Leading in Tough Times

Distributors were challenged during a Wednesday morning “wake up” session by industry consultant Doug MacKay to focus on innovation as they seek to weather difficult economic times and position their companies for long-term success.

MacKay, president of The Glen Douglas Group, urged company executives to stop doing things the same old way if they hope to achieve better results, and suggested that a good first step would be to “go on the front lines” and visit customers personally to get a good sense of what’s going on.

“It’s time for real honesty and evaluation in your organization,” MacKay said. “Leadership means standing up and being counted. Celebrate your high achievers and upgrade your people standards where that’s needed. Tap into the brain power of the people who work for you. Become the Chief Listening Officer and the Vice President of Innovation.”

“Go on a listening tour in your own company,” he advised. “Turn off your Blackberry. Listen to what your people have to say. Then introduce your ideas.”

If a company’s vision is to “build our business/brand value by innovating to deliver customer leadership faster, better and more completely than our competitor,” MacKay said, “some companies will need to change their culture to realign themselves around their retailer customers.

He emphasized the need to invest in people, to provide education to help them be successful. “To have truly satisfied customers, they must be serviced by customer-focused, passionate people,” MacKay declared.

Many retailers served by distributors need help to become better business people, and MacKay suggested this is a role that distributors can fill and thus become more valuable to those customers. “If price is all that matters, you become a commodity and they will buy whatever distributor is on sale this week,” he warned.

MacKay suggested focusing on the most profitable customers with training by a small business team created within the distributorship to help those retailers be more successful with such practices as category management, while simultaneously stopping many of the “free” services provided to less profitable customers.