In the world of sales and distribution, support from vendors ranges from not-at-all to needing a dedicated phone line to the vendor's technical support team. The support needed is directly correlated to the complexity of the customer's need. After all, industrial distributors sell thousands of different items, and they can't be expected to know everything about every product.

Selling Gatorade is not quite the same as recommending a product to mill HRC 50 material using a 20,0000 RPM spindle. The important thing is to know which products require your staff to have technical knowledge in order to sell them.

In the area of industrial distribution, knowing where to get information is the next best thing to having a specialist for everything you sell – which, of course, is not practical or feasible. Distributors who sell more technical products must have a well-trained staff and/or a vendor that can be relied upon for immediate help. Being able to provide helpful information is the added value that successful distributors possess.

In this day and age, it is more important than ever to evaluate your vendor and determine if you have entered into a relationship that is right for you and your customers. You may want to consider the following:

Does your vendor have a trained technical person to support you locally? A local support person may not be helpful when selling pens and pencils. However, if you are selling more technical products it is imperative to your success to have a local person who can be your expert on site within days – if not hours.

Does your vendor offer training classes for your staff? Only a few colleges teach the technical requirements of how to mill, drill and tap titanium. To get the training your staff needs, you should use your manufacturer as your training vehicle. World Class manufacturers are happy to provide specific training on applications. Your vendor should be flexible enough to give a one-hour training class for your new hires to comprehensive weeklong classes for experienced personnel.

Does your vendor have a technical department that you or your customers can call? Even your best employees can't be expected to know everything about every product. However, they do need to know where to find information when it is needed.

Do you have immediate access to your vendor's support team? Your local representative should have a cell phone or pager so that you can get in touch with her when you need the help. Additionally, the vendor's technical support team should be available during the hours that you are operating.

Does your local representative only call on you or does she also develop business for you through end-user calls? Local reps who make end-user calls create business for you. Having a trained person working to create sales for a distributor is often an untapped or underutilized resource.

Does your vendor offer a broad range of products? This is an area often overlooked by many distributors. A vendor that provides related products can save a distributor substantial labor in accounting, shipping, receiving and selling.

Will your vendor work with you to provide more items, new products, special sizes, etc. to help meet your local market requirements? This area is often overlooked. A good partnership between vendor and distributor can create additional business for both parties. Communicate and Dominate.