I don't know about you, but I am tired of being invited by industrial customers' upper management teams to meetings choreographed by consultants. These meetings begin by talking about partnerships and end with the presentation of an Excel spread sheet, with a column open to insert a guaranteed fixed price on an endless list of material, and three pages of unacceptable terms. Consultants have convinced customers that industrial distribution's value proposition is all about price, guaranteed cost savings, rebates, and that all products are commodities and that distributors are, to borrow a phrase from my old Marine DI, "equally worthless!"

How did this come to be? The easy thing to do is to blame outsourcing, but the fact is that we only have ourselves to blame. Why? Because for years, we have given away all of the expensive cost components of customer service for free. The direct beneficiaries of our generosity are not even invited into the big partnership meeting with the consultant.

Day in and day out, we solve emergency situations by reacting to the crisis of the moment—the industrial version of 911—coming to the rescue of buyers, maintenance and engineering influences. Trucks and people are disrupted and redirected, planes are in the air...and all for free.

As thanks, we queue up in the waiting rooms of industrial plants enduring security checks, donning hard hats, wearing cheap safety glasses, and getting ID badges that give full access to dangerous parts of the plant. We are required to watch safety videos emphasizing the commitment of doing whatever to ensure worker safety, and nod to a large marquee that proclaims the number of days without incident. Then, we are ushered into the purchasing department where we get to talk about the price of things.

Is it about price or safety? I get confused.

I have concluded that there is no audit trail on a free service. The value is invisible.

Our industry—distributors and manufacturers—have to get better at selling. Within your customer organization, more levels need to know what the real value proposition is. We can't rely on anecdotal evidence. CFOs, IT, safety and plant managers need more education on the function of distribution and its value in the supply chain.

It's not the stuff but the function, and how well you manage it for the benefit of the customer—which is the supply chain's real story.

Our industry can help customers, but we need to be seen as a vital link in the supply chain that brings tremendous value. We need to sell/educate them about our function and take the focus off price. Otherwise, they will continue to assume there isn't a dime's worth of difference; like watching a 3-D movie without the glasses.

The next time you provide a free service, ask yourself the old question: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a noise?