Former Plaskolite President Kevin Short has been named president and CEO of industrial and safety supply wholesaler ORS Nasco and automotive product distributor MEDCO. One Equity Partners owns both companies.
MSC Industrial Supply's e-commerce sales failed to significantly grow in the most recent quarter, but they remain a focus, says CEO Erik Gershwind. MSC will also work to expand its presence in customer facilities "through inventory management solutions, primarily vending and vendor managed inventory," Gershwind says.
Distributors should give new college graduates an opportunity to show what they can do and should highlight only the most important skills and keywords in job listings, writes Bridget McCrea in this roundup of hiring advice. Onboarding should begin quickly, although in-class training is usually unnecessary.
Sales used to be about effective pitches, but has slowly morphed into an industry where salespeople must serve as "value-based consultative agents and idea drivers," writes Mike Schultz. Modern sales training should emphasize industry expertise, great sales skills and overall business knowledge, Schultz writes.
Marketers should join or create Facebook Groups to cultivate audiences interested in their sector and offer valuable advice, guidance and solutions to problems, Nicki Kamau writes. Use Groups to gather customer insights, test content ideas, offer superior customer service and create communities around events, Kamau recommends.
Think about one-on-one meetings as having multiple stages, including standing questions, feedback from the managers, organizational updates and career check-ins, writes Marco Rogers. "Ideally I'm always building rapport and trust throughout 1-on-1s and in other scenarios," he writes.
Daily huddles, one-on-one meetings, collaborative software and clear communication can all improve productivity and complete projects, writes Naphtali Hoff. "When the process is complete, review everything to identify your successes as well as your failures," Hoff writes.
Don't miss the NAW 2020 Executive Summit: INNOVATE TO DOMINATE, Jan. 28-30! This year's forward-looking program and networking with distributors who are your peers will really shake up your thinking, provide you with fresh ideas and critical thinking, and give you a rare chance to benchmark your business. You'll walk away with valuable insights that you'll translate into ideas to help you run your business more effectively and profitably. Register today.
This study brings together best practices from leading distributors and their suppliers that were developed through a consortium on Optimizing Channel Compensation. The resulting Channel Alignment Framework is the first-of-its-kind map that seeks to build optimal manufacturer-distributor channels. Distributors need to read this book and buy it for their manufacturer partners. Then they need to sit down with those suppliers and properly plan effective processes to get the supplier market access while meeting distributor investment needs.
Watch Barry Lawrence. This first-of-its-kind "Sales and Marketing Optimization" research study, with an accompanying Sales and Marketing Framework wall map, provides 30 best practices for improving these critical business processes: market segmentation, value proposition, business development, sales process and sales force stratification. Every distributor should adopt and execute these best practices successfully if the business is to adapt to the new realities in today's economy and still achieve competitive advantage.
