The Wholesale Change Show

Ian and Jonathan reveal the biggest mistakes distributors make that prevent marketing from becoming a driving force for growth and profits. Ian has led marketing for four large distributors and Jonathan has analyzed customer and financial data for dozens. Listen now to hear why distributors often fail at marketing — and how you can succeed.

Two major deals at the end of 2021 ensured the year would end with a bang. Lawson Products, Gexpro Services and Test Equity joined forces, and Motion Industries acquired Kaman Distribution Group. Do these deals signal a renewed round of mergers and acquisitions in the distribution industry? Our hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein reviewed these big deals and others. They also discussed what may be...

Can distributors give customers new reasons to visit physical stores? Mark Dancer thinks so. On this episode of The Wholesale Change Show Dancer joined our hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein to share how he thinks B2B innovators can reimagine physical stores and other real-world spaces to create new value for customers and open a new front in the war against disruptors.

How companies like Amazon Business, Berkshire eSupply & Varis are changing the game. For decades, customers have turned to distributors to meet their everyday needs and source hard-to-find products. Distributors used their own inventories, supplier sourcing and master distributors to give customers access to an endless array of products. But now, marketplaces have moved that endless assortment rig...

ADI, a leading global wholesale distributor of security, AV and low-voltage products with 2020 revenues of $3 billion, embarked on a significant digital transformation over the past several years. This digital transformation included integrated sales effectiveness initiatives that created significant sales efficiencies during a strong growth period. Stu Tisdale, Vice President of Global Strategy a...

What keeps Jennifer Murphy, President of NetPlus Alliance, up at night in a time of consolidation and disruption? The independent distributor’s relevance. NetPlus Alliance is a buying group focused on helping its distributor members succeed. To her, it’s critical that NetPlus accomplishes this mission. Join our Wholesale Change hosts and Murphy on Nov. 10 as they talk about the evolution of buying...

Product shortages, supply-chain delays, hard-to-find labor – what are the best practices in navigating through the current supply chain madness? On this episode of The Wholesale Change Show we talked with two experts about what you should do to manage these problems. Our guests are Bruce Strahan, President of operations strategy consultant Argon & Co., and Helgi Leja from Distribution Performance...

Chuck Cohen, the Managing Director of Benco, the nation’s largest independent dental product distributor, believes that top notch IT and analytics are essential to create competitive advantage in this decade and beyond. Together with his team, he’s putting his money where his mouth is by changing every foundational IT system in the company. The result of this transformation will be a better online...

In this episode we spoke with Barry Litwin, CEO of Global Industrial, a $1B distributor focusing on small and midsize businesses. In less than two years, Barry has rebranded the parent company, grown the share price about 70% and differentiated and developed an exciting strategy to drive future growth. We asked Barry about his career, what he’s learned along the way and how he’s applying this expe...

The rumors aren’t true. The B2B sales rep still has a long life ahead despite the (not completely true) stories that Millennials and Gen Z don’t want to meet with them. It’s misleading to declare sales reps are over; the value of the sales rep depends on the nature of the relationship and the complexity of the products and services being sold. In this episode of Wholesale Change Ian Heller and Jon...

Julie Copeland, CEO of 75-year-old safety distributor Arbill, joined Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein to take a closer look at how the PPE industry changed overnight when COVID-19 hit last year and the challenges that have come with that, including misinformation and lower-quality product. She shared how Arbill responded to the shifts in the market with education and their own product lines, including...

To Andrew Larson, CEO of HVACR distributor Gustave Larson, his business is helping his customers maximize their success. He shared with our hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein how his team helps HVACR contractors run their businesses better through innovative services, including marketing, sales and technical support. He’ll also talked about how the distributor has evolved its sales force to make i...

Deal-making is off to a strong start in 2021, and private equity continues to play a large part in that equation. Private equity firms have long been attracted to distribution and, for some distributors, selling part or all of their companies to private equity is an attractive exit strategy. John Schweig, Chairman of the Board at BlackHawk Industrial and Operating Partner at private equity firm Sn...

In our regular quarterly checkup, Wholesale Change hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein dug into public distributors’ earnings reports from Home Depot, Fastenal, CDW, Beacon and more. Our hosts took a look at how your largest competitors are responding to market pressures in 2021, and how they're planning to grow and adapt through the end of the year.

Standing out in today’s market is more critical than ever. Distributors can’t just lean on product know-how and great customer service to differentiate. They have to go deeper. In this episode of Wholesale Change, Peter Neuberger, President and CEO of United Performance Metals, joined Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein to talk about how the distributor has built a successful value-added services model i...

If distributors don’t change their revenue model, they’ll perish. That’s the message from Frank Hurtte, author of The Distributor’s Fee-Based Services Manifesto, who urges distributors to move away from value-added markups on products and start getting paid for the services they provide. In this episode, Hurtte, of River Heights Consulting, joined Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein to talk about why, if...

Distributors need to rethink how they add value to their customer base with a portfolio management strategy. Amazon isn’t designed for such a hands-on approach. In this episode of Wholesale Change, Brent Johnstone, co-founder of ActVantage and former CEO of a pet supply distributor where he successfully orchestrated an analytics-driven turnaround, joined Jonathan Bein and Ian Heller to talk about...

After three generations of family ownership, Miller Industrial found itself in new hands just two years ago. Peter Jackson, the Chicago distributor’s new owner, not only was new to the century-old business – he was new to the distribution industry. That means he hasn’t been held hostage to traditional practices that have held some distributors back. But he’s also had his share of lessons learned....

Over the past decade, Michael DeCata has overseen the revitalization of industrial distributor Lawson Products. In this episode, DeCata joined Wholesale Change hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein to talk about how Lawson Products is differentiating in today’s market with an innovative approach to sales, a strong private-label strategy, and value-added services. DeCata has more than 20 years of expe...

Hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein are back at it, with a look at more public distributors’ quarterly results and what they mean to the market. They go beyond the numbers for Office Depot (ODP), Watsco, Henry Schein, The Home Depot and Genuine Parts Co/Motion Industries to provide a perspective that analysts can’t. They also dive into what the news over at ODP means for the marketplace war. Learn...

The role of associations in the distribution industry has evolved over the past decade as they work to add value for their members in a changing market marked by generational shift and consolidation. In this episode Ed Gerber, CEO of the Industrial Supply Association and distribution industry veteran, joined Distribution Strategy Group’s Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein for a look at how ISA is evolvi...

The Wholesale Change hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein dug into public distributors’ earnings reports from Amazon, Grainger, Applied Industrial and Avnet. Our hosts took a look at how your largest competitors performed in 2020 and their plans for navigating the market in 2021.

We had a frank conversation with Steve Ruane, Vice President of Marketing and Member Services for IMARK Electrical, about the role co-ops and marketing groups play in helping independent distributors compete in today’s fast-changing market. IMARK Group is a multi-vertical member-owned and member-governed group of independent distributors that bills itself as the “most progressive distribution grou...

Darren Rawson is the President of AZ Partsmaster, a regional facilities maintenance distributor. He joined Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein for a lively discussion about trends in the multifamily market, as well as the recent Home Depot-HD Supply acquisition.

Without buy-in from your entire team – including that salesperson that complains the most – a strategic pricing project will, simply put, not yield the results you need it to. Join Gregory Smith, Vice President of Strategic Accounts and Partnerships for SPARXiQ, as he shares the secrets to successful strategic pricing implementation with Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein in this episode of Wholesale Ch...