We want our distributors to fulfill their commitment to provide technically expert, personal service to our joint customers. Our commitment to personal service goes all throughout the company, and we need that commitment conveyed through our distribution channel to the end user.

Our distributors need to have inside salespeople who speak with confidence about our products. They need to be aware of who the end user is and what their particular needs are. If the end user has a description of the product, we want inside salespeople who identify it and look for a true solution to their problem and not just a quick answer.

Our distributors need to have outside salespeople who possess the same level of confidence and awareness as their counterparts on the inside.

Most application problems happen because someone orders the wrong item or misapplies it. Knowledgeable inside and outside salespeople are worth their weight in gold because they can steer a customer away from unintentionally ordering a product that might not perform to their expectations or, in some cases, worsen an already bad situation.

To make sure salespeople have the training they need, we need them to make time to meet with us. Many times, hectic schedules mean that managers and sales reps alike fail to take advantage of the valuable training that we offer. What people fail to realize is that, in one hour, we can take a person to a new level of understanding and comfort that will offer long-term benefits and positively impact their bottom line.

Throughout the past 25 years, we have learned that we need to help our distributors increase their knowledge base by being flexible on scheduling appointments and using breakfast or lunch meetings to teach them what we feel they need to know.

When our distributors work with us as technically savvy partners, we can achieve amazing results for our customers. A distributor ordered a stock product from us for a large aggregate producer to replace another manufacturer's failed component. Based on his own knowledge of the facility, our national sales manager realized the stock product the distributor ordered would not work. He contacted the distributor and together with the customer, they came up with a solution for an application where, as it turned out, three products from a competitor had failed over the course of several months.

Working together with our distributor, we isolated the problem and provided a true, long-term solution to the end user. Our collaborative work resulted in savings of more than $120,000 in lost downtime to the end user.

Distributors need to provide personalized service to differentiate themselves from their competitors. It is important to understand their customer's needs and satisfy those individual needs to the highest level possible. This applies to each level of service offered, whether it is on the inside, the outside or somewhere in between. Otherwise, the distributor will end up just quoting on price...and that is a losing battle.