A Conversation with Chains & Groups at NEMRA

If you talk to manufacturers and NEMRA reps this month you’d wonder if there was going to be any sales in the industry this month!

So many people are involved in web planning meetings. There are more “national sales meetings” than ever before because … technology enables it. Companies that could not afford to bring people together, nor could get the time / attention of their reps, are scheduling one-on-one planning calls and group meetings. The beauty (or curse) of Zoom!

Inevitable on these calls the question about plans, or programs, with key distributors arise. The discussion becomes “how can we do more with X?” (national chain or a distributor in a marketing group.)

To paraphrase someone on a call yesterday, the key is closing the “last mile” within the industry … the branch and the rep … the inside salesperson and the rep salesperson / inside person. This is where business is transacted. Those in management can make plans, but execution happens in the field. And relationships still matter as they impact customer service as well as sales empathy (and yes, solution selling … which comes down to whom do you trust has the right answer / information for your challenge.)

While some manufacturers bring in a “keynote” speaker from a national chain, NEMRA is bringing in 8 distribution keynote speakers to its Annual Conference and allowing reps and manufacturers to ask questions.

Each of the national chains (CED, City Electric, Graybar, Rexel, Sonepar, WESCO) and both marketing groups (AD and IMARK) will be presenting an overview of their organization and what is the key to doing business with them.

Each organization will also take questions and, any questions that are not answered during the conference will be answered by the respective organization afterwards and shared with attendees.

This is the first time that all of these distributors have “shared a stage” and are taking “your” questions.

Tammy Livers, SVP Marketing from Sonepar, is a keynote speaker on Thursday at 10:00 and will be speaking on “Powering Difference in Distribution“

Perhaps it helps close the last mile, perhaps it provides that one nugget to help crack open the door. Congrats to NEMRA for expanding its conference to be inclusive to help manufacturers and distributors.

While the NEMRA conference is traditionally for agency principals and their “key” personnel to meet with manufacturer sales management, the virtual format and sessions provide an opportunity for more internal staff on both sides to engage and learn. The distributor involvement adds a unique opportunity for manufacturers to have more of their internal support staff (customer service, marketing) to hear “direct from the XXXX mouth” of what differentiates them and what is important to them.

NEMRA is next week. almost 1200 people are registered. Click here to register today for only $200.

Shameless Plug

Channel Marketing Group will be exhibiting virtually at the NEMRA conference. Visit our booth and talk to Gene and David about how we can help you achieve your 2021 goals (or reach out to us to schedule a time to talk.)