The following is an edited text of a speech delivered by former STAFDA president Marshall Jones at the association's November convention in Baltimore.

Being part of a family business gives you the opportunity for a different kind of dinner table conversation. A regular discussion topic for my father and me has been the relationship between the manufacturer and distributor. While in college, I took a semester-long course titled Manufacturer-Distributor Relations. What I remember most from the course was my professor characterizing the relationship as "terrible."

It's been said that there is a point where every problem is large enough to see, but small enough to fix. The challenge of the manufacturer-distributor relationship has been big enough to see for a long time. I don't claim to solve it, but I do have some ideas.

My first suggestion is to ban the term "partnering." What partnering really means is for manufacturers to wait to be paid until the distributor has been paid. I don't see those terms on any of my vendor's invoices.

The bottom line is, I don't believe either the distributor or manufacturer really want to be partners with each other.

My father once said, "In this industry, it is difficult for manufacturers, sales agents, and distributors to co-exist in harmony. Our jobs are different. Our functions are different. Our needs are different.... What then can we do to get together? We can start by being open with one another so that all of us know where we stand."

I think the type of relationship he describes is not that of a partnership, but one that could best be characterized as a supplier and a customer.

Manufacturers should create a list of "strategic customers"—the folks who do the heavy lifting, support a wide breadth and stock it deep. When there is a product launch, they carry the flag. These distributors may stock other lines, but don't support your direct competitors with the same fervor.

Treat the "strategic customer" radically differently than you do "an authorized distributor." How? With substantial price differentiation, but just as importantly, there should be extra rep support and built-in protection from the distributor's direct competitors who aren't a strategic customer.

Pioneers should be protected, and not just for the first 60 days after a launch. To make this really work, the supplier has to shift from making purely short-term, bottom-line financial decisions to asking, what is the best way to make my "strategic customers" want to do business with me?

Another shift in thinking needs to happen with the relationship between the manufacturer and their independent sales reps. Manufacturers who use independents must start treating their reps like they would an employee. This is the only way the rep can act as a true extension of the manufacturer and treat the distributor as a customer.

There is a lot that can be done to strengthen the relationships between all three links in our chain, but I believe the manufacturer treating the rep like an employee, and the distributor as a customer, is the first step.

Would you like to write a Straight Talk column? Contact Kimberly Griffiths at kgriffiths@reedbusiness.com.