Summit Electric’s Vice President of Marketing and Supplier Relations Sheila Hernandez’s latest role in leading the company’s marketing efforts includes category management, supplier relations, digital presence and customer lifecycle. We talk marketing plus her contributions to the industry over 35 years with her generous leadership and mentorship.

At the age of 19, Doug Savage, President of Bearing Service, Inc., unexpectedly took over running the distribution company his grandfather started. In this podcast, Doug talks about his passion for education, his early adoption of the Entrepreneurial Operating System, the opportunities for independent distributors ahead, and his many leadership roles across a 47-year career.

Sponsored by Epicor

Gartner’s Maria Boulden, Mike Marks of Indian River Consulting Group and Tom Gale tackle all things sales transformation: Massive shifts in customer buying behavior, digital-first go-to-market strategy, supplier partnerships and the new sales skills needed to compete, including situational awareness, data literacy and digital dexterity.

Fastenal CEO Dan Florness and MDM Editor Mike Hockett chat from the company’s recent Fastenal Expo about the company’s considerable digital growth and how it’s continued to find ways to become closer with its customers. We also touch on Fastenal’s manufacturing capabilities, how the company is addressing labor and lessons learned from the pandemic.

Sponsored by Epicor

Dirk Beveridge, founder of UnleashWD and executive producer of We Supply America, and Tom Gale talk about research into the changing nature of leadership post-Covid. We also touch on  Dirk’s mission of telling the stories of wholesale distribution teams across America – the spirit, the heart, the humanity of what has built the strongest and most resilient economy in the world.

Tom Fournier, president of Shade’s Mills Group, a sales strategy consultancy based in Cambridge, Ontario, shares insights from a career managing sales channels in Canada and the U.S. with an international jan-san products manufacturer. Topics discussed include unique sales coverage characteristics of Canadian markets, and recent shifts as the sector has commoditized and targeted by Amazon Business and other non-traditional competitors.

Chester Collier, Walter Senior Vice President, shares four decades of international sales management and business development experience across industrial distribution channels. Collier is deeply passionate about the value of distribution and leadership. We discuss the current state of channel dynamics and ways in which sales management has and has not changed in the face of rapid change the past few years.

IRCG’s Mike Marks talks with Tom Gale about core elements of sales transformation, distilling six years of research from distributors innovating their sales process to a more profitable model. We preview our virtual Sales Transformation Bootcamp series this spring and outline the three keys to successful sales transformation: Benchmark current state, rethink the process, execute the change.

Global Industrial is investing in key strategic initiatives, in sales, marketing, private brand, digital transformation and distribution, that they believe will drive sales, including its new NASCAR partnership. Litwin discusses 2021 financial performance, the critical importance of B2B e-commerce to Global’s strategy, and where the industry is headed in 2022.

We catch up with John Gunderson to learn what he’s hearing on how 2022 is shaping up and ways executive teams are managing inventory, pricing, margin expansion, digital and more. With a 20-year career in distribution sales and marketing, John has one of the most extensive networks across distribution verticals, including electrical, datacom, general-line MRO and construction supplies.

Tony Pericle started in distribution sales 204th out of 207 sales reps. Three years later he ranked in the top 25. After increasing sales, marketing and margin management leadership roles, he formed ProfitOptics in 2008 and has been passionate about how distributors can use analytics and technology to make better decisions. We discuss prescriptive analytics, AI, workflow automation, profit optimization and more.

Randy Breaux shares details on how the deal came together, synergies and future growth opportunity in this deeper dive into the $1.3-billion transformative acquisition combining the No. 1 and No. 3 power transmission/motion controls distributors in North America. The combination of the two companies is estimated to generate $7.8 billion in pro forma 2022 revenue.

Larry Davis has strong opinions on change and opportunities to make the supply chain work more effectively as customers have moved quickly to digital procurement. We discuss hybrid sales roles, the power of digital content, value creation and the era of collaboration that is defining new models of competitive advantage going forward.

Peggy Carrieres has worked more than 20 years in the semiconductor industry, including the past six at global electronic components distributor Avnet. An expert in supply chain issues, customer management contracts, pricing negotiations and other industry elements, Carrieres talks about how distributors can ensure a financially healthy inventory mix while working with customers to enrich end-to-end design functions.

After a career leading digital transformation for large distributors and B2C firms, Williams launched networking platform Factrees to digitize and modernize distributor-rep-manufacturer relationships. Think ‘LinkedIn meets a dating app’ to streamline how industrial/construction products sellers find sourcing partners.

Shift7 Digital CEO Andrew Walker draws on his extensive B2B consulting experience with distributors and manufacturers — including Global Industrial — to share what makes for an effective technology strategy. Listen to hear why a product-first focus doesn’t work in distribution e-commerce, the benefits of content storytelling and other ways to differentiate your company’s online experience.

In this episode, Al Bates, principal of Distribution Performance Project and guru of financial performance benchmarking, shares three factors for how smaller distributors can gain competitive advantage against larger competitors as he sees high-touch customer opportunities developing. He also discusses why he wrote his latest book, Profit Guide for the Small Distributor, where he details a profit-first methodology and playbook.

In this podcast, Tracy Buelow, senior director of business development at Zoro, talks about the business elements that are essential to the success of e-commerce platforms and the pandemic’s lasting effect on distributors’ approach to e-commerce.

What separates businesses that are successful at recouping inflationary pressures versus those that aren’t? Drawing from more than a decade of experience in B2B pricing, sales and strategy consulting, Will Humsi, partner at consultancy Simon-Kucher, shares ways distributors can be strategic about their pricing strategy to combat inflation and other margin-reducing factors.

A lot has changed in distribution training best practices in the decade-plus since Jinny Kcehowski took over internal employee training at Curbell Plastics. And that was before the pandemic sent everything virtual. In this podcast, Kcehowski discusses how to use training as a retention technique, pitfalls to avoid and the future of employee development.