Too often, a manufacturer visits a distributor with a single objective in mind: increased market share. Joint planning provides a forum for our distributors to communicate information about their market, trends in their region and our product development process.

If a manufacturer puts his plan on the distributor's desk, the tendency is to ignore it. If the distributor is involved, he is more likely to be invested in the process and, ultimately, the end result. By ensuring that the process is truly a joint one, we gain our distributors' support of the objectives and time frame. Participating in the planning process tells us that a distributor is just as anxious as we are to be successful with the products we are promoting in that market.

We know we can not develop a detailed plan with every distributor branch; the sheer volume of distributors in the power transmission channel makes this difficult. While annual sales dollars are certainly a factor in choosing partners, a commitment to grow each other's business in a selected geographic or market area is more important.

Whether we are dealing with a national, regional or independent distributor, the planning process follows the same format. The goal is to engage all levels of management in the planning process. With national distributors, plans are initiated at the corporate level and communicated to regional vice presidents and/or branch managers. For regional and independent distributors, this process is condensed, since we are typically dealing with an owner or president who has multiple roles.

Regardless of the distributor's size, we need to identify where we can optimize the strengths of both organizations and develop strategies to improve on the identified weaknesses, while establishing target markets and accounts for our products. By doing this, our distributors gain a comprehensive understanding of where we want to go, how we plan to get it done, and how they fit into our overall strategy.

To this end, you must establish some key components to not only ensure the objectives are met but that metrics are in place to evaluate how well plans are working. Key ingredients for a successful plan include timelines for tactical completion, review dates, specific tactics for both product and market, written actions to achieve tactics and accountability. Some performance metrics might be increased sales in a region/branch or number of competitive conversions. These metrics vary for each plan but form the basis for evaluating corrective actions, if needed, and program success.

A critical component of an effective plan is a quarterly review process to evaluate whether our objectives are being met. We look at the results, the market, the competition, changes in the market or region and make any necessary corrections.

A mutual business plan allows us to dig deep into the needs of our customers while keeping us focused on what is truly required to succeed. When it works well, the results can exceed expectations. By focusing on target accounts with specific products, we have seen distributors grow a region or an account by double digits.