Former UCL Basetball legend John Wooden is a great believer in basic fundamentals. So much so, that if you happened to be one of his incomning players, the first day of practice started off by you being told to take off your shoes and socks. Why? So that Coach Wooden could show you how to put them back on in a way that would reduce the possibility of blisters. More importantly, though, Coach Wooden was also giving you his first lesson about life: start with the basic fundamentals in everything you do and learn them so that you have a solid foundation for all that follows.

I've been coached and I, too, have coached. Coaches teach, train, cajole, threaten, listen, shout, push and whatever else they must do in order to get their players ready, willing and able to deliver. The toughest thing about Coaching, though, is that Coaches don't get to be in the game. How many times have you seen coaches pacing up and down the sidelines, their physicality clearly demonstrating that they are wanting to be in there, doing what they know will allow their team to be victorious. It is painful to watch because they are giving everything they have to the effort.

Our Suppliers have the same challenge. They create the products, commit to inventories, print catalogs, write descriptions, brainstorm constantly on ways end users can use their products advantageously, teach us, train us, remind us, tolerate us, beg us to let them come on the call with us, then turn around and graciously accept the bill for the Tradeshows & Special Presentations we attend. They put up with our short tempers, our urgencies that could have, sometimes, been avoided and they even shrug it off when we pull our attention from them and move the business to a competitor.

Nope, not all Suppliers are perfect, and that our industry continues to raise the bar for performance from our Supplier partners is healthy for all of us. But, by the same token, we Distributors need to get better at being their partners, too. We all have improvements we need to make in our own part of the equation.

Here's a little something you should try: The next time a Supplier comes to see you, bringing all their products, catalogs, coupons, freebies and years of experience to your door, surprise them and offer to buy them lunch. While they are sitting there in stunned silence, tell them about your accounts, about what your clients are trying to accomplish and what you think needs to happen. Give them your client's logos. Ask their advice. Watch as they take copious notes while getting on the phone to their factories, immediately. Put them in the spotlight for a change and watch what kind of response you get.

I call it Paying It Forward ... or perhaps just really good Teamwork.

Dave Ribble, President of The Company Image, Inc./Geiger
Published in www.saac.net, reprinted with permission