6 Comments

Love the comment on what partners without differences really are: competitors. For cooperation to overcome competition, there needs to be equitable compensation. Blurriness can lead to both sides imagining taking more of the total partnership margin. Say a value added distributor sells a product with hands on attention, and high margin. But, manufacturer realizes the distributor’s profit is 3–4X the manufacturers profit. Incentive to go around the current distributor? But the manufacturer has no means of maintaining a high attention sales effort. Get new distributors? Maybe kill the facilitated sales made possible by the first distributor. Blurriness on both ends.

Expand full comment

Distributors had their way of doing things, and they were very skilled. Manufacturers had a different way and were also very capable.

So what's the difference between "skilled" and Capable"? Have you started a bias in your so-called rant?

The pandemic exposed much of we already knew about the manufacturer/distributor relationship. Distributors have to create a new narritave to remain relevant in the new digital normal world. That's the challenge, in my opinion.

Expand full comment

Not intentionally. Mostly, I was trying to be a little less repetitive in my two questions. But your observation is well taken. Agree about “new narrative”. I might add that by telling their story, distributors may discover what to become. Meaning, how - exactly - do their change.

Expand full comment

It seems to me that your job and the job of all marketing consultants is to help them rewrite that narrative. If they try to do it themselves, they will fail. For a lot of them, that's already proven.

Expand full comment

We should talk sometime and dig into this. I would like your feedback on my direction. If open to a call, would you like to talk before or after the holidays?

Expand full comment

Maybe next week. Going to Des Moines tomorrow morning to try and close a new client if that happens there may not be any holidays for me.

Expand full comment