For employees who are traditionally customer-service oriented, making cold calls requires a different skill set. Eric Chernik, CEO of Building Controls & Solutions, is providing training and tools for all employees, such as customer call lists with outbound call scripts, to grow business during the coronavirus slowdown.
Latest In COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
COVID-19 has sped up the digital evolution of the sales department. MDMs John Gunderson explains how to keep your sales people selling with the effective tactics they have picked up during coronavirus distancing, put an end to ineffective practices of the past, and use data to take share from competitors even in a down market.
There is an escalating response to the economic impact of the coronavirus among distributors, increasing furloughs and hiring freezes, management consulting firm Alexander Group finds. However, forward-looking distributors are also putting plans into place to convert competitors customers and grow digitally.
Failure to monitor automated supply chain replenishment could result in a vicious cycle with companies throughout the supply chain experiencing warehouses full of the wrong products and little cash to rectify their situations.
Four critical actions to take for an effective transition of sales teams to this new environment include reassurances about compensation, addressing performance gaps, elevating customer conversations and training on new customer interactions.
MDM’s Tom Gale is optimistic that over the next several months distribution will play such a critical role in getting our economy off its back and to fully functioning capacity as quickly as possible.
MDM’s Tom Gale is optimistic that over the next several months distribution will play such a critical role in getting our economy off its back and to fully functioning capacity as quickly as possible.
A follow-up phone call to the industrial distributors mid-April 1Q report provides detail behind dramatic shifts in growth rate, with EVP and CFO Holden Lewis highlighting how the company is pivoting to meet changing customer demands.
All but one participant in the Pandemic Revenue Index realized a sales decline year over year, with a maximum decline of 43%. We now have six weeks of double-digit average declines.
Customers are more open to change in the wake of COVID-19 disruption. Distributors can take advantage of this opportunity by using profit segmentation to drive strategic decision making and rework customer contracts in favor of increased profitability, Profit Isles Jonathan Byrnes explains in an MDM webcast.
Though the fallout for distributors from COVID-19 continued to be a hot topic in April, news on Amazon Business garnered the most attention from MDM readers during the month. New data show the enormous number of SKUs available on the platform and that it may be poised to become the top industrial distributor in the U.S.
So far, all but one participant in the Pandemic Revenue Index has realized an aggregate sales decline over the past five weeks with an average decline of 22.4%.
Everyone wants to know, what will our economic recovery from COVID-19 look like? The most optimistic are hoping for a V-shaped curve, others are expecting a W or even an L. When faced with an indeterminate outlook like we see today, information is key.