Distributors can take advantage of market disruptions and customer transitions by looking for the opportunities they present, rather than having a negative attitude, according to Tom Gale, CEO of Modern Distribution Management, and Mike Marks, founding partner at Indian River Consulting Group. "There are riches in niches" that can be realized through a "longer-term road map and strategy," Gale says.

Distributors should use data in conjunction with mapping software to identify the best places to open new branches, followed by contacting targeted prospects, advertising via vehicle-mounted and traditional billboards, and using digital geotargeting to reach nearby customers on mobile devices, writes Jason Bader, principal of The Distribution Team. "In this day and age, if we build it, we better learn how to best promote it," Bader writes.

Distributors can achieve significant revenue gains with artificial intelligence-based tools by initially implementing them with a small group of salespeople before expanding them to the entire sales force, writes Benj Cohen, founder and CEO of Proton.ai. Companies should also "define and set measurable metrics for success" and align their reasons for using the tools with salespeople's goals, Cohen writes.

Embark Trucks says its autonomous-driving software will be implemented in trucks owned by Knight-Swift by year's end. Embark then plans to enlist additional fleet operators in 2023 while building a network of transfer hubs and improving its software to interact with law enforcement.

Now that "companies have instituted complex pricing varying from customer to customer, and even product to product," it's crucial that sales, operations and product management teams work together to coordinate efforts, minimize costs and increase profits, writes Jonathan Byrnes, founder and CEO of Profit Isle. These three groups "have surprisingly aligned interests," and they can help one another succeed by using Enterprise Profit Management to identify "the complex interaction between revenues and costs on a very granular basis," Byrnes writes.

Business-to-business customers can become frustrated when salespeople try to add value and instead complicate what was already a good thing, asserts sales consultant David Brock. "The value they need is not about our products but about their problem and process, [and] the way we are most helpful is through teaching them and supporting them on these things," Brock writes, as he lays out typical problem-solving needs of many B2B customers.

Being a film director "is like managing a small team," writes John Baldoni, who offers four leadership lessons learned from filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg and Werner Herzog. Leaders must prepare resources and gather team members, give them guidance and allow them to work, evaluate their progress and fine tune the process to help them succeed, Baldoni writes.

Before having a difficult conversation, be clear on the facts of what happened, your feelings about the situation and the purpose of the discussion and create a "third story" that finds the middle ground between your story of what happened and the other person's version, writes Ken Norton. "When you enter the conversation, you begin by describing this third story, then sharing your purpose, and finally inviting the other party to partner with you to solve the problem," Norton writes.