In the beginning, distributors established geographic sales territories. They sent salespeople out into their assigned regions with instructions to go forth and prosper. “Bring in sales and we’ll reward you with margin dollars.”

That was then and this is now. Today, many distributors have discovered the traditional approach isn’t working any more. The one-size-fits-all geographic territory model that pays salespeople on margin dollars is becoming obsolete. Progressive distributors are looking at new ways to structure their sales forces for greater success and profitability.

A just-released book co-authored by Scott Benfield and me offers new ideas about how distributors can rethink their traditional sales approach. Restructuring the Distribution Sales Effort for Maximum Productivity helps readers sort through key issues they need to think about if they’re dissatisfied with the status quo.

For example, do you reward salespeople by paying commissions based on total margin dollars, only to discover that salespeople give services away in order to get the sale?

Do your salespeople have customers that haven’t grown substantially in the past three to five years, yet you continue to pay sales commission on the accounts?

Do you pay outside salespeople for accounts where an inside seller or customer service rep is your company’s key point of contact with that customer?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, I urge you to take a look at Restructuring the Distribution Sales Effort for Maximum Productivity. It offers advice on traditional ways to reduce sales overcapacity such as account balancing and boundary realignment. It then proceeds to introduce new models of outside sales such as Enterprise Selling, Consultative Selling, Segmented Selling and Transactional Distribution.

This editorial appeared in the January/February 2006 issue of Progressive Distributor magazine. Copyright 2006.