Forecasters are pointing to market slowdowns in early 2020. And while things are expected to pick up again in the back half of the new year, this is no time to abandon your playbook.

If you’re a distributor, you’re going to disagree with your suppliers from time to time. If you’re starting to deploy your sales force more strategically (See: 3 Reasons the Field Sales Role Must Change), these disagreements are even more likely to come up. If you’re reducing your cost to serve by moving some customers to an inside sales model, for example, suppliers with mandates on outside sales representation may take issue.

Regardless of the reason for disagreement, the No. 1 tool at your disposal is to change the dynamic of the distributor-manufacturer meeting.

During the Sales GPS executive workshop earlier this year, I covered why and how field sales must evolve to meet the changing needs of today’s buyers. During my presentation, I talked about research IRCG conducted for HARDI, and I’ll also be talking about it during my upcoming webcast on The Changing Role of Field Sales September 22. I’ve shared this research many times, and I’ll keep sharing it until people take the key takeaway to heart: that a salesperson’s ability to disrupt the current supplier of a product through their own determination is extremely low.

In which part of the business cycle should distributors invest in analytics? IRCG Managing Partner Mike Marks and PROS Director of Industry Marketing Sean Duclaux addressed this question and more in the recent National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors webinar “Realizing Revenue and Profit Growth for Wholesale Distributors.”

IRCG Managing Partner Mike Marks joined PROS Director of Industry Marketing Sean Duclaux in a recent National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors webinar, “Realizing Revenue and Profit Growth for Wholesale Distributors.”

Despite the C-suite's focus on growth this year, the market is painting a different picture for the rest of 2016. But it is still possible to drive top- and bottom-line growth with a perfect blend of simplicity and data science. Mike Marks is the featured speaker in this webinar.

How will you chart your path for growth to grow shareholder value? There’s not a magic answer, or everyone would be doing it. I recently presented a webinar with the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), sponsored by Epicor.

Indian River Consulting Group's Mike Marks was featured in a National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors webcast last week: Six New Pathways to Create Shareholder Value. The on-demand link is now available.

Indian River Consulting Group’s Mike Marks will be featured in an upcoming webinar from the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW): Six New Pathways to Create Shareholder Value.

In a recent webinar with Modern Distribution Management Publisher Tom Gale, IRCG’s Mike Marks joined Julia Klein, CEO of specialty building materials distributor CH Briggs to talk about analytics in wholesale distribution.