Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/624379
10 FEDA News & Views N&V: Let's start with the title of the latest edition of Facing the Forces of Change®, Reimagining Distribution in a Connected World. St. Germain: Well, what does reimagining mean. Think of your value state- ment. What is your 30-sec- ond elevator pitch? How do you tell a perspective customer what it is that you do that dif- ferentiates you from everyone else, and how easy is it for a salesperson to articulate that? In his book Innovate! How Successful Distributors Lead Change in Disruptive Times, Dirk Beveridge frames it this way: If you took your value statement and removed your name off the proposal, would anyone know it was from you? So are you just a me-too company or are you doing anything that's different? So how do you reimagine the value state- ment? And if you're creating value, how often do you remind the customer of the value you're creating? N&V: According to your research, one of the most influential forces cur- rently affecting the way distributors do business is e-sales or, more specifi- cally, Amazon. What would you say to traditional competitors that are losing ground and pointing to inconsistencies in price and costs as an unfair advan- tage? St. Germain: Maybe a potential cus- tomer can go to Amazon Business and find the same product that you sell in your showroom, but is there anything that distinguishes your offering from Amazon's? Is it delivered? Is it installed? If you're including everything in the REIMAGINING YOUR VALUE Facing the Forces of Change Contributor Paul St. Germain Discusses the Latest Research, What's on the Minds of Distributors and How Progressive Ones are Taking on the Challenges By Stacy Ward, Managing Editor fedastacy@verizon.net base price and not educating the cus- tomer, or letting them know that your price includes installation and other value-adds, then they're going to look at what you're offering and just see a high- er price. So how do you communicate that value and remind your customers of it every time you do business with them? N&V: In your executive summary, you provide a great example of a company that has become very adept at quantify- ing its value. St. Germain: Yes, Berlin Packaging. They meet with their customers for an annual business review to quantify the value they provide and then use the findings in ad campaigns. According to CEO Andrew Berlin, they've saved their customers $200 million over the last three years with benefits like a 99-per- cent on-time delivery rate and provid- ing packaging and service solutions that decrease costs. N&V: Let's talk about price. Moving the conversation toward value is difficult when a potential customer is fixated on price. St. Germain: Defining all that is includ- ed in the price is essential. Examples are services and delivery. Otherwise, it's just a number that can result in incorrect assumptions. As the price of fuel began to skyrocket, distributors had to find ways to increase pricing to cover climbing delivery costs. Customers were assuming delivery was free because it was included in the price and delivered on the distributor's truck. One distributor said, "Fine. I'm sending it UPS and the delivery charge is passed directly to you. If it's $25 for UPS deliv- ery, I'm charging you $25. I'm not mak- ing any money on it. This is a pure pass through because you need to under- stand there is a cost for delivery."