Author

David Gordon

Gordon is president of Channel Marketing Group. Channel Marketing Group works with manufacturers, distributors, manufacturer reps and technology companies in the electrical industry to help companies accelerate their performance through strategy development, marketing creativity and market research. CMG generates ideas that generate results.


Distributors  / Growth Strategies  / Industry News  / Lighting  / Lighting2  / Marketing  / People in the News  / Sales Channel
Sonepar and Crescent … Identifying Ways to Grow
David Gordon Posted On September 21, 2010


We apologize for not having written in the past week and a half, however, client travel sometimes creates timing issues (and you probably don’t want me writing real late at night!) But was listening to CNBC this afternoon.  They had […]


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Advocacy  / Associations
The British are Coming…Again
David Gordon Posted On September 8, 2010


And just like before the Revolution, tension has been brewing behind the scenes. The issue is electrical product standards, certifications, and factory control and product safety. As manufacturers know, NEMA, in conjunction with volunteer committees consisting of manufacturers as well […]


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Profitability  / Supplier / Products
Protecting Your Data … Are You Meeting The Mandate?
David Gordon Posted On August 31, 2010


Today’s guest columnist is Stacey Pandeloglou from Distribution Technology Group. We’ve known Stacey for many years. He works with many electrical distributors in helping them choose “best of breed” technology providers to address their challenges while helping improve productivity. Recently […]


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Channel Strategies  / Growth Strategies  / Industry Consolidation
Distributor / Manufacturer Relationships … Part of Your Profitability Formula?
David Gordon Posted On August 30, 2010


From time to time, we get a chance to communicate with some of the industry executives of the near past. Recently we had the pleasure of speaking with Herb Slater, formerly the President of Slater Electric and Duplex Electric Supply. For those of […]


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Customer Segments  / Growth Strategies  / Industry News  / Lighting  / Lighting2  / Profitability
Graybar’s First Half Looks Anemic
David Gordon Posted On August 25, 2010


While we know the construction market is down, here’s more confirmation that distributors that are heavily skewed to construction markets are having a hard time. The last two days have reinforced the residential market troubles. New Housing starts down 12.4% […]


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Growth Strategies  / Industry News  / Lighting  / Lighting2  / Sales Channel
First Half Sales Survey Says …
David Gordon Posted On August 24, 2010


Confused and widely divergent by market segment, geographically and by distributor size. Not the answer you were expecting, but sorry, averages can be deceiving.  First the averages as reported by electrical distributors and electrical manufacturers on our first half sales […]


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Associations  / Growth Strategies  / Marketing  / Marketing Groups  / Profitability  / Sales Channel
The Marketing Group’s of Today … Agents of Growth or Protector of Profit and Brands?
David Gordon Posted On August 19, 2010


Today let’s talk about a topic that is near and dear to many distributors’ and manufacturers’ hearts … marketing groups. Why near and dear? Because, for many distributors, they represent their profit lifeline. For manufacturers they can be the “Good […]


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Growth Strategies  / Productivity  / Profitability
Tapping into Demand from POS
David Gordon Posted On August 16, 2010


Over the years some distributors have failed to have a serious conversation with the manufacturers they represent about how POS data is used. Then there are some that asked: “If I share POS data, what are you going to do […]


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Channel Strategies  / Customer Segments  / Growth Strategies  / Industrial Market  / Marketing  / Pricing  / Profitability
Alterrnative Channels – A Virtual Distributor – AutomationDirect.com
David Gordon Posted On August 12, 2010


Over the past couple of months we’ve been speaking with a number of electrical distributors and manufacturers about the changing market. Some of these discussions have been in concert with other client projects seeking to better understand their market positioning. During […]


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Distributors  / Marketing  / Pricing  / Profitability  / Supplier / Products
Home Depot, Cooper, Private Labeling and Pricing … All in the Same Aisle
David Gordon Posted On August 11, 2010


A couple of weeks ago we wrote about how Home Depot was advertising that it was pursuing AC disconnect business by competing on price.  Their ad openly mentioned low pricing on Eaton and GE. Following this, we heard from a […]


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