should be able to quickly grasp organizational mission, values, policies, strategies, culture and performance ratings, but resist making these things so simplistic that they lose their meaning, writes TalentTelligent co-founder Bob Eichinger. "Consider being parsimonious -- meaning, to be as short and simple as needed to get the intention of the message across," he writes.

Employees who feel significant stress over their finances aren't likely to speak up, but it could be affecting their productivity, mental wellness and morale. A survey by Salary Finance showed that financially stressed workers tend to lose about a month of productivity per year and are twice as likely as others to look for a new position, so employers should prioritize financial wellness initiatives that meet their needs.

Through the NAW Certificate in Distribution Professional Management, which is completely virtual in 2021, NAW and our partner Texas A&M University offer these three comprehensive sessions to help you help your managers to strengthen their skills with the educational foundation they need to enhance their value to your company: Optimizing Distributor Profitability, May 24-27; Generating and Managing Growth, July 19-23; Distributor Capability Development, October 18-22. Register your team today!

Guest blogger Jason Hein of Bloomreach says, "The first thing that distributors must do is to stop competing with Amazon Business and start competing like Amazon. Competing with Amazon implies a "head-to-head" battle of tactical process excellence -- where the way to win is to do what you do better than Amazon does. Some B2B distributors consider things like contract pricing, inventory management, services provided to customers or product expertise to be "moats" that will protect their business from Amazon." Read his post.

To help distributors move past the pandemic successfully, every new copy of INNOVATE TO DOMINATE ordered now includes -- at no extra charge -- a brand-new e-chapter called "Distribution Leans In: Stories of Resiliency and Innovation during the COVID-19 Pandemic." NAW has added this new e-chapter to give distributors immediate ways to apply all the lessons of INNOVATE TO DOMINATE as they emerge from the unprecedented challenges to a stronger business future. It's time for distributors to change the game and dominate the future of wholesale distribution.