This section of ValueAddedPartners.org is the place to look for the latest stories about how distributors and manufacturers can document their value, sell value rather than price, build a value-focused sales team, promote their value-added benefits and more. It features stories developed exclusively for ValueAddedPartners.org, articles from distributor trade magazines, plus excerpts from books and other sources.

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Value-added selling
VAP award winners
Documentation
Cost-saving
Fee-based services
Marketing value-add
Success stories

Value-added selling

Caught in the middle
Customers are demanding lower prices. Manufacturers are exploring alternate channels. How can distributors survive?

You need a Value Added Article
One of the most effective ways to give yourself a competitive edge is the VAA – Valued Added Article. It’s a powerful strategy that works!

Passing the 'Tell Me More' Test
You have to pass the "Tell Me More" test before you can advance further than the competition...

The power of leverage
It costs 10 times more to land a new account than it does to serve an existing customer. So why do you continue to chase all this new stuff to the degree that you ignore existing business?

Tracking value
When salespeople sell value instead of price, distributors must track and measure cost savings to sustain success...

The procurement conundrum
For those of us old enough for our haircut to also include an eyebrow trim, you’ll remember an old C&W tune that croons, “Oh it’s crying time again, you’re gonna leave me.” Distributors sing it this way nowadays: “It’s buying time again, you’re gonna leave me.” Welcome to the world of industrial churn.

The golden prospect
How to identify the prospects that can and will buy sooner than others...

Deal or no deal
How to maintain your margins when battling low-ball competition...

Supplying value
Bring supplier reps on sales calls to add real value for customers...

Abrasive answers
Abrasive suppliers share the behaviors of successful distributor salespeople...

Understand your value
Understanding the customer's financial situation will give you the insight to understanding your value.

Five ways to reduce costs without cutting price
Author Frank Hurtte suggests five ways in which salespeople can demonstrate their value instead of bowing to pressure to lower their price...

Tear down those silos
Value-added selling is a team effort. The sales force sells the first experience with your company, but it is the total experience with your company that brings customers back...

Spreading the word
Industrial Power Sales uses the Internet to share success stories with customers and prospects...

What have you done for me lately?
Jim Ketter can recall times when he crawled out of bed in the middle of the night to make an emergency delivery to a customer. When he reminded customers of the many ways his company helped them save money, they sometimes didn’t seem to care or would adopt the attitude, that’s fine, but what have you done for me lately?

Selling as art, not science
Author and speaker Tom Reilly liked it better when selling was more art than science, because the art of selling (AOS) is simpler than the science of selling.

Get them to do what you want them to do
Many salespeople are individualistic and non-conformist. They do things their own way, just as they always have. How can you possibly get your salespeople to do what you want them to?

One-stop shopping and other worthless tripe
Corporate decision makers don't want to deal with the "jack of all trades." Instead, they much prefer dealing with experts who really understand their business, marketplace and needs...

Changing behaviors
Can old mice really learn new tricks?

Negotiate like a pro
Do your homework in order to secure better deals and better relationships...

Stronger value propositions
Here are three ideas you can use to create stronger value propositions, complete with metrics...

How to add value without cutting prices
The money mindset often causes salespeeople to drop prices just to make a sale, even when they don’t really need to...

The path to value
Value-added selling is not a flavor-of-the-month sales hook; it must be planted like a seed and nurtured to see sales grow and bloom...

Crush price objections: Learn to sell value, not price
Salespeople should never lower their price unless it is a strategic decision where they call the shots. When you compete on price only, you send the wrong message to the buyer...

How much freer can you get?
Five ways to achieve a competitive advantage without lowering your fees...

Are distributors in trouble?
Distributors are nervous these days. Not all distributors, but some. Who? Those who fail to add value...

Helping customers get lean
Distributors that learn lean manufacturing concepts can help their manufacturer customers gain a competitive edge...

Selling what the customer values
The best way to sell is to understand what motivates buyers, then help them experience those feelings in advance. What do your prospects and customers value? What do you value?

Value-added selling is more than a book    
Value-added selling is more than a book, speaker or seminar. It is a philosophy of doing
business...

Crush price objections: Hold the line    
Whoever is better prepared for the objection, the salesperson or the customer, emerges victorious. How must one deal with price resistance when it surfaces?

Ten ways to add value and defeat price objections
The concept of value-added selling has been popular for a number of years. Let’s take a look at 10 ways you can add value to your product or service no matter what you sell...

Value coming in equals value going out
Is your distributorship adding value to its relationship with customers? Here’s how to become a value added peak competitor...

Polish up your value-added services
We know how to sell a product. You can touch it, see it, study its function, caress it. But how do we wrap our arms around a value-added service and sell the concept to our customers?

Value-added selling is a team sport    
Value-added organizations believe that serving customers is a team sport. Some teams succeed and others fail. What makes the difference?

So you want to have a value-added sales force    
To create a value-added sales culture, there are a number of questions in five distinct areas that you must ask yourself...

Value-added selling?
Ask six distributors what it means to be a value-added seller, and you’ll likely hear six different explanations. Once a word or phrase becomes a cliché, it often losses its original meaning. This is true with "value-added." What exactly does that mean?

Value is in the eye of the beholder   
Are you creating value for your customers? Enough value? Unless you’re creating value every single time you’re with a customer, you’re vulnerable to being replaced by another supplier...

If it's free, where's the value?
Many salespeople will tell you they adopted a value-added approach with customers. Yet few can put a real dollar value on the services their companies provide. Here are some questions salespeople should ask themselves and their managers to avoid that problem...

Price objections: The bane of salespeople
The five most dreaded words salespeople hear are: Your price is too high!

How to create a value-added sales culture
Time and again, sales managers ask what they can do to help promote a value-added sales culture in their organization. The question is: Are you willing to pay the price to create a value-added sales culture?

Value-added selling attitudes
Attitude drives behavior. We become what we think about. We behave as we believe. There are six attitudes value-added salespeople embrace that affect their behavior...

Selling value-added services
There is no longer any question in the minds of distribution executives that generating significant profit from value-added services is essential. But that’s only a fraction of the answer to the long-term profitability question...

The value-added sales call
Everyone agrees that distributor salespeople must demonstrate the value of their products and services.  But today, that’s not enough. Busy customers also need proof that the time you spend with them brings them value. Here are some tips to help customers see how they gain by spending time with you...

Peer pressure
Creating friendly competition among salespeople is one way to motivate them to sell value, not price...

The three factors that make customers buy
Salespeople often lament that clients are concerned only with price. What is most important – and unfortunately most overlooked by business people – is the value you offer a client...

Defining value
Value can be a tricky term. When determining value, look at the customer's definition of value, rather than your own...

Team up, profit up
By finding out what customers and suppliers want, distributors can show their value to channel partners...

How distributors add value
Before launching into a value added business approach you may want to ask yourself, "Is this the way for us to compete?" Answering this question could save you some major headaches...

How to handle price buyers
Exploding the myth, "But we have to justify our prices to our customers!"

Selling value vs. price
Anyone can close a deal by promising to save the customer a nickel a foot on a reel of hose. It takes a skilled salesperson to make the sale when you don’t have the rock-bottom price...

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VAP award winners

The Value of Documentation
T&A Industrial Distributors wins 2008 American Eagle Value-Added Distributor Award

2008 American Eagle Award winners named
Congratulations to T&A Industrial Distributors (Distributor Award), Seco Tool (Manufacturer Award), The Tooling Support Group (Independent Manufacturer Rep Award) and Haggard & Stocking Inc. (Corporate Citizenship Award), winners of the 2008 American Eagle Awards.

No tolerance for error
Lexington Cutter demonstrates exceptional documented cost savings and productivity improvements for Briggs & Stratton...

Give us your toughest problems
Jergens Industrial Supply has always taken pride in the ability of its sales force to apply their technical skills to help customers solve machining problems...

Waste not
Hangsterfer’s Laboratories and Major Tool Company help a major auto supplier reduce hazardous waste...

The savings sleuths
Haggard & Stocking Associates helps customers search for new ways to save money and improve profits...

On the ball
Duncan Equipment Company and Sandvik Coromant help Balon Corporation succeed on a global scale...

ISA names 2006 American Eagle Value-Added Partners Award winners
Duncan Equipment Co. and Sandvik Coromant receive Value-Added Partners Award, Haggard & Stocking Associates named Value-Added Distributor and Ashburn Chemical Technologies earns Value-Added Manufacturer Award...

Premier partners
A bonus program that focused salespeople on premier vendors and cost-savings documentation re-energized Quality Mill Supply...

Closer to home
American suppliers need to find better methods to level the playing field against low-cost imports. One manufacturer of power brushes, abrasives and maintenance products is successfully satisfying its end-user customers in this tough global environment...

Value-Added Partners
Carbide Tool Services and Sterling Supply Company demonstrate channel partnership by developing a tool repair program to help Toyota lower costs...

ISA names 2005 Value-Added Partner Award winners
The association also recognizes the Value-Added Distributor and Value-Added Manufacturer Award winners...

Something old, something new
Kennametal Industrial Products Group adds value for end-user customers by helping them cut price per part, boost productivity on the factory floor and introducing its customers to lean enterprise thinking...

Solving the price-per-piece dilemma     
This packaging distributor learned how to get customers to stop focusing on piece price and start looking at total cost of operations...

Kennametal IPG, Arnold’s Factory Supplies win VAP awards     
Metalworking manufacturer Kennametal IPG of Augusta, Ga., and industrial distributor Arnold’s Factory Supplies of Baltimore were named the manufacturer and distributor Value-Added Partners of the Year Award winners by the Industrial Supply Manufacturers Association at ISCON 2004 in Orlando.  . .

Complements all around
If you ask Industrial Distribution Group president and CEO Andrew Shearer about his company’s business strategy, you’ll find the Atlanta-based industrial distributor follows two wholly separate, yet related routes...

PIT Crews to the rescue
Over the past two years, Seco-Carboloy and its distributors have submitted more than $40 million of documented savings to customers. The company’s focus on cost savings earned it the 2003 Value-Added Partner of the Year Award in the manufacturing...

ISMA names Value-Added Partners of the Year    
The Industrial Supply Manufacturers Association named Industrial Distribution Group Inc. of Atlanta and cutting tools manufacturer Carboloy Inc. of Detroit the 2003 Value-Added Partners of the Year at the ISMA/I.D.A. Spring Convention...

Dollar signs    
Cutting tool manufacturer Sandvik Coromant succeeds at assigning a dollar value to the value-added services it provides customers...

Keeping up the good work
By looking at short-term and long-term cost savings up front, industrial distributor Engman-Taylor Co. creates sustainable value-add for its customers...

Proven methods
Industrial Distribution Group president Andrew Shearer shows how IDG uses product expertise and documentation to show his customers how valuable IDG can be...

Differentiation through documentation
Over the past four years, a joint effort between Fuchs and a group of key suppliers to improve customer profitability has documented more than $4 million in annual cost savings for its customers. In this article from the Industrial Distribution Association's management journal Just in Time, Fuchs president Tom Berger explains how it works...

Solutions for sale
When most end-user customers think of areas where they can cut costs, maintenance chemicals are rarely at the top of the list. Maintenance chemical manufacturer CRC Industries, Inc. changed all that by engineering its Risk Reduction Partnership Plan...

It’s what you save that counts
Fuchs Machinery won the first annual ISMA Value-Added Partner of the Year award at the ISA convention in Chicago for its value-added programs and its unique methods for selling industrial supplies...

Value-Added Partner of the Year awards presented
The Industrial Supply Manufacturers Association honored CRC Industries Inc. of Warminster, Pa., and Fuchs Machinery Inc. of Omaha, Neb., with the first annual Value-Added Partner of the Year award...

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Documentation

The Extended Value Index: How to measure a distributor's value-added capability
The way customers define value added in the marketplace keeps shifting as they gain more knowledge and control of sourcing options...

Getting the go-ahead
Customers require more than a salesman’s handshake and promises before they’ll agree to change from one product to another. To document ultimate cost savings to the end-user, Weiler Corporation created the Weiler Analysis Report...

Crunch time
General Tool & Supply Company rolls out a cost-savings program to employees...

Valuable paperwork    
When paperwork becomes a hassle, what’s a distributor to do?

Put it on paper    
Customer loyalty isn’t what it used to be. Pricing pressures, global competition, cost-cutting initiatives, less face-to-face contact and a number of other factors have left distributors wondering how to maintain their customer base...

Training that works     
How one industrial distributor taught its salespeople a new way to document the value it offers customers...

Dollar signs    
Cutting tool manufacturer Sandvik Coromant succeeds at assigning a dollar value to the value-added services it provides customers...

Differentiation through documentation
Over the past four years, a joint effort between Fuchs and a group of key suppliers to improve customer profitability has documented more than $4 million in annual cost savings for its customers. In this article from the Industrial Distribution Association's management journal Just in Time, Fuchs president Tom Berger explains how it works.

Write it down
Cunningham Supply Company understands the importance of documenting the value it provides customers...

Customers want documented cost savings
A new study shows that distributors who document cost savings can earn more business...

Prove your worth
In an era when distributors struggle to define their value in the supply chain, General Industrial Tool & Supply adopted a value-added documentation approach that proves its worth to customers...

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Cost-saving

The savings sleuths
Haggard & Stocking Associates helps customers search for new ways to save money and improve profits...

Controlling consumption
Using lean manufacturing principles and automated dispensing systems, Machine Tools Supply helps customers control costs...

The savings sleuths
Haggard & Stocking Associates helps customers search for new ways to save money and improve profits...

Closer to home
American suppliers need to find better methods to level the playing field against low-cost imports. One manufacturer of power brushes, abrasives and maintenance products is successfully satisfying its end-user customers in this tough global environment...

High beam
Kendeco Tool Crib shines the light on cost-savings opportunities...

Six steps to success
Armed with a consistent, systematic methodology, this abrasives supplier helps end-users and distributors cut costs and improve productivity...

CSI: MRO Supplies     
In the popular CBS television dramas CSI and CSI: Miami, investigators go to great lengths to find the perpetrator of a crime. At customer locations throughout the U.S., AIM Supply of Largo, Fla., has its own version of CSI detectives investigating crimes of a different type: wasteful spending...

Quality over price     
Iowa Machinery & Supply demonstrates to customers how low-priced products can sometimes sacrifice long-term savings...

The battle of the belts     
Here’s how one industrial distributor salesman beat his competition in a head-to-head product comparison...

Cost containment     
Sorbent supplier Sorbent Products Co. helps distributors and end-users understand their sorbent requirements before quoting a price...

Don’t throw in the towel     
Distributor salespeople who never gave a second thought to disposable wipers, rags and shop towels are discovering a product category that can generate considerable savings for their customers...

The long haul
This Milwaukee-area company believes that for integrated supply to pay off for manufacturers, suppliers must demonstrate measurable, long-term cost savings...

Minor modifications move mountains
Weber Supply Company helped an auto components manufacturer improve profits by $1.6 million with a minor production line change...

Keeping tabs on costs
Deco Tool Supply helps customers reduce costs by keeping closer tabs on inventory...

Purchase price doesn't equal cost
A low purchase price may be alluring, but that’s not always what sells cutting tools, abrasives and other metalworking components...

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Fee-based services

Selling and getting paid for better service
Many customers have become aggressive shoppers out of economic necessity. Entrenched suppliers have opportunities to solve customer problems and fine-tune service levels. Shouldn't these extra service values warrant “last-look” plus extra margin consideration?

Charging forward with fee-based services
For years, Primo provided customers with a free bin-stocking service and recently started charging customers for the service. Customers were outraged. Here are your comments on how Primo should have handled the situation...

Free your customers   
Industry consultant Mark Dancer of Pembroke Consulting believes for-fee services will play an important role in helping distributors caught in a trap...

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Marketing value-add

When you got it, flaunt it
When it comes to marketing your value-add, show it off in as many places as possible...

Marketing your value     
Fictitious distributor Primo Industrial Supply wants to bring in new customers, but sales and marketing manager Kevin Fitzpatrick is not sure how to market his value-added offerings to a wider audience...

Here comes Atwood    
This cutting tool distributor developed a marketing brochure to sell its value...

How today's distribution partners add value    
People have more choices than ever before. People will migrate to where they believe they are getting the best value for their money. As a distributor you must be clear on this idea. What are you doing to deliver value?

Is your value proposition strong enough? 
A value proposition is a clear statement of the tangible results a customer gets from using your products or services. What's yours?

Nine no-fail tips for becoming an undisputed value leader
Are you looking to become the superior value provider in your industry? You are if you want to create long-term profitability and keep your customers from going elsewhere...

How to become a market leader     
What do market leaders have in common? The most common response to this question is, “They sell more stuff!” But why?

You can’t shrink your way to greatness
While cutting and controlling costs is vital, it is not a strategy; it’s a tactic. It’s easy to imitate, and offers no competitive advantage. To measurably grow your business, shift from tactical to strategic thinking...

Leap of faith
Some customers tend to focus a little too closely on price. Distribution industry consultant Tim Underhill shows how distributors can get around a customer's request for low-ball pricing and save the customer money...

Value-added: Smoke, but is there fire?     
Many distributors feel they have value-added programs in place, but their manufacturer counterparts do not agree. What's the problem?

What do customers want? Tough question.
Fluid power distributors discussed value-add at their recent annual meeting: what it is and how to perform it. Modern Distribution Management editor Thomas Gale captured the essence of the roundtable discussion...

Defining value
Value can be a tricky term. When determining value, look at the customer's definition of value, rather than your own...

A new look
Want to look different from your competition? This distributor's Platinum Reports really make it shine...

Team up, profit up
By finding out what customers and suppliers want, distributors can show their value to channel partners...

What's your unique selling proposition?
Developing a unique selling proposition is about creating a distinction between you and your competition...

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Success stories

Time savers
Read how a value-adding salesperson quickly diagnoses a customer problem to cut to the heart of the matter...

Changing times
General Rubber focuses its efforts on value-added activities that help customers lower their manufacturing costs...

Quality over price     
Iowa Machinery & Supply demonstrates to customers how low-priced products can sometimes sacrifice long-term savings...

The battle of the belts     
Here’s how one industrial distributor salesman beat his competition in a head-to-head product comparison...

Finding money in holes
Industrial manufacturer and distributor Jergens Industrial Supply changes with the times to help customers lower costs...

Cost containment     
Sorbent supplier Sorbent Products Co. helps distributors and end-users understand their sorbent requirements before quoting a price...

Safety zone    
Safety products distributor Safety Today understands that its efforts can make a difference in the lives of employees and the bottom lines of employers...

Cut and dry     
Houston-based chemical manufacturer Ashburn Industries Inc. must satisfy its distributor on one side and service the end-user on the other for its value-adding programs to function properly...

A strong defense
Atlantic Tooling and Carboloy prove that the best offense really is a good defense for a major defense contractor...

The long haul
This Milwaukee-area company believes that for integrated supply to pay off for manufacturers, suppliers must demonstrate measurable, long-term cost savings...

Proven methods
Industrial Distribution Group president Andrew Shearer shows how IDG uses product expertise and documentation to show his customers how valuable IDG can be...

Easy does it
Demonstrating your value-add doesn’t have to be complicated. Lane Supply Company salesman Eric Hill discovers that simple is sometimes better...

Minor modifications move mountains
Weber Supply Company helped an auto components manufacturer improve profits by $1.6 million with a minor production line change...

Keeping tabs on costs
Deco Tool Supply helps customers reduce costs by keeping closer tabs on inventory...

Write it down
Cunningham Supply Company understands the importance of documenting the value it provides customers...

Solutions for sale
When most end-user customers think of areas where they can cut costs, maintenance chemicals are rarely at the top of the list. Maintenance chemical manufacturer CRC Industries Inc. changed all that by engineering its Risk Reduction Partnership Plan...

Prove your worth
In an era when distributors struggle to define their value in the supply chain, General Industrial Tool & Supply adopted a value-added documentation approach that proves its worth to customers...

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