Distributor sales means that a manfacturer sells its products through a third party that, in turn, distributes the products to resellers, retailers or even end-customers. Here’s everything you need to know about distributor sales – and three ways to make this indirect sales model successful.

Ok, so distributor sales basically refers to a sales process where products are sold through intermediaries (AKA distributors). These distributors serve as a link between manufacturers and retailers, resellers and end-customers, and can help manufacturers reach a geographical area, or population, that wouldn’t be reachable with a direct sales model. Below, we’ve gathered 3 things to think about – in order to make the most ot of your distributor model.

How can you succeed with distributor sales?

1. Onboard distributors effectively

Onboarding new distributors is just as crucial as onboarding new employees or customers. Why? Well, just like your own sales force, you need your distributors to get a strong grasp of your value prop, your pitches and marketing material – and just like your customers, distributors need to know enough about the products and how they work. You need to make sure that they are all ramped up, have everything they need and that they’re ready to sell your product well.

2. Offer support, material and quick answers to their questions

It’s absolutely vital to offer value-adding support and services to distributors – in order to differentiate your products and engage distributors. This could include providing training programs, marketing material, co-branded campaigns or even microsites/landing pages that have been pre-packaged with your value prop and product information – and that make it easy for distributors to communicate your product’s value to end-customers.

On top of that, it’s super-important to give distributors a direct line of communication with you. That way, they can quickly ask questions and receive answers – avoiding a loss of sales momentum that can translate to lower performance. For example, a distributor who doesn’t get a question answered in days will probably lose motivation, while a distributor that gets the right answer within minutes will be more likely to be engaged and put your product first.

3. Give them the tools they need to succeed

Distributor sales enablement tools, i.e. tools that help them sell your products, can make a huge difference. For example, our own SP_CE platform could let you give distributors access to their own, private portal; a portal where they can always find the latest and greatest marketing material, where they can seamlessly chat with you and your team and be notified when new material is available. Something that can make it so much easier to sell your product and truly make the most of your distributor sales model.

What is distributor sales, you ask?

It’s an easy question to answer, just like it’s sort-of an easy thing to start doing. After all, the hard part is not to start selling throgh intermediaries, but to make sure that said intermediaries actually succeed in their task. Which is where we at SP_CE come in: we want to help you make your distributor sales model perform way above expectations – by letting you manage, engage and enable all distributors from one, central portal.

Curious to learn more? Contact us today to see how SP_CE works in action.

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