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2013 NAED Annual Recap

David Gordon Posted On May 28, 2013

Earlier this month we met with distributors and manufacturers at the NAED Annual in Boston. Reportedly over 700 people registered for the conference (doubtful all attended). The layout of the hotel (multiple lobbies, Marriott Copley doesn’t have the easiest layout […]

Channel Strategies / Growth Strategies / Industry News / Marketing / Research Reports

Looking to Expand or Where the Opportunity Is?

David Gordon Posted On April 21, 2013

Recently Graybar has opened a few locations and has announced that more are on the way. Crescent opened its 8th in Montana (I know, surprised you too that Montana had 8 electrical distribution outlets!) and others are opening new locations […]

Distributors / Marketing

Poaching your Business

David Gordon Posted On March 6, 2013

As some markets gear back up with Multi-Family, Motels/Hotels, office buildings and including commercial jobs, some distributors are seeing Grainger appear on the same job sites that the distributor has a project order.Grainger Radio adsFor some two to three years, if you […]

Associations / Customer Segments / Distributors / eBusiness / Growth Strategies / Industrial Market / Industry Consolidation / Industry News / Lighting / Lighting2 / Marketing

NAED SouthCentral

David Gordon Posted On March 5, 2013

The NAED SouthCentral was held last week in Las Vegas at Caesar’s Palace. And while Caesar’s is a very nice hotel, especially if you like gambling, and it is perfect for large conventions (the AD North American Meeting was there […]

Channel Strategies / Growth Strategies / Marketing / Sales Channel

Developing Sales from the Middle of the Bell Curve

David Gordon Posted On February 13, 2013

Distributors are very good at focusing on core customers … typically the top 10-20% of their customer base. The remainder of their customer base they either chalk up to “they don’t do much more business” or “my competition has the […]

Distributors / eMarketing / Industry Consolidation / Lighting / Lighting2 / Marketing / Marketing Groups

Reading Roundup … Acquisitions, Apps, Energy and a History of Graybar

David Gordon Posted On December 18, 2012

Something to catch us up a little … a little Reader’s Roundup covering recent (and pending) acquisitions which may accelerate in generating announcements between now and the end of the year, Sonepar’s internship program, apps for electricians (which could be […]

Branding / Contractors / Customer Service / Distributors / eBusiness / Lighting / Lighting2 / Marketing / Profitability / Technology

Low Tech & High Tech Marketing

David Gordon Posted On December 6, 2012

Over the past week I ran across a few examples of low tech and high tech marketing initiatives that may be worth exploring. The ideas come from Platt Electric, Kirby Risk, Walters Wholesale and US Lamps (a small distributor in […]

Associations / Distributors / eBusiness / Growth Strategies / Industry Consolidation / Industry News / Marketing / People in the News

NAED Eastern Observations … The Election Aftermath

David Gordon Posted On November 27, 2012

The week before Thanksgiving NAED held its Eastern Region conference in Hollywood (Ft Lauderdale), Florida. Due to travel and the holiday it was not possible to share our observations and some of the conversations we had, so … According […]

Channel Strategies / Distributors / Industry Consolidation / Industry News / Marketing / Marketing Groups

AD Becomes THE Independent Electrical Distributor in Canada

David Gordon Posted On November 20, 2012

As many know, the scope, and business dynamics, of the Canadian electrical marketplace is different than here in the States. A couple of key benchmarks: The Canadian market is “ballparked” at about 10% of the electrical spend in the US […]

Contractors / eBusiness / Marketing / Pricing / Research Reports / Technology

Cracking the Contractor Data Delimma

David Gordon Posted On October 25, 2012

Over the last several decades the distributor and electrical market has benefited from the data aggregation services provided by Trade Service (TSC). Many of their printed and computerized products contained essential information that allowed distributors to order from their manufacturers […]