Moving Ahead in the Age of COVID-19 – 4th Survey

For many the industry came to a screeching halt in mid-March. Companies stopped travel, states went into lock-down, most construction across the country stopped. Those in the industry in the North East, parts of the West Coast, Pennsylvania and Michigan seemed to take the brunt. Other distributors had a decline, and some stayed flat or had a slight increase, highlighting the disparity. And everyone sold out of PPE supplies. The outlook was bleak and thoughts of moving ahead were distant.

Our Channel Marketing Group / DISC CORP COVID-19 surveys have highlighted the changing market with the latest one signalizing stabilization of the market and some improvement at the end of April.

Now, with construction open in all states, states in various phases of reopening and economies restarting, there appears to be improvement in many areas … even while there are continued COVID-19 outbreaks when social distancing is ignored.

Many still have questions such as:

• When can manufacturers visit distributors?
• When can customer visits begin to take place?
• What is the role of outside salespeople?
• How is business today and projected for next month?
• Where will the business opportunities be for the remainder of the year?

And more

The goal of our surveys is to crowd source input to share back with you, and the industry. Each of the prior surveys had over 500 responses from industry! Collectively information is shared, and the input helps all by either affirming actions or suggesting ideas.

Our fourth COVID-19 survey is titled “Moving Ahead” as that is what the business is doing. Resilience, perseverance and ingenuity are entrepreneurial drivers that help companies move from surviveability to thriveability.  Companies are moving into the next stage of their revival.

COVID-19, while tragic for some and definitely disruptive to almost all, has been an interruption that also creates the opportunity to re-evaluate the business and identify opportunities. For some it will accelerate digital transformation within their companies. For others it may drive diversification or resource allocation. For many it forces a reassessment of financial metrics. Ways of doing business are being reexamined. In all cases it forces it should force the question of “what is our plan for moving ahead?”

Our Moving Ahead survey can help affirm your actions or provide guidance on some of the key questions being asked now and hopefully helps you on your continued path to sales and profit recovery.

We need your feedback by Thursday, June 11.  All input is confidential. Respondents have the opportunity to receive a free copy of the results and members of supporting associations and marketing groups will also receive a free copy of the results.

And if you’re looking for other ideas, check out our postings on:

• Future of Counters
• Targeting Markets of Opportunity
• eCommerce
• Resiliency, especially if you’ve decided “enough is enough” and are considering selling