Successful Selling: Adapting The Distributor Sales Model For A Changing Marketplace

Distributor sales models exist for varied and valid reasons. Manufacturers often opt to leverage this independent sales channel when they have small product portfolios. In smaller markets, companies use them primarily to gain economies of scale as the distributor can combine portfolios of multiple companies to create a critical mass opportunity. Larger industries, like orthopedics, have often leveraged the distributor model as a means for getting capital investment, similar to franchise models, as well as fostering closer local relationships. Others choose this channel for better and faster access to existing “feet on the street” for rapid expansion or access to markets that might otherwise be blocked or difficult.

Regardless of the reasons, the distributor model is still common and has been successful in many markets for a long...