In Between Meals

On a recent Sunday afternoon, my husband and I drove over to a restaurant next to our town’s university. The experience got me thinking about some parallels to Industrial Supply magazine and what we’re striving to do for you this year.

Back to the restaurant. The “Industrial Revolution” turned out to be a good choice for our adventurous mood. The coolest feature was an elaborate labyrinth of a railroad track constructed near the ceiling, upon which an eight-car miniature train journeyed all across the restaurant. It would come by your table, above your head, about every 10 minutes or so. Fortunately, there were other nice things to occupy our time, such as chocolate martinis and a cheesy potroast-and-pasta dish that I’m sure was low-cal.

Later on, I thought, you know, Industrial Supply may only come around to your desk every other month, but in between those weeks, we keep connected with you – distribution executives across North America – by offering regular and relevant content to feed your business. Every week, I am scouring the news wires to curate top industry stories that I publish for you every Thursday morning in an email newsletter called Industrial Supply Weekly. If you’re not receiving it, may I encourage you to sign up? Just click the top SUBSCRIBE tab on our homepage, www.industrialsupplymagazine.com.

Each week, IS Weekly features an Online Exclusive – a value-add bonus article to give you something good and insightful to think about. For example, in the January 4 edition, I featured a thought-provoking piece from distribution expert Mike Marks, co-founder of Indian River Consulting Group. Titled, “Two objectives distributors should focus on for 2024,” Mike’s article makes the case for why cash flow and business agility are imperative this year.

“Simply put, the economy is going to be frothy,” he wrote. “Any distributor that’s going to do well [this] year is going to be light on their feet. They’re going to be able to sense these changes quickly – and react quickly, because speed is a weapon. You’ll need to be positioned to pivot at a day’s notice.” The QR code on this page will take you straight to Mike’s article.

Another way we keep in touch between issues is with our video interview series, “The Hot Seat.” We’ve only put out a handful of these short, to-the-point mini-interviews with subject matter experts, but any time you see the “Hot Seat” graphic in IS Weekly, please click and listen in for some helpful distribution insight.

The two most recent Hot Seat interviews I did were about the new columns we’re rolling out for 2024 starting right now: (1) “Wired For Sales” with longtime distribution sales expert Frank Hurtte, and (2) “Force for Good” with distribution workforce advocate Dirk Beveridge. Take a look at what they’ve got to say over on pages 10 and 42.

As always, thanks for reading!