The process of using the Internet to increase sales is not complicated and shouldn't intimidate salespeople, according to experts whose job it is to help distributors increase sales using Web solutions. They argue that for the last several years, some software companies complicated the process needlessly, confusing potential clients with a plethora of jargon-based promises about "complete e-commerce systems."

They add that prices for the hardware, software and training necessary to successfully operate many systems are prohibitive, especially for many small and midsize distributors. However, using interactive databases and simple online connections, less expensive offerings are more than adequate to do the job.

Setting up an Internet sales connection affords distributors many unique benefits. Whether they want to become involved in their own e-commerce Web site or simply display some information, the Web's ability to carry an endless list of products, features and photos makes it unique. In many cases, this eliminates the need for a salesperson to travel to the customer with a catalog and current pricing. No medium, including television, can be updated, edited and broadcast more quickly.

With its inherent ability to display photos, visitors to a Web site can scroll back and forth through electronic pages to view any descriptions and explanations that distributors deem important. Deciding what and how to display is one key; who to call for advice is another. The Internet has bred its own ever-widening group of marketing experts.

A wide array of marketing tools make the Internet a powerful ally for getting a message to a huge number of people or a specific group of prospects. The choices seem daunting: product specials directed at specific regions or customers, services offered on a unique Web site, targeted marketing via e-mail, instant brochures that customers can download and print, Internet-only specials and other discounts are just some of the options.

However, by progressing from the basic elements to the complex systems of Internet marketing, the process becomes clear.

Internet sales solutions are usually formed using databases, or groups of items logically arranged so that some or all of the items provide information. Salespeople can't target market without exact, timely information about potential customers and their whereabouts. So, the driving force behind the ability to diversify marketing in narrowly defined categories is the interactive database.

Rusty Duncan, an expert in database marketing and owner of Industrial Market Information, Inc. , develops specific reports from databases using cross-references of industries and product codes. Database programs have evolved to the point where distributors can learn the potential sales of a single item in any geographic sector, internationally or in a single zip code, Duncan says. His formula meshes standard industrial classification, called the SIC product code, with Dun & Bradstreet's company location database. The result is the purchase and potential purchase figures for goods. Distributors request matches with the goods they sell.

Using this information, sales organizations can choose the most efficient method of marketing to the most likely candidates. With the advent of Internet marketing, with its lightning speed and instantaneous global reach, marketing time has been reduced from months to hours.

IMI's data collection lists can show what products are being sold, how much of that business distributors get, and how much their competition is getting. Importantly, the information might indicate that sales organizations are putting major efforts into accounts that simply do not have the potential distributors think they have, Duncan says.

IMI's services are available on the Web, as are those of EpinPointer^® by Techni Graphic Systems of Wooster, Ohio. Pinpoint mapping allows users to choose by city, SIC code, company size or alphabetically. Users can print manufacturer information and mailing labels. The information is also available on a CD, which includes a powerful search function allowing multiple cross-references for specific manufacturer criteria.

When the huge databases of manufactured products and sales territories are combined with the linking power of the Internet that connects sites, the result is an instant communication tool that has never been available before. Parts of the process of selling through the Internet are similar to other sales techniques, but much of it is unique.

The first concept that sales managers need to understand is that the Internet offers instant, worldwide attention, 365 days a year, says John Nolan of Nolan Supply Co. As president of the Syracuse, N.Y.-based master distributor, Nolan has worked more than three years on his company's interactive, searchable Web site that is designed to offer small and midsize distributors a fast, inexpensive entry into the Web sales game.

"It's difficult to convey how many ways we offer the opportunity for sales that distributors otherwise would never have known about," Nolan says.

Nolan Supply, under the direction of John and his brother, Webmaster Ed Nolan, slowly built a circumnavigating Web site called National Supply Source, housed on www.nolansupply.com. Distributors needing an inexpensive avenue for selling and, as importantly, a means for marketing their name and capabilities around the country, can join National Supply Source. That Web site is a set of product databases and e-commerce pages that can, with one link, allow any distributor to sell goods and services and market themselves on major search engines.

"The process is simple, fast and best of all, brings in sales opportunities from down the street and across the globe," Nolan says.

One of the terms tossed about by Internet marketers is "seamless integration." In this case, the term refers to the ability of Web sites to appear to belong to a company when in fact they are operated by others, Nolan says. Distributors that own their Web name can have a home page designed to send potential customers into the product databases and shopping cart sales site his company hosts on the Internet. Charges for joining the site are fee-based with a monthly service charge.

When a customer wants to buy, he is routed to distributors in his area who have joined the program. However, the product may be sent from any location the shipper chooses, if not from his own inventory, Nolan says.

Eighteen months ago, when Nolan was setting up the national Web site, he said that the site was simple but would eventually cover a lot of ground. Today, that coverage has multiplied substantially. Potential customers can enter by searching for products on a main search engine, like Google^® or Yahoo!^® or by entering the Nolan Supply Web site or distributor's own home page.

Nolan makes agreements to exchange links with distributors and manufacturers of all kinds. Many sales are made through those links, as well, and the process of linking is a continuing one.

For a century, product catalogs have been at once the bane and boon of distributors' existence. They are expensive, often unwieldy and in many cases contain products that are obsolete by the time catalogs are printed. Yet, for many distributor salesmen and end users, a lengthy catalog is the only way they do business.

Computer Pundits is a company that creates, hosts and manages database, e-commerce catalogs. As with any other electronic, Web-based product, it can be manipulated to provide exactly the solution that is most valuable to end users.

The Bloomington, Minn.-based company offers a software system that allows distributors to create catalogs based on their existing inventory or product sales database. Unlike the Nolan Supply example, where distributors join the site that features manufacturers' catalog databases, Computer Pundit's Catalog Builder^™ is filled from the distributor's existing files.

Item deletions, price changes, description revisions and SKU changes happen constantly in the distribution industry. When a change is made in the product database, it is immediately reflected in the catalog, according to president and CEO Prashubh Batham.

Catalog Builder is based in Microsoft Access^® or SQL Server^® . While an employee puts the e-commerce catalog online, he can also print and create CD-ROMs of the catalog, Batham says. Computer Pundits can also host and manage catalog functions.

In addition to driving more inquiries by using customizable catalogs and joining a marketing partnership Web site, distributors may need to organize their time and energy to better direct it toward sales endeavors.

The effective use of time and talent toward finding better quality prospects is a valuable marketing tool in itself. Web-based sales planning and time management tools allow managers and salespeople to interact from any venue. One company, salesforce.com, offers an entirely Web-based set of sales, marketing and customer management tools that are scalable, that is, readily enlargeable to a size to fit any organization, and any amount of data. Part of its product logo, "No software," is a sign that the applications are relatively inexpensive and uncomplicated to use. Based on flat fees, the company offers three tiers of service applications: Enterprise, Professional and Team Editions.

Salesforce.com products include customizable, mass e-mail templates that include a tracking function. When a customer responds to marketing e-mails, distributors can automatically track the program's success against pre-set parameters.

Cary Fulbright is the senior vice president of marketing and products at salesforce.com. According to Fulbright, the set of benefits inherent in his Web-based service are ideal for small and midsize distributors. One product, targeted e-mail, is particularly useful to up-sell and cross-sell end users, who are more likely to respond to mail about related products and services than to cold calls.

As Fulbright points out, selling more via the Internet involves spending time on the right prospects and closing those sales. The value of the sale may not be in just the volume of the sale but in the relationship that is begun, or enhanced, in the process. And, distributors can't spend a lot of time configuring systems or making them so complex that their sales departments can't or won't adopt them.

"Our enterprise edition, the largest, includes features of the more complex variety, but we take care of the IT issues here. That is the key," Fulbright says.

That is the theory behind Web sites like salesforce.com and nolansupply.com: that the large number of inquiries and the ability to instantly report success and failure will not only enable more gross dollar sales but widen the scope of relationships that distributors will realize. Customers are first, but trading partners like other distributors, master distributors and suppliers are all made more aware of each other's abilities and commitments.

"These systems not only include the items that employees see manually, but can automate so many functions that used to be pen-and-paper, taking vast amounts of time to complete," Fulbright said.

Another of those functions is the ability to replace phone calls with Web forms requests. It speeds answers to customers and frees customer service people for other duties.

"Every answer that can be taken from the Web site saves a call to a service center," he said.

"The Internet, from a product lead perspective, can solve problems and offer solutions from lead to opportunity to closed business, faster than ever before," Fulbright said. "It's a very powerful tool for closing leads. As a marketing person all my life, that's the most important point for me."

Targeting e-mail campaigns, proving ROI with e-tracked, written reporting, and instantly finding products around the globe are distributor tools that were unheard of a decade ago. Web functions that help reduce errors in orders and shipments, and reduce handling time of orders and requests, are innovations that build positive relationships with customers. Today, these standard items in the repertoire of Web sites serve to allow sales teams to do what they do best: sell.