How are your New Year’s Resolutions going? If you are like most people, the turning of the calendar is a time for reflection and setting goals for the future. According to a days old survey, most folks are thinking about how to improve their life and appearance. Here are the five top resolutions for 2021:

1. Exercising more - 50 percent.
2. Weight loss – 48 percent
3. Saving more money – 44 percent
4. Improving our diet – 39 percent
5. Pursuing a career ambition – 21 percent

These goals/resolutions are individual in focus. Long ago, a friend suggested this set of questions to generate business resolutions.

• What will you do to make your competitor’s life more difficult in the new year?
• What strategic plans, investments, activities, and positioning will be needed to make competing with you harder in the new year than today?
• Which of your future actions will make your customer’s lives easier?
• What plans are in place to make your company more efficient in the next year?
• What plans are in place to make your company more efficient in the next year?
• How will improve your long-range position in the market?
• What important projects should you accomplish in 2021?

How does this apply to your business?

Most distributor leadership teams have a full plate; supplier meetings, customer issues, developing people, and the Pandemic. Lots of distractions, yet these leaders must set priorities and complete projects. Using Steven Covey’s terminology, the goal is to separate the urgent and not important from the not urgent and important simply stated execute on the strategic points.

The list of questions provided so many years ago, leads us to the strategic projects for the coming year.

A webstore/eCommerce presence passes the Strategic Test

A couple of years ago, a quality web presence with a credible webstore might be classified as a “nice to have” but not an essential business tool. According to the latest studies, over 80 percent of your kind of customers are using webstores in their buying decisions. Product content remains king, but price and local availability follow in the rankings. With these ideas why not put the concept to the test?

Does a webstore make your competitor’s life more difficult?

If you have one and the other guy does not, you have an advantage. Customers can review product data online anytime and anyplace; no pile of catalogs required. If your customer is buying niche products from an internet-based distributor, think Newark Electronics, Automation Direct, or others, your site offers a one-stop-shop for even obscure products. Customers no longer need to stray to competitive websites in search of what they perceive as hard to find items.

Will your future actions make the customers life easier?

Your website becomes their single source for new product information. Assuming you have full and enriched product data, your site becomes the customer’s master catalog. Extending this further, customers can not only identify the products needed for their application they can check local inventory levels without time consuming calls 24x7. Finally, the customer can then make the decision as to whether to push the purchase button, or enter an order using traditional methods. It’s their choice and customers like choices.

Sales teams are more effective and your company more efficient.

A world class webstore makes your sales team more effective. Inside sales can use built in product selectors to quickly find exactly what the customer needs and instantaneously provide the customer with pictures, descriptions and even price – all through the system. When the tool is placed into the customer’s hands, many find the process of researching both product and lead times faster than dealing with your company in the traditional fashion. Each time a customer identifies product or application needs, it eliminates a stock/delivery time call. If they place an order, it frees your staff to provide the kind of activities providing real customer value.

Improve long-range position in the market.

First, not only does the webstore improve interactions and relationships with existing customers, but the tool also serves as a low-cost source of new and potential customers. Instead of scouring industrial directories for strange and yet to be identified users of your product, these customers find you.

Aside from these benefits, a webstore provides a mechanism for distributors to serve customers who are normally too small to justify traditional sales efforts. An ecommerce platform coupled with a marketing outreach lowers the cost of sale and moves these normally not so profitable customers into the black ink.

What strategic projects will you handle in 2021?

Chances are you have several projects which might be justified by the criteria already laid out. Why not grab the low hanging fruit and let somebody else do the heavy lifting for you?

KYKLO makes it quick, easy, and effective with little work on your part. We handle everything from product content to search engine optimization and everything between. Our world-class webstore draws from our library of over two million products (SKUs). Importantly, KYKLO’s team provides not just digitization, but coaching and training to help your sellers put the system to its most effective use.

Let us take care of this bit of strategy for you.