Coddle your distributors
To acheive peak sales, you need to help distributors promote your goods with all the product information and support you can muster.
And be careful that your factory store doesn't undermine this independent sales force. Offering close-out sales to your own customer base is fine, but you want to avoid direct competition against your distribution network. It devalues your brand and sabotages the overall sales effort.
Zealot Marketing 101
What's a winning distributorship strategy? Try this. Grow and nourish a team of gung-ho distributors who compete against each other—not you, the factory.
A Rare Exception
Let me tell you about one supplier who sells to his own customers well below my prices—yet I am happy to promote his product line anyway.
In this situation the supplier's retail price is too low to sell wholesale (essentially his retail price is wholesale). Since he can not offer me a dealer discount I must bump the price to earn a profit. So why will I promote his products if you can buy direct from him for less? Because he makes a unique, excellent quality product—and I am the exclusive U.S. distributor. |
So let your distribution network work for you. Support them and make them happy. Sales will flourish.
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