ODP's planned split will create a B2B-focused company called ODP Corporation, which itself will contain ODP Business Solutions and the B2B digital marketplace Varis, for which the company has hired numerous former Amazon and Amazon Business employees, writes Ian Heller. "It will be interesting to see if a well-capitalized competitor can put Amazon on defense -- using not only the same playbook but some of the same players," Heller writes.

Core & Main posted net income of $9.5 million on sales of $1.2 billion for the second quarter ended Aug. 1, with sales rising 35.7% from a year earlier despite profit declining by nearly 50%. The company recently went public, "generating gross proceeds of approximately $802 million," said CEO Steve LeClair.

The long-haul trucking sector is looking toward electrification and autonomous vehicles to offset the perpetual shortage of drivers, but technical obstacles must be overcome. A major issue is ramping up infrastructure needed to charge large numbers of batteries.

Price objections can be tricky even for seasoned sellers, but salespeople should deal with them in the way comedians handle hecklers. Comedians respond with confidence to hecklers and move on with the show, which can teach salespeople to remain composed and focused on the value of their solution when replying, writes Colleen Francis.

AZK Media's Azadeh Williams explains how business-to-business marketers can improve engagement with video, recommending "bite-sized" social video campaigns that can be repurposed from events, webinars, podcasts and other content. Williams explains how to use data analysis to convince the C-suite of video marketing's effectiveness and how to produce quality video on a tight budget.

Schedule deliberate downtime between events and projects to remain effective and prevent burnout, writes Juliet Funt, who calls the concept "the wedge." Funt outlines four motivators of workplace activity and how we can avoid going overboard in any of those areas.

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In this free NAW webinar on Sept. 23, at 2 p.m. Eastern, Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein of Distribution Strategy Group will identify best practices for developing, implementing, monetizing and managing services. Register now! Sponsored by Oracle Netsuite and Enable.

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