It’s fitting that as we close this year, 2022, we publish an episode that –in time– will prove to be the harbinger of a new era.
I’m convinced that in a few years, we’ll look back and realize, that the topic of our conversation today and the work that got us here, to this moment, was the exact catalyst that propelled our industry’s somewhat stagnant overall growth to unforeseen heights.
Think with me about the confluence of events surrounding our industry at this moment in time:
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The reputation of branded merch has reached an all-time high,
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Our supply chain is ripe for disruption (and the good news is, it’s happening from within, from suppliers who are disrupting their own internal ops for faster distributor sales enablement)
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Exponential distributor sales growth (I have had three separate conversations, this past month alone, with distributors who have a plan –not a hope, but a plan– to each be a billion-dollar company)
Taken separately, these points are powerful, but not nearly as potent as the combination of all three but they rely on each other.
Today, we talk about one part of this new equation: how the supplier of the future is working –right now– to create this very catalyst for growth. And we’re not talking to the wonderful technologists who are behind the scenes making these changes possible, we’re talking with the front-line sales team who sees this change as the new leverage for sales growth.
Get this: PCNA launched ePOs with commonsku in Sep, just 3 months ago, at that time only 2% of all purchase orders were submitted through ePO, in 3 short months, ePO submissions to PCNA from commonsku customers skyrocketed to around 50% of all purchase orders.
Our guests today are Emily Douglas and Erin Harris from PCNA.
Emily is a Regional Sales Manager covering the field sales managers in the Midwest and Texas. She’s been with PCNA for 5 years, Erin Harris is the Director of Sales for PCNA Canada and has spent years in the field creating long-standing relationships with customers and developing a first-class sales organization.
Today, we take this big, sometimes confusing topic of ePOs and break it down to its essentials:
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We explain it
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We discuss why it's important for both distributors’ and suppliers’ sales success
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What changes you and your team can expect with EPO adoption
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And finally, why it’s such a high-impact catalyst for growth!
