Love Your Dealer!
While the face of trade has changed remarkably over the last couple of decades, the place of the dealer has actually got strengthened. Misunderstanding the internet, many companies tried to focus more on direct marketing and less on establishing any channels for distribution, and have found themselves on the back foot.
Within the world of distribution channels, establishing and building an effective dealer net is certainly one of the most challenging but essential tasks. Anything can be sold through dealers, and without good dealers very few things can be sold!
Your dealer is very often the primary interface that your product or service has with the customer. The relationship that your dealer develops with your end user is of critical importance to the acceptance and use of your product/service.
A fact that is often ignored is that it is actually the dealer who is your primary customer. The dealer believes in your product/service and places orders for what you are selling. It is the dealer that pays you for it. Only afterwards does it reach the hands of the end user. Your CRM must therefore begin with your dealers and in turn, the dealer's CRM is critical for your success!
Unfortunately we see a great deal of dysfunctional relationships between manufacturers and their dealers. The antagonism is often mutual:
Dealer's Perspective:
- Insufficient margin
- Poor logistics
- Poor incentives
- Poor service
- Few or no PoS/PoP aids
- Poor advertising support
- Insufficient branding effort
- Not responsive to customer needs/complaints
- Company sales team visits are too infrequent and too brief, or not reachable
- No interested in sharing expenses for special promotions/events
- Poor packaging.
Manufacturer's Perspective:
- Insufficient selling effort
- Insufficient stock on hand
- Always demanding more margins
- Always demanding unreasonable ad spend
- Always cribbing about delays in supply but always orders at the last minute
- Not attending to customer needs/complaints
- Always dissatisfied with provided PoP/PoS aids
- Not cooperating with the sales team.
- Always asking for funds for special promotions/events
And the lists will go on. But just look at the amount of point-wise convergence!
It is primarily the manufacturer who has to take the initiative to get relationships back onto a sound footing. If you don't do it and instead sit brooding over lists of complaints (as above) the result will be that your product or service will be put on the back burner. Most dealers have more than one thing to sell. They will sell what is profitable and what best cements their customers to them.
Most of it is fear - but fear has no place at all in this scenario. Be a hard headed business person - You know what you can and cannot do. Make no false promises. Be responsive and STAY in communication. In fact, make communication your first priority. Mutual understanding and agreement should be the entire basis for your dealer relationships. Share the actual FACTS. Put yourself in the dealer's shoes and try to sort out needs from wants. Be responsive, understanding, prompt and always keep your promises.
If you are messing up somewhere, you can count on your dealers (who perhaps know as much or more about your type of product/service than you do) to help pinpoint where there is waste and how the logistics etc. can be improved - or whatever happen to be the particular points of contention.
If your marketing people don't get this message - fire them!
Remember, when there is no love lost, you lose!
I would love to connect with my readers so if we have not linked up yet, please feel free to connect with me ! If asked, my mailid is samlcarr at gmail dot com
and on Twitter @samlcarr