Analog selling in a digital world

Progressive distributors earn business the old fashioned way but use digital tools to drive productivity.

by Dave Griffith

Imagine sitting in your living room at night, checking your company’s e-mail system and discovering that a publicly held company sent you a request for proposal (RFP) on a major integrated supply deal.  You log on to your marketing database to check for recent activity with that customer, taking special note of orders involving your company’s preferred suppliers.

Then, you do a quick search of the Internet to find the latest 10-K form that reports financial results and other pertinent information about the company.

After responding to the customer’s e-mail with a note of thanks and a promise to call the next morning, you search your company’s electronic library of PowerPoint presentations about your company’s integrated supply capabilities.

Finding what you need, you open the presentation, insert the name of the company and its logo on the cover page and save it under a different name.

After consulting your electronic day timer to check your schedule for the next day, you dash off an e-mail to your executive staff inviting them to a strategic planning meeting to discuss your response to the RFP.  You attach the financial information you found on the company’s Web site, a copy of the original RFP and the updated PowerPoint presentation.  You send a separate e-mail to the senior executive of your biggest supplier, asking for his help in developing a proposal for the customer.

At the office the next day, you check your e-mail and discover that all of the e-mails you sent from home the night before have been received and opened.  Two of your three executive staff members confirm they can attend the meeting you scheduled that afternoon, the third can’t get out of a previously scheduled customer visit, but promises to read through the attachments and call from the road to participate in the meeting by phone.  You then telephone the customer to collect additional information and inform him that your staff is already hard at work on a response to the RFP.

Does the scenario described above sound anything like how your company conducts business?  If not, you owe it to yourself to begin investigating ways that digital technology — using readily available, affordable, off-the-shelf software — can streamline your sales, marketing and operations processes.

Technology toolbox
Technology has transformed the way most distributors do business.  It’s hard to imagine doing some applications without computers.  Virtually every industrial distributor uses computers for functions such as order entry, inventory management, accounting, word processing and e-mail.  Add to that the Internet, PowerPoint, pagers and even wireless products, and you begin to realize the power available to distributors.

The key to benefiting from technology is having a computer-literate work force.  In order to reap the rewards of technology, you must invest in ongoing training and support, and integrate technology into your processes.

That doesn’t mean that your goal should be to develop an all-encompassing e-commerce site for customers to order products without ever talking to a live person.

Don’t confuse e-business with e-commerce.  E-commerce is about having a Web site where customers can make transactions.  E-business is about using all of the digital tools available to you, including marketing databases, e-mail, print-on-demand brochures, Excel pricing worksheets and other tools that enable you to conduct business more efficiently.

Although some people look at technology as a way to lower costs by reducing the amount of human interaction required, there are ways to utilize technology to make your people even more accessible to customers.  For example, listing e-mail addresses on all of your business cards, equipping salespeople with cell phones, pagers and laptop computers makes it easy for customers and co-workers to communicate with one another and gives them access to the information they need when they need it.

Posting e-mail addresses of key staff members on your Web site so customers can reach a real person rather than an impersonal “info@yourcompany.com” mailbox address tells visitors they’ll get personal attention.

What ways can you think of to take advantage of technology tools?  How about using your Web site to promote not just the products you sell but the services your company offers?  Visitors to your site can read about training you provide, check the schedule of upcoming training seminars, request additional information or even sign up for a class online.

Why not take advantage of your staff’s product and applications knowledge by creating an “Ask the Expert” section of your Web site?  Post the name and photo of your resident experts and invite site visitors to submit their technical questions.  Over time, you’ll develop a library of frequently asked questions and answers, making your site a place where visitors will want to return often.  When they do, they’ll learn more about your newest products, services and special offers.

These are just a few ways to get you thinking about how to put today’s technology tools to work for you.

Technology won’t ever replace human interaction and never should.  This is still a people business that requires hands-on attention to individual customer needs.  But used properly, technology can help distributors achieve their goals of retaining and delighting customers, maintaining or growing margins and driving productivity improvements.

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2002 issue of Progressive Distributor. Copyright 2002.

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