Who I help

Factory gate to trade counter.

I've sold for a manufacturer, run a distributor's trade channel and worked on the merchant's side of the counter. Each has its own leaks. Here's what I see, in your words.

Manufacturers and suppliers Builders' merchants Distributors and wholesalers

Manufacturers and suppliers

Good product. Two steps from the people who use it.

What I do about it

I work alongside you as a commercial partner, two days a month: sales structure, pricing and margin, national accounts and buying groups. I build the tools that take the admin off your team, so meeting prep and follow-up actually happen. And if you want a direct line to the trades, I've opened one before without a single merchant walking away.

The Commercial Partner Trade Connections

Sound familiar?

You can't get into the range review. By the time you hear about it, a competitor's in.
Your reps have become expensive postmen: drop-ins, catalogues, a coffee on the counter.
The CRM exists. Nobody uses it, so follow-up depends on who remembers.
You'd like to get closer to the trades who use your product, but you're worried it'll upset the merchants who stock you.

Score your business in ten minutes

Field note

On knowing your customer

The giggle stick

For twenty years, one college lecturer in the South West called a particular basin wrench a “giggle stick”. So did every plumber he trained. We only found out because we talked to the people who used the tool, not just the people who stocked it. We added it to the online listings and plumbers searching for a giggle stick started finding it. That's what a direct relationship with the trades is for.

Builders' merchants

Busy yard. Quiet margin.

What I do about it

I start with a number: what walked out of your branch because it wasn't on the shelf. Then, if it's worth going after, twelve months in your business making the change stick, with your people, until it runs without me.

The Lost Sales Audit The Merchant Reset

One merchant per trading area. If I'm already working with your competitor, I'll tell you and I won't take the work.

Sound familiar?

Gaps on the shelves that nobody notices until a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
Reorder levels set in the system and never used.
Vans back at half two, gates locked at ten past five.
Money given away at the counter and rebates nobody's tracking.

Score your business in ten minutes

Field note

On availability

Four pegs of knives

In one merchant branch we built a tool store inside the store and gave Stanley knives four full pegs instead of one. Same knives, same price. Sales multiplied within the year, for one reason: they were never out of stock. Availability sells.

Distributors and wholesalers

Squeezed from both ends.

What I do about it

I've sat in the middle. I help distributors earn their place in the chain: ranging on sell-through rather than rebate, account plans that grow share and availability that makes you the easy choice for the merchant and the manufacturer.

The Lost Sales Audit The Commercial Partner

Sound familiar?

Suppliers testing direct routes. Merchants buying harder.
A range that's grown faster than anyone can manage.
Account managers who look after accounts, rather than grow them.
Rebates deciding the range more than customers do.

Score your business in ten minutes

Field note

On questioning the obvious

The structural wall

A forklift was carrying every pallet 120 yards down a factory and 120 yards back, because the wall between the line and the racking “was structural”. Nobody had checked in ten years. I did. It wasn't. We knocked it through. Most businesses have a wall like that.

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Twenty-four questions, under ten minutes. Your report arrives by email straight away: where you're strong, where you're leaking and what to do first.

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Your two weakest stages and the first fix, whether or not we ever work together.

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