Wired for Sales

Thinking more about this, the distribution industry is huge. There are over 200 different types of distribution companies in a wide array of industries, and there is a diverse mix of distributor sizes. Market pressures have pushed some distribution industries to modify their business model. For instance, food wholesalers, because of their high-turn ratios and lower gross margins, far out-pace our industry in logistics, and players in the sundries industry have become the masters of processing small orders more efficiently than most. The comparisons are interesting, but let’s focus on industrial distributors.

Industrial distributors are the reigning heavyweight champions in product and application knowledge. No one knows more about applying products than an experienced seller in the industrial sector. Sadly, our supply of experience is running short. Many of our veteran hands are already packing their bags for sunny beaches, year-round golf courses, or the rest home around the corner. Without accomplished sellers, or at least folks with equivalent experience, we aren’t exactly destined for business nirvana.

While distributors in other industries are running into this “experience drain,” they are better positioned because they use a more defined sales process. This is part of my heartburn tied to our kind of distributors. Our industry uses the same sales methodology today as it did when the 24-year-old version of me hopped into his first gasguzzling company car and sped out of the parking lot to go make sales calls. Think about it, we’ve added cell phones, computers, and other techno-gadgets, yet our methodology for identifying and dealing with customers has remained largely unchanged.

In the blue box above is a machine gun blast of differences between other industries and ours.

A few years ago, I worked with this publication to poll sales managers and others to determine if distributors had true processes. The results were eye-opening. Over 65% indicated they had a process, but there’s bad news. Most defined their process as informal and/or different for each seller. Sadly, informal and “different depending on the salesperson” are not processes we need by most standards.

My process definition includes three characteristics: (1) A documented and closely-followed methodology. (2) Metrics and measures of success exist. (3) Attention is devoted to improving the methodology across the team.

A real process allows us to accelerate the training time of newbies and make a few extra bucks for the home team. Think about just two aspects of this process thing: (1) Research indicates companies with documented and formal targeting plans are 40% more effective at meeting their goals. (2) Another set of research data demonstrates that distributors who adopt a sound pricing process generally add 50% more to their bottom line. Selling is about bottom-line results. Being wired for sales requires – you guessed it – a process.