Wants and Needs
You’ve heard the story, “there is a difference between wants and needs.” For example, especially this time of year you hear one parent say to the other “the kids ‘want’ …
Growth Strategies
2020 Planning
We’re in the midst of meeting and planning season and with it comes the perennial question of “what’s the outlook for 2020?” While no one has a crystal ball, it’s …
400% MRO Account Growth?
Looking for a growth strategy that supplements your existing technology platform, focuses your salespeople, requires nominal investment and can generate a 400% increase in MRO material sales from industrial or …
Convenience Will Deliver Sales and Loyalty
Buyer behavior is changing. Convenience is now a differentiator. Customers expect it. It\’s the new definition of service. It started in the consumer world and is quickly transitioning to B2B …
FedEx to Live without Amazon. Lessons for Distributors
Last month FedEx announced that they won’t renew a ground-delivery deal they had with Amazon to provide small-package ground deliveries. This follows FedEx’s announcement that it wouldn’t renew Amazon’s FedEx …
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Grainger Q2 Sales Slow … Industrial Indicator?
Grainger frequently is a good bellwether for the industrial market given their MRO focus on Fortune 500 industrial accounts. Grainger\’s performance highlights that the industrial MRO rate of growth decelerated …
Using Price to Expand Your Business
Competing on price is a “no no” for many distributors. Few want to say “the reason why people buy from me is price.” But, do all of your customers want …
Home Depot to Offer Customized Pro Pricing
Home Depot’s retiring CFO’s interview last night with Jim Cramer on CNBC shared a glimpse of why electrical distributors who serve small to mid-sized residential and commercial distributors should be …
Is your supplier finding leads and business, online, for you?
ABB recently launched a new initiative, eFinder, that enables visitors to its website to purchase material online. But they are not disintermediating the channel. Instead they are providing distributors with …
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Compete for Grainger’s Business: eProcurement
Many industrially-oriented distributors lament that they can’t compete versus Grainger for MRO business at their accounts. They say “we now the ‘decision’ makers and can beat them on price but …