Grow or Go: What Should Distributors Do Now to Outperform the Cycle?
In a world of unpredictable demand, supply chain disruption, and shifting trade policies, distributors can no longer afford to “wait it out.” According to McKinsey’s “Grow or Go” article, only one in four companies consistently outperforms across business cycles. The rest either plateau or disappear. How will your organization be one of the top 25% that scales profitably in a storm?
Will you be a Buffalo or a sheep?
The standout performers, if you will, are the buffalo. They don’t rely on luck. They make bold, thoughtful moves, especially when conditions are tough. Organizations that grow through storms have one thing in common: they face storms head-on, write a plan based on data, trends, and competencies, rather than relying on gut, intuition, or “how we have always done things around here.”
Here’s how distributors can grow in uncertain times and economic storms:
- Make Growth a Priority—Not a Hope
Many industrial distributors have historically relied on cost-cutting and operational efficiency to stay afloat during economic downturns. Most leaders of distribution companies have grown through the ranks of operations or finance, so it is not surprising that they often react instinctively to uncertain times. That won’t cut it anymore. The distributors I have worked with have already made significant operational efficiencies. In today’s market, only growth-minded companies stay relevant.
Action Step:
Stop treating growth as a bonus. Make it the core KPI. That means retooling sales strategies, investing in automation or value-added services, and empowering teams to chase new accounts, not just serve existing ones.
- Reallocate Capital Like a Portfolio Manager
You know which branches, product lines, divisions, or regions are stalling—and which ones are poised to grow. You know what salespeople and marketing are delivering the greatest returns today. The best operators don’t hesitate to shift investment, people, and focus to what’s working. They make strategic investments to deliver the most significant returns. If you have underperforming salespeople,e invest in training and coaching or coach them out. If you are not sure is your website is the best salesperson in your company , invest in a digital footprint audit and find out.
Run a net profit by customer and profit analysis. Often referred to as the
“Whale Curve.” This data will help identify the 20% of key customers delivering 80% of your net income, as well as the 20% of your profit-leaking accounts. The customers you lose money on each time you ship them. This data will also give you the insights to implement strategic pricing.
Action Step:
Conduct quarterly business reviews, modeled after investment committees. What is your cost of sales today? What customers represent 80% of your net income? Are they satisfied or are you vulnerable to churn? What products and services need updated pricing based on current costs and market values? Where’s the real ROI? Be willing to phase out legacy SKUs, delay low-value expansions, and double down on high-margin or growing verticals.
- Launch New Offerings Like a Startup
Top industrial performers are building new revenue streams, including private-label products, predictive maintenance services, and even adjacent technologies. They’re not just reacting—they’re innovating. Your customers are facing more new challenges today that can turn into new products and services if you gather the requirements and capture the voice of your customers.
Action Step:
Establish a business-building team within your organization. Please give them a mandate to explore service models (e.g., subscription-based parts supply), product innovations, or expansion into new verticals, such as renewable energy, modular building, or food manufacturing. Equip your team with current customer insights to help them understand and prioritize new offerings based on your company’s top KPIs.
- Upgrade Your Talent Stack—Especially in Commercial and Digital Roles
Distributors have long focused on operational excellence. But in a margin-pressured world, you need elite talent in sales, digital transformation, and customer experience. When I first led sales teams in the 1990s, we traveled with salespeople to understand who was strong and who needed training, coaching, or, in some cases, needed to move to a non-sales role. Unfortunately, with large teams, by the time you gather the insights and write your plan, the data is old.
Today, however, we have tools like a sales effectiveness assessment, which allows us to assess a sales team’s skills, competencies, beliefs, and motivations in just one week and begin acting on the insights the data provides quickly. We can conduct a digital footprint audit to assess the strength of your digital presence compared to your top competitors and gain valuable insights to enhance your website’s ranking and SEO. According to a Gartner study, 76% of buyers today choose to self-serve and avoid engaging with salespeople. As a result, your website must become your top-producing salesperson.
Action Step:
Audit your top 50 roles. Do your managers have digital fluency? Are your sales leaders consultative, not transactional? Do your sales managers and leaders have coaching skills? Do your salespeople have sales skills in key areas like prospecting, discovery, qualifying, selling value, consultative selling and closing skills? Is your marketing driving new revenue? If not, consider recruiting from outside the industry to introduce new perspectives. Prescribe sales training and coaching immediately to help close sales you could be winning today. Align with strong marketing service partners to improve your outcomes like website visits and time on your site. Improve sales from e-commerce and improve your website’s search rank.
- Build a Culture That Can Move Fast—Even If You Build Products Slowly
Factories and supply chains take time to change. Training a sales team that has never received sales skills training is at least eight months, if not a year. But your commercial and strategic responses don’t have to. Agile isn’t just for tech—it’s for survival.
Action Step:
Adopt a fast-cycle strategy, sprints. Every 90 days, reassess your customer pipeline, pricing strategy, customer satisfaction, and channel priorities. Empower teams to test pricing models, delivery options, or market entry tactics quickly and with minimal red tape. Quickly assess your teams ‘skills and prescribe training based on need and impact.
- Know When to Exit the Old to Make Room for the New
Hanging on to outdated product lines, dated value propositions, and underperforming sales processes, or underperforming locations out of habit, can slowly erode your profitability.
Action Step:
Create a “sunset strategy” for products, value propositions, and dated sales processes or markets that no longer align with your growth ambitions. Redeploy that capital to automate high-demand lines, enhance customer portals, conduct voice of customer research, and capture the insights you need to strategically update your sales process and messaging or reduce your dependence on volatile import sources. Market-leading distributors view the current environment as ideal for new acquisitions and have perfected the onboarding process to integrate them quickly.
Final Thought: Lead Like the Cycle Won’t Save You
The next downturn, tariff change, or raw material shortage is always around the corner. The distributors who consistently win are those who act like they’re already in a downturn, even when times are good.
Be bold. Be urgent. Be present.
And don’t just weather the cycle—outperform it.
When your competitors, often sheep, turn their backs or hide, implement knee-jerk cost-cutting, you will make decisive moves to grow in the storm and have strong revenue and profit growth in the storm and when the storm is over.