Bookstore
The University of Innovative Distribution recommends the following books to add to your collection. Please note that you will be directed to another website to purchase these books as we do not fulfill the orders.
Your Someday is Now – What are you Waiting For?
Gail Alofsin
Experience meets the classroom as Gail merges the worlds of work, university, non-profit, personal branding, and work/life integration creating a book that focuses on YOUR best YOU! Jam-packed with practical and inspiring advice from both Gail and over 100 business professionals, she had the privilege of interviewing.
100% of sales are donated. Over $40,000 has been raised for local and international non-profits through sales of the book.
Achieving Effective Inventory Management – 6th Edition
Jon Schreibfeder
Achieving Effective Inventory Management, 6th Edition, based on our most recent research and up-to-date “best practices”, provides a complete guide for managing a large and often troublesome asset: inventory.
The economic challenges facing distributors today have resulted in EIM conducting a thorough review and update of the entire 5th edition. This update, coupled with discussions regarding the impact and adjustments that the current economic challenges have produced in all areas of inventory management, has produced our new 6th edition.
This book helps you achieve the goal of effective inventory management — to meet or exceed customers’ expectations of product availability with the amount of each item that will maximize your organization’s net profits or minimize its total inventory investment.
Selling Through Tough Times
Paul Reilly
As a sales professional, you know that it’s harder to sell in tough times―whether it’s a recession, industry-wide challenge, or global pandemic. You may also have noticed that some salespeople and managers not only survive, but thrive through tough times. How do they do it? What do they do to thrive through adversity?
Paul Reilly explains it all in Selling Through Tough Times: Customers buy differently in tough times, so salespeople need to sell differently in tough times. In this eye-opening and indispensable guide, he shows how to develop the right mindset and adapt your skills to prevail in even the most challenging selling climate. His plan includes both immediate, hands-on action plans (including six Daily Mental Flex activities) as well as longer-range strategies to ensure you (and your team) never get caught on the back foot again.
While the principals of selling are constant, Reilly demonstrates how changing your tactics in tough times will not only help you through current difficulties, but help you emerge stronger. You’ll discover how to redefine value in customer terms, reposition products and services, and how to employ different persuasion tactics. You’ll also learn how to select and pursue the right opportunities, win more deals, and―crucially―protect profit by embracing the “tough timers” mental attitude.
Tough times are inevitable and often unpredictable. But in Selling Through Tough Times, you’ll find the tools and mindset you need to power through them―and come out on top.
Visit www.ToughTimer.com and complete the 30-Day Tough-Timer Challenge.
Manufacturing and Distribution Intel Engine
Sam Richter, CSP, CPAE
To win in business, sales, prospecting, and networking you must do your homework. Yet you most likely waste hours searching online trying to locate opportunities and learn about companies, people, and what they care about. STOP IT!
- Cut your information gathering time from minutes to seconds.
- Find the right decision maker, at a time when they are interested in hearing your message.
- Discover new opportunities, research competitors and markets, and ensure relevant value in every business meeting, networking event, and sales call.
The Upside of Down Times: Discovering the Power of Gratitude
Lisa Ryan
Harness the Power of Gratitude One of the downsides of life is that we rarely have to deal with an overabundance of gratitude. Most of us tend to focus on the negative. We don't receive nearly as much acknowledgment as we would like, and we don't give as much recognition as others deserve. Now for the upside! When we learn to harness the power of gratefulness, we can make a major positive difference in so many areas of our lives, as well as the lives of those around us-and The Upside of Down Times is your first step toward making that happen. "I highly recommend this book if you want to be happier, healthier and wealthier. I read this book in one sitting and began implementing some of the ideas the next day. The ideas are easy to implement but powerful in their results." -Jack Canfield, Co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and The Success Principles
Who Comes Next? Leadership Succession Planning Made Easy
Mary C. Kelly
Leaders leave. It's inevitable. It might even happen today. Are you prepared?
Every organization needs a plan for leadership succession, but few leaders know how to start the process. WHO COMES NEXT? solves that problem and easily guides you through the steps of creating and implementing a viable succession plan.
This essential guidebook simplifies the process and gives you the tools you need to build and activate your leadership succession. You’ll find a comprehensive action plan, a library of all the tools needed to develop and sustain your plan, and a resource guide. You’ll learn how to:
Communicate with customers about the change
Identify talent gaps in your succession plan
Decide which succession planning model to adapt
Find your next generation of leadership within your organization
Handle the unique emotional complexities of succession in a family-owned business
Whether you are part of a small, family business, a Fortune 500 company or a non-profit, you need to start now by answering the question: WHO COMES NEXT?
Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success
Colleen Stanley
In Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success, you'll learn how to increase impulse control for better questioning and listening, which EI skills are related to likability and trust, how empathy leads to bigger sales conversations and more effective solutions, how emotional intelligence can improve prospecting efforts, which EI skills are most common among top sales producers, and much more.
Customers can get product information and price comparisons online. The true differentiator between you and a bot is your ability to deftly solve problems and build relationships. From business development to closing the deal, emotional intelligence will drive your performance - and your success.
Emotional Intelligence for Sales Leadership
Colleen Stanley
You have the best sales team, the latest technology, information, and education, yet only 53% of sales representatives are meeting or exceeding their quotas. The one-piece most sales leaders neglect is hiring for and developing Emotional Intelligence skills.
Learn how emotional intelligence and the developing critical soft skills required for relationship-building outperform yet more sales technology and fad techniques.
Old Dog, New Clicks: Online Industrial and B2B Marketing Know-How for the 21st Century
Bob DeStefano
Two big, related dynamics are changing the field of industrial and B2B marketing: It's an ever-younger crowd with a penchant for the wired and the wireless, and they don't enjoy phone sales calls. They're likely to Google you first, pop over to your website, then check out your social media accounts. How will they find you? What will they find when they do?
Effective Sales Incentive Design for Distributors: What’s the Right Plan?
Mike Emerson, Steve Deist
Effective Sales Incentive Design for Distributors: What’s the Right Plan? is designed for top wholesale distribution executives and sales managers who are looking for the answer to this question: “How can I get my sales reps to just do what I want them to do?”
Getting the Most Out of CRM: Best Practices for Wholesaler-Distributors
Mark Dancer
Experienced wholesaler-distributors say CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is fast becoming a standard practice. More than that, it’s becoming an essential tool for managing a high-performing distribution sales organization.
Optimizing Distributor Profitability: Best Practices to a Stronger Bottom Line
F. Barry Lawrence, Ph.D., Senthil Gunasekaran, Pradip Krishnadevarajan
There are 47 best practices in Optimizing Distributor Profitability: Best Practices to a Stronger Bottom Line and all were developed from actual experiences of 84 real wholesale distribution firms across our industry. This groundbreaking research study is not academic modeling or theory; it is a powerful weapon for you to use to enhance your shareholder value.
Customer Stratification: Best Practices for Boosting Profitability
F. Barry Lawrence, Ph.D., Pradip Krishnadevarajan, Senthil Gunasekaran
Best-in-class distributors categorize customers based on various factors, but customer stratification has long been an unexplored area for most distribution companies. Not anymore. At last, that gap is filled by this first-of-its-kind research study, Customer Stratification: Best Practices for Boosting Profitability.
Sales and Marketing Optimization: Developing Competitive Value Propositions in Distribution
Senthil Gunasekaran, Pradip Krishnadevarajan, F. Barry Lawrence, Ph.D.
Sales and Marketing Optimization: Developing Competitive Value Propositions in Distribution is a first-of-its-kind, best practices study that focuses on aligning customer needs, sales force priorities, and wholesaler-distributor objectives to maximize value creation.
5 Fundamentals for the Wholesale Distribution Sales Manager
Tim Horan, Steve Deist
This book, by Tim Horan and Steve Deist, offers a practical but powerful approach for taking your sales force to the next level. It includes key concepts, practical ideas, and real-world stories taken from the front lines of wholesale distribution. This book will give you the essential leadership skills to keep your career and your business moving ahead and performing at higher levels.
Value Creation Strategies for Wholesaler-Distributors
Steve Deist, Mike Marks, Mike Emerson
In Value Creation Strategies for Wholesaler-Distributors, authors Steve Deist, Mike Marks, and Mike Emerson provide highly actionable insights about how wholesaler-distributors can use a market-driven strategy to increase enterprise value for customers and shareholders.
What's Your Plan? Smart Salesforce Compensation in Wholesale Distribution
Mike Marks and Mike Emerson
According to authors Mike Marks and Mike Emerson in their book, What’s Your Plan? Smart Salesforce Compensation in Wholesale Distribution, there is absolutely no relationship between your sales incentive plan and your likely gain or loss in market share.
Working at Cross-Purposes: How Distributors and Manufacturers Can Manage Conflict Successfully
Mike Marks
It takes a long time to develop good distributor-supplier relationships; unfortunately, it only takes a short time to destroy them. Best seller Working at Cross-Purposes, written by Mike Marks, Tim Horan, and Mike Emerson, takes a look at what really drives these relationships, how often they go bad, and why.
5 Fundamentals for the Wholesale Distribution Branch Manager
Jim Ambrose
This 5 Fundamentals for the Wholesale Distribution Branch Manager, Second Edition is the classic step-by-step guide to helping branch managers improve their business and leadership skills. “If winning means profitable market share and profitable market share growth, then developing the branch manager is essential to a company’s success,” he says.
Facing the Forces of Change: Reimagining Distribution in a Connected World
Guy Bissett
Facing the Forces of Change® is the only major research study analyzing the future of wholesale distribution within multiple lines of trade. Since its inception in 1982, the landmark Facing the Forces of Change® series continues to provide insights about the overall future of wholesale distribution and the role of wholesaler-distributors.
The Little Black Book of Strategic Planning for Distributors
Brent Grover
Brent Grover’s latest book on the wholesale distribution industry, The Little Black Book of Strategic Planning for Distributors, is published by Modern Distribution Management. This is a concise book covering the critical pieces of creating a strategic plan for a wholesale distribution company including case studies, exhibits and end-of-chapter questions for your management team.
Pricing Optimization: Striking the Right Balance for Margin Advantage
Pradip Krishnadevarajan, Senthil Gunasekaran, F. Barry Lawrence, Ph.D., Brijesh Rao
Forward-thinking wholesaler-distributors who strive for above-average returns in the “New Normal” by leveraging pricing optimization best practices that are rooted in sound analytics must read Pricing Optimization: Striking the Right Balance for Margin Advantage!
Strategic Pricing For Distributors: Tools and Rules for Building Higher Margins
Brent Grover
Experience shows that most distributors are leaving at least two percentage points of gross trading margin on the table. This translates into 2% of total sales. Many companies can ultimately achieve more. The improvement is attainable fairly quickly and has proven to be sustainable. Two percent is the difference between mediocre profit results and stellar performance!
In Search of the Perfect Customer
Brent Grover
As wholesaler-distributors operate in today’s economy, they must protect their most profitable, high-growth potential customers and avoid squandering their precious resources. If your sales compensation plan and other policies encourage your staff to misspend their time and your resources on the wrong customers, now is the time to act. If your company is overlooking opportunities to make money and stop profit leakage, this is the book for you!
