Now that I am in sales, a big chunk of my compensation is based on my performance. Or stated another way, I get paid on how well my customers perform when it comes to buying, specifying and selling Woodhead® products. Probably over 90% of Woodhead sales are through our distribution partners. So it is of critical importance to me and my income that the distributors that are assigned to me are high performing. I have a lot riding on the distributors’ performance, so I have thought a lot about how best to make that happen.
Here at Molex, a $3.6 Billion multinational behemoth, we have resources. We have professionals who are experts in many fields We have departments that specialize in marketing, product commercialization, and training, to name a few. All of these groups can contribute to my success and ultimately to how successful my distributors are. They all have a hand in how we educate our distributors. We have many tactics at our disposal. To educate my distributors about our products or programs, I can use webinars, e-mail blasts, cut sheets, videos, lunch & learns, etc. I can bring in experts to meet and train the experts at my distributors. We pay ElectricSmarts to help get the message out.
But is all of this working? I have sat through many webinars, but I really didn’t learn much. Was this education attempt successful? I find that I do not mind receiving e-mail blasts. But most distributors have 200+ suppliers on their line cards. If they receive e-mail blasts from 200 suppliers on a regular basis, does anyone remember what Woodhead had to say? Was this education attempt successful?
I have sat in on some lunch & learns lately. I like the personal nature and typically smaller audiences of lunch & learns. But lunch & learns have become so common, distributors do so many of them, I question how effective they really are. Was this education attempt successful?
We have an absolutely wonderful online training module on our Industrial Communication products. This module deals with the higher tech elements of our product offering, and it does it well. Anyone who invests only about an hour taking this module will emerge significantly smarter about our products. But sending a link to this training and espousing its virtues is not enough. It’s a great training, but if it’s not taken, our education attempt is not successful.
So what does work best? What is the best / most effective method of providing education? Probably many answers to this question….. I think we keep trying the old techniques. We will keep lunch & learning, we will keep e-mail blasting, we will keep webinaring. Because if we happen to spark the mind of that one distributor salesperson who thinks, “Hey I have a customer that just asked me about that,” or “I didn’t know that Woodhead made that,” then we will have succeeded. If we can find one opportunity that we didn’t have before, then our education attempt was successful. If we make an ally out of one distributor salesperson, we win. Actually we both win.
But, we need to find new ways to educate. So when I travel, I need to learn about what works and what doesn’t. I need to learn what are best practices. I need to learn what our competitors are doing. In other words, I need to be educated.
Related Posts
Daniel Brad Woodhead Harrison
Ready for Pack Expo? We are – and we look forward to seeing you there. October 28 – 31st in Chicago (Molex Booth S2957) 
Remote Masters Concept – a unique and powerful solution to deliver fieldbus connectivity to control systems
Industrial networks and their connections- Convergence Of Data And Power
Patrick Lawler on said:
Bingo! A manufacturer who admitted there has to be a better way of training then just throwing out webinars, on line training, etc. and thinking everyone is going to take them or even listen when they are taking them. This has been my complaint for years and I totally agree with you Tom. One other area that needs to be addressed. Although features and benefits are important, the problem with most training is that’s what everyone focuses on. Very few, if any at all, focus on application, questions the sales person should be asking the customer to estabish a solution for the customer, how your product compares to your competitions, etc. Although distributor sales people may have contacts, know their customers, know their markets, do a great job overall for their company, it should never be presumed that they know your product and your markets. Good article.