Mental health and substance abuse issues among distribution employees have come to the forefront during the pandemic, said executives from Graybar, Benco Dental, Motion and ORS Medco at January's National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors Executive Summit. "The mental health thing is real, and it's really up to all of us to dive in on that," said Motion President Randy Breaux, who shared how an employee video he made about seeking help sparked a response from an employee in crisis.

Preliminary North American orders for Class 8 trucks totaled 21,100 in February, roughly the same number as January but down 53% from a year ago, as truck manufacturers struggled to get enough parts and materials to produce new vehicles, an FTR report states. "By not booking more orders, OEMs are signaling that the supply chain remains clogged, and they don't anticipate being able to ramp up production in the next couple of months," said Don Ake, FTR's vice president of commercial vehicles.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, venture capital investment in supply chain startups totaled $10.9 billion, a new record, according to the PitchBook Q4 2021 Supply Chain Tech Report. "Valuations for early- and late-stage supply chain tech startups increased in all four quarters of 2021," PitchBook says.

Champions of digital transformation "can and should come from all parts of the organization, helping leaders convert the company from old school to innovative," writes Lucid senior executive David Torgerson, who outlines three road blocks IT teams will need to overcome.

The secrets to business-to-business marketing success are explained by Francesca Nicasio using five notable campaigns that span out of home, social media, video, email and creative. Nicasio offers social marketing tips based on SEMrush's engaging content, describes how Slack injected humor into video marketing and takes a look at how Cisco got creative with a SuperSmart Security graphic novel.

Sales leaders typically think of retention in terms of building long-term relationships with buyers, but the same principles and benefits apply to retaining employees, writes David Brock. Just as it takes money and resources to acquire new customers -- who then provide value over the course of a relationship -- it's expensive to recruit, hire and train new salespeople, making it important to keep them engaged and content, Brock notes.

"Seagull" managers can be overbearing, overly critical and don't generate honest feedback, writes Dan Rockwell. These managers need to be more curious about their team's work, consult them on decisions and praise good work.

Being a good leader often comes down to paying attention to simple rules of management. Here are 15 best practices that hone leadership abilities, including being honest and admitting a mistake.

Help your company develop strategic thinkers and an agile team when your employees participate in this one-week course. The NAW Distribution Leadership Program draws on the latest business practices, tailored to the distribution industry, and those business practices are delivered by award-winning faculty from The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business. Register your leaders today!

NAW is working with Industry Insights to gather information from companies like yours for the NAW 2022 Employee Compensation & Benefits Study. The comprehensive survey collects data that doesn't just show you what others are doing; it gives you customizable side-by-side comparison tools so you can decide if you need to make any adjustments to your business strategy. Take the survey.

In this week's article, David explores the levers you can control to predictably make an impact on your business: sell-side price performance, purchase-price performance, sales performance, and cost-to-serve (CTS) management. Read the blog here.