By Alex Tatham
What’s the biggest sales enabler in distribution? Sounds like an easy question, but I would contend it is such a balance of different offerings that there is no silver bullet.
- Great consistent account management
- Good pricing
- Stock levels
- Rebate management
- Quote management and turnaround
- Credit availability
- But one area that sometimes gets ignored is extended payment terms.
Cash management is a vital performance indicator for a distributor and all successful distributors put significant resources into reporting and measuring the ability to turn sales/stock into cash and maintain as balanced a cash flow as possible. Westcoast has a zero tolerance for late payment once terms have been agreed. It is too important for our business. However, we have an exclusive and innovative scheme that allows customers to extend payment and never miss a payment deadline.
