Featured in Supply House Times: The Distributor Sales Role Is Changing
Mark McGready, IDEA’s Director of Data Analytics, was featured in Supply House Times this month with a take on where the distributor sales role is heading. If you manage a sales team or are thinking about how distribution is evolving, this one is for you.
Where the opportunity is hiding
Most distributor revenue is habitual. Customers reorder the same products from the same suppliers because it’s familiar and low risk. Research from Indian River Consulting Group and HARDI backs this up.
This means most sales people spend most of their time maintaining business that may already happen.
Growing beyond maintaining
The growth lives in the gaps:
- Wallet share that isn’t captured yet
- Product categories the customer buys elsewhere
- Buying patterns that haven’t been shaped
Most salespeople know those gaps exist. The challenge is finding them consistently across an entire book of business. That’s what the article is about.