First and foremost, we here at KYKLO hope you and yours are staying safe during this uncertain time. Over the last weeks, your inbox has been flooded with strategies on how to work from home. But, KYKLO would rather pose a different question: What should you be doing? Our answer is pretty simple . . . put on your work boots, throw on those jeans that you don’t mind getting dirty, and dust off that checkoff list you’ve been meaning to get to for the last (fill in the months or years here). You finally have the time to dust off the honey-do list and fix that leaky faucet in the bathroom. Finally, there is time to go through the closet and see which clothes you could donate. Painting the family room walls might come next. And, now time for all those things that you know you SHOULD be doing. For AHTD distributors, days are filled with meetings of all varieties. Most of us spend hours looking at the world through a windshield, not to mention the other 431 ½ things you juggle. But, let’s step away and contemplate one simple truth . . . We rise to greatness. 1346, the “great plague” which wiped out some 60% of Europe gave birth to the modern era and gave us better wealth distribution, higher wages, stronger focus on medicines, longer lives, and an end to serfdom. 1809, the tin can was invented to help save thousands of soldiers from dying of starvation due to food spoiling. 1918, Influenza wiped out 50 million people but along the way we implemented mass production and increasing our manufacturing efficiency by 43%. WWII, a worrisome mother from Illinois created duct tape for her two sons serving in the Navy. 1962, Americans were so afraid the Soviets would wipe out our telephone and military communications, scientist stated one of the most important needs for the US was a “intergalactic computer network.” Today we call it the internet. 2003, SARs pandemic saw the rise of large eCommerce giants. When things are at their worst, we innovate, we solve, we evolve, we rise. These were just a few of many examples that proven this important point. COVID-19/Coronavirus and the United States The United States has not hit the “peak” of the virus. Hopes are rising summer temperatures will cause the virus may lose power. Looking at Thailand with its perpetual summer and a COVID outbreak, maybe we should not hold our breath. Dozens of articles talk about post-pandemic life and the impact on future life. Tele-medicine, virtual education, changed dietary habit and eCommerce are breakthroughs which keep people safer and provide life changing benefits. History repeats itself; pandemics = social evolution. Kids are logging into classes from home. Governments are passing regulations making it easier for doctors to meet with patients through web applications. And, folks are visiting historical museums around the world from the comfort of their home. Online purchasing is up drastically across the board in nearly every industry. Here’s recent example. The SARs virus impacted just 8,000 people (COVID-19 has hit 2 Million). But the virus expanded online shopping … A LOT. Alibaba (which at that time was strictly B2B) grew 50% during the SARs outbreak and created a spin off company for customer-to-customer (C2C) transactions (Taobao). Did people stop using those platforms after SARs? Just 15 years later, Taobao is the number one C2C platform in the world, surpassing eBay, and Alibaba is only second to Amazon. After pandemics, economies have very strong growth years. Now is the time to prepare yourself for that period. What is on your professional to-do list? No matter what is on your home and work to-do list, it is time to create some priorities. We think eCommerce should be one of those priorities. KYKLO has been helping distributors across the world with their digital journey. Our unique solution, which has an initial launch time of just 30 days, gives you best-in class product content with a B2B platform focusing on three main points: 1) Make it easier for your existing customers to do business with you (better product content, customer specific pricing, B2B specific features). 2) Give your inside/outside sales staff a digital knowledge library and tool that will allow them do business more efficiently, even whether working from home or in the field. 3) Optimize your digital presence for the best possible online visibility. If going digital or enhancing your digital presence is part of your strategy, KYKLO can explain how it works via a short webinar. No matter what the case, stay positive, stay safe, and focus.

The Coronavirus has impacted our daily lives at home and in the workplace. Government and companies are placing severe limitations on our ability to do our jobs. Restrictions tied to meetings have canceled some of our favorite industry events, and reports have come in that even customers are hesitant to have visitors unless there is an emergency. Our typical daily routine of face to face sales calls and after work recreational activities are now all but ceased. But as the old saying goes . . . when life gives you lemons; make lemonade. SMEs can’t just declare a time for selling hiatus. They need to look at how they can put technology to work, how they can adapt, and adapt quickly. While no one expects this virus to last years, it won’t last only a few weeks either and, if people think it will disappear with warm weather check out the situation in a country like Thailand (average daily temperature 90 degrees). Who knows, we might discover a few things that we can implement that will help now, but also provide long term company benefits. Customers are more catchable. While customers might not want to see you face to face, unless there is an emergency, reports coming in from our many distributor friends indicate customers are more accepting of phone calls or webinars right now. Many of them are working from home, which presents some unique challenges that most of us are just starting to discover. While they might have their laptop plugged in and charging while hooked up to the internet, that big collection of catalogs you left them over the years is sitting somewhere else. You can help them by providing product data, pages of the user’s manual and other information. Why not reach out to some of the people you haven’t talked to for a while? For once, just asking how they are doing will get a response. In addition, briefing them on your company’s plans through the rest of the Coronavirus issue makes sense. So too, does a rundown of products you feel might experience delivery issues and shortages is a wise decision. If you anticipate issues with specific products, you can be proactive in either reserving some of your stock for their future needs, expediting orders or helping in the process of converting to some other product. Much can be done via video conferencing. Do you remember when Skype was the newest technology out there that allowed for you to see someone during a meeting from afar? Well Skype is still around but now you have dozens of other choices out there some of which are 100% free. All possess the ability for you to share quick sketches, drawings or a blank screen for sharing PowerPoint slides. This creates a more personal touch and is nearly as easy to use as a phone. Extending this further, what happens if you need to look at a part or machine and visits are in the realm of possibility, think facetime connections which allow your customer to share some of the action even out in the plant or on the shop floor. Put your KYKLO system to work. Did you know that KYKLO’s main purpose is to make it easier for customers to do business with you without needing a face to face interaction? Remember that paragraph above about your customers sitting at home while all those catalogs were sitting at their office, and you needing to send them data sheets? The KYKLO system makes that task as easy as humanly possible, and something customers can do autonomously without your assistance. How about creating a feature section of products, that may experience shortages or deliver issues if this thing drags out, and customers should by NOW? This is the time to ramp up your use of the KYKLO solution. Instead of sending a simple quote with just a catalog number and a 25-character description, send along a content rich link your KYKLO Solution. The customer will see receive product pictures, data and everything they need to verify their order all in one quick click. While customers are more willing to answer the phone, sign them up for an account on your KYKLO solution, take 5 minutes and show them how easy it is to gain all the information that they would need, access past orders, and place new orders. Customers are scrambling, too. How long does it normally take for one of your customer’s orders to be processed through their purchasing department? A day, maybe two. That’s under normal conditions. What happens if you provide quotes online with a link to the order on your KYKLO solution? The customer can avail lost time by simply turning the information into an order. Now more than any other time in the last . . . 50, 60, 100 years, customers are trying to figure out how to use technology too in order to make life easier. Before it was a convenience, an “amazon like experience”, now it is a pandemic fueled necessity. Tough times? You bet. Every company big and small is feeling the impacts of the Coronavirus. We are going through this thing together and are happy to help in any way possible. If you have questions or need help, give us a call or shoot us an email. We hope that everyone stays healthy and stays as positive as possible.

Champion has a lot of connotations. George Foreman, before he started hawking grills on TV, was the Boxing Heavy Weight Champion of the World. The Kansas City Chiefs are the reigning Champions of the National Football League. On a lesser note, the late great, “Pretty Boy” Bobby AKA Bobby “The Brain” Heenan ruled the realm of the World Wrestling Federation. All were Champions; but this is a different type of champion. BusinessDictionary.com defines our kind of champion this way: “Champion: Person who voluntarily takes extraordinary interest in the adoption, implementation, and success of a cause, policy, program, project, or product. He or she will typically try to force the idea through entrenched internal resistance to change and will evangelize it throughout the organization. Also called change advocate, change agent, or idea champion.” In our world, web presence needs a champion; someone to steer your company. While a KYKLO system requires very little work to get started, maximum success requires changes in behavior and new ways of thinking. The champion serves the organization by serving as the change agent; monitoring use, serving as a temporary trainer and coach. Further, champions look for and remove the small glitches that stand between good and great. They evangelize by spreading the word on early successes and occasionally quashing internal resistance. Most importantly, champions keep your internal goals on target so that way you, as a Principal, can get your questions answered rather than have blank stares coming back at you. While it is possible to be successful without a champion, results come quicker under their guidance. Once unthought-of financial or efficiency goals come streaming your way long before expected and you capture more sales dollars from your competitors. Simply stated, the KYKLO Sales Operation Management System can be thought of as a tool and the champion as the internal expert on this powerful tool. Would you send a salesperson on their way to use a tool without training, scripting or even some coaching on how to set up the demo? Of course not! The same holds true with using the KYKLO system. We’ve taken a few minutes to outline some of the things your KYKLO Champion might have on their to-do list below. If you are thinking about appointing or maybe even being the champion of this tool of the future, we suggest you give it a read. KYKLO Champion Responsibilities Familiarization and Training Is your team familiar with the power of the KYKLO tool? While this seems relatively straight forward, the truth is busy sellers rarely take time to familiarize themselves with tools until a need arises. Without training, the tool may languish for months. Here are a few points tied to the training. KYKLO SOM accessibility: Do your outside and insides sales teams know where to find the KYKLO SOM from your website? Can they quickly call it up from the home page? Can they find both common and “long tail” products? Customer access is important: Can sellers quickly determine if a customer has accessed the KYKLO SOM in the past? Do they know what is required to get the customer onto the system? Quote drive web activity: Do your people know the importance and value of creating a quote using the KYKLO SOM and pushing that information out to the customer? Mobile device bookmarks: Outside salespeople need to bookmark the site on their mobile devices. Once online, do they know how to use the product comparisons to show product differences? How about the digital product selectors? Track employee progress Set and publish metrics to ensure your team is properly introducing customers to the system. Track the number of: Times salespeople have helped a customer register for the KYKLO SOM Customers who have logged into the KYKLO SOM Quotes generated for customers on the system E-mail/SMS correspondence containing links to specific products on the KYKLO SOM General Periodic Reviews It’s natural to occasionally take a quick look at sales tools to make sure they are up to date and properly configured for the current selling environment. The KYKLO tool is no different: New product lines: Have you notified KYKLO in order to have them added to your site? KYKLO SOM product line placement: The system allows you to change-up the order of brands that are shown on the front page. Product promotions or specials: Have these been properly added to the system? Both are business drivers and will increase awareness. Obsoletions/dropped lines: Have you notified KYKLO about lines that you are no longer carrying? Better yet does your champion know how to go in and take them off the KYKLO SOM themselves? Review analytics Analytics plays a key role in driving success. There are many points to consider. For example: What products are your customers reviewing? Are there products with high numbers of views which have not been purchased? What is the conversion rate of “generic/unknown buyers” who are registering with your KYKLO SOM? Monitor results Everyone imagines the results are measured purely in sales dollars, but experience dictates there are many more points to monitor. Here is a list along with a few suggestions on how to turn these into additional sales. Have new customers managed to find their way to you via your web presence? If so, these customers need to be evaluated. Are they the right size and type for a salesperson to be assigned to their account? Are existing customers buying or reviewing products they typically have not purchased through your “normal” sales activities? This information needs to be passed along to the salesperson responsible for the account. A small buy online may be an indication of a new project or a new machine being developed which could require selling/support work. Which customers or customer types seem to be embracing the use of your KYKLO SOM and what are they buying? Understanding who these customers are would be a good exercise in “why they buy.” The information provided by the customer will improve your sales processes both online and through the traditional channel. What percent of “generic customers” are going to your KYKLO solution and not registering? What is the plan to attract those customers to register so you can go after that business or capture more data to analyze? If you don’t have a Champion The biggest recommendation is simple, make sure that if you are at the top of the food chain in your organization, you aren’t the Champion. Our guess is that we are lucky if you’ve had the free time to read this article let alone be the champion of an internal transformation. These activities are neither time consuming nor difficult, but someone must assume the role beyond the Principal (Owner, CEO, President, Executive). It needs to be someone who has the time available in their day to do the small things that in the long run will add up to something big. Most importantly, as a Principal you should make sure that the concept of being Champion is seen as a positive, a reward, a chance to make a major impact, a potential to gain skills and experiences which will be valued internally for a long period of time. Our friend and master of the mustache, Frank Hurtte, at River Heights Consulting suggests the best Champion does not come from the IT or Marketing world, but rather from sales. He goes on to say: “Someone from your sales team is positioned to provide the best of results. This person needs clout with the both inside and outside sales staff to drive behaviors and set and enforce policies. This isn’t a job for a new hire with no experience.” If you are the Champion, we are here to help you drive results. If you are thinking about appointing a Champion but are having difficulties, give us a call we can help.

Allow us to be about the hundredth person to welcome you to the New Year, 2020. Instead of an idle greeting, let’s take just three minutes for serious rumination. January is a time for thoughtful contemplation, planning and perhaps a resolution or two. Most are led to the practice on a personal basis; mindful of exercise, quality time with family, personal development and the dreaded diet plan. Forward-thinking distributors make the time to apply similar contemplation to their business lives. Rather than dwell on minutia, the vanguard of our industry avoids the tactical and instead focus on strategic. Their thoughts zero in on seven big picture questions. In 2020 how will w Make it easier for customers to do business? Create more value for our customers? Forge a situation where it’s hard for customers to quit doing business with us? Provide a better partnership with our supply-partners? Build a competitive advantage over other people in the market? Make our business more efficient? Create more profitable growth? Find ways to make even small steps to answer these questions and your business will grow and prosper. We feel distributor digitalization plays an important role in each of these topics. Let’s take a look. Easier to do business  - The obvious is, orders can be placed anytime, but digitalization does more. Consider the ability to check stock, compare products and easily access the technical specifications. If you can provide a world-class experience, your company will fill the need. More value for customers  – Streamlining internal order flow, pricing exercises and other administrative tasks free your team to create real customer value of the problem-solving variety. Harder for customers to quit  – Setting up customized online catalogs and “customer-specific” product standards improves your customer’s maintenance and spare parts inventory situation. Combine this with embedding your company into the customer’s processes and the cost of leaving becomes too high to consider a competitor. A better partner for Supply-partners  – First, a quality webstore attracts new customers. Further, the webstore allows the distributor to better serve smaller customers; especially those whose volume doesn’t justify a traditional salesperson. Both activities increase market share which is an important part of the distributor/supplier partnership. Secondly, coordinated digital selling activities drive more effective new product launches. Imagine the power of a new product launch where the product was announced to the trade press and appeared on the websites of premier distributors across the country on the same date, as compared to a six-month-long dribble of effort with no coordination. Competitive advantage  – Many distributors feel a move to digitalize their business provides little or no competitive advantage in a market where everyone has a webstore. The competitive advantage comes not in just posting a webstore but in how the site is adopted. Good distributors use digitalized information to improve the professionalism of quotations, project greater expertise via smart selectors and to capture “add-on” sales of auxiliary products. Best in class distributors monitor analytics derived from customer product searches and comparisons to identify product trends and specific customer interests. Build efficiency in the business  - Quotes generated better and faster, repeat orders entered automatically by the customer and product selections done quickly online each improve the productivity of inside sales and technical staff. Extending further, smaller customers can be channeled exclusively to the web-presence eliminating human interaction for all but a few well-thought-out instances. This both improves efficiency and allows better use of the human assets of the business. Profitable growth  – Digitalization interacts and improves other processes within a distributor’s business. Implementing a digitalized system calls for review of pricing procedures, segmentation of customers, ranking of supply partners, marketing strategies and a plethora of other processes sometimes ignored by distributors. Improved process results in greater profitability. Tell us what you think  here.

Most of you don’t realize this, but KYKLO and Santa Claus have a special relationship. Yep, the Red Suited Jolly One is our pal. We aren’t at liberty to go into all the details, but Santa probably leads up one of the most unique distribution businesses on the planet. Everyone realizes Santa’s delivery dilemma with packages millions of kids all required within a 24-hour period but think about the kids. Santa discovered today’s little ones are computer savvy. For instance, Little Johnny (age 5) of Buffalo New York, has been watching his parents shop online since he learned to walk. By age three, he was browsing for toys on one of the big retail sites. For the past couple of years, his dad would print out the shopping cart and forward it to the North Pole along with Johnny’s hand-written note. Santa and his elves were looking for a better solution. Because the KYKLO team wants to stay firmly planted on the “Nice” list, we decided to help our friends up at the North Pole. The rest is history, Santa loves us, Mrs. Claus thinks we’re swell and all the elves transposing those letters written in red crayon adore us. They say, “Who you know is every bit as important as what you know.” When Santa owes you a favor, magic happens. Here’s the story. As part of our ongoing market research, we asked Santa what distributors were putting on their Christmas List. After some of Santa’s belly shaking Ho Ho Ho’s, a round of nose twitching and some beard scratching, Mr. Claus provided a thought-provoking answer: “Rather than asking Santa for something selfish - like a nice vacation, a cool car or even a shinny vintage Fender P-bass, they’re thinking of others. We have big stacks of letters asking for better customer experience on their online stores. Some even included a copy of this post on the Digital Commerce360 website. (Reaching into his big red sack and slipping on his peepers, Santa read this word for word.) B2B sellers need to up their game and do a better job of building and growing e-commerce sites that business buyers find truly engaging and useful—only 7% of corporate buyers rate the e-commerce sites they use as excellent. Mark Brohan – Dec 3, 2019. Apparently, they want their customers to have an excellent experience.”   Feeling just a little sheepish, we asked the Jolly One to elaborate on what he thought made an excellent experience. Peppering the talk with merry, and might we say belly shaking laughter, Santa took a sip of his ever-present hot chocolate and started rambling. We did our best to translate some of the North Pole jargon… Kids looking for presents want all the details, your customers do too. The children we deal with don’t just want a doll or a game, they want something special, something specific. It’s their Christmas present, and being little, they can’t remember the exact trade name. For example, there are 2,700 different models of the Barbie and 1,367 different Star Wars characters. The kids want to check out every single detail from height to accessories. Distributor customers want and need what you folks at KYKLO call product content. Specifications, characteristics, compatibility information and pictures. Everybody wants pictures. The better the quality and the more the better. What’s the differences between a HO and Lionel O Gauge electric train? Product comparisons rock…   Imagine you’re a budding 7-year old railroad engineer and you are carefully selecting the electric train that will show up under the Christmas Tree. Realizing even Santa is operating on a tight budget, the youngster is carefully analyzing the situation to get the biggest bang, or should I say locomotive, for the buck. Comparisons are fundamental in selecting just the right present. And, at least in Santa’s mind, they are critical in your customer selecting just the right product for their application. The attention span of a 5-year old is probably longer than your customer’s span   According to research conducted by Google (which controls 90+ percent of all searches), “The average time it takes to fully load the average mobile landing page is 22 seconds. However, research also indicates 53% of people will leave a mobile page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.” If it takes a long time to search products on your website, things aren’t going to go well. Kid’s don’t want to wait till they are a grownup before the North Pole webstore flips up the next search. Bedtimes, dinner, and chores create a sense of urgency. Distributor customers have a different batch of urgencies but Ol’ Santa thinks you better have quick responses. Analytics are important at the North Pole, and they should be to you. Think about this: Kids start thinking about toys sometime right after schools starts. We see an uptick in traffic to our website every year around September 15th. The elves are “pretty magical,” but even Santa has to do a little planning. Using the system, we can start tracking interest in new toys and even understand when we might get a last-minute decision on some new item. From Santa’s perspective, a distributor should be able to spot trends in product searches, identify what existing customers are exploring and review the products which attract new customers. The easier this is to accomplish, the better. And, as a reminder, don’t forget to check your analytics, Santa suspects not reviewing important data will get you onto the Naughty list for next year. Everybody knows how to find Santa, but can they find your products?   There’s something to be said about being around for over a thousand years. Everybody knows Santa is located at the North Pole. Most know how to find Santa’s webstore at SantasNorthPole.com without a hitch. But, trust this Jolly Old Elf, we’ve spent a bundle getting up there on the Google listing. For my distributor friends, it’s not that easy. Customers and potential new customers have to find you and locate your products. That’s where Google comes in handy. But the internet is crowded. A webstore not optimized for Google and other search engines will disappoint you more than the proverbial stocking full of coal. Santa’s Sound Advice for Distributors   Santa believes KYKLO is the perfect answer to the distributor’s Christmas wish. If he and his elves weren’t so darned busy, Santa’s sleigh would probably be parked out in your driveway. Finally, again quoting Santa Claus, “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Best Wishes from all of us up at the North Pole and the folks at KYKLO, too.” Tell us what you think  here.

Supplier salespeople can steer business your way. It’s a fact, our suppliers come in contact with customers, potential customers, and prospects every day. In a millisecond these people decide if they are going to push business your way or towards someone down the street. When they bring you an opportunity, it’s like free business. There are many strategies to endear your business to your supplier sales reps; things like joint calls, planning sessions, focused activities, and communications are often touted by the experts. However, once armed with the KYKLO system, you have the tools to make their lives simpler and their work more effective. At the end of the day, creating an environment that overflows with the simpler, easier and better are sure-fire winners. And… the combination is a great differentiator for your business. You can provide the supply-partner salesperson with important tools. Imagine equipping your supplier rep with the tools to do side by side comparisons of several of their products from a mobile device. Continuing further, what if the side-by-side comparison featured full technical data along with pictures of the products? Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it. Now let’s add the feature of determining which of the product are in stock locally. Instant information could equal an instant sale. If this digital solution happens to be yours, it’s a thing of beauty. Most distributors don’t take the time to “turn their supply-partners on” to their digital solution. You can and you should. We recommend you create an account for supply-partner salespeople with full capabilities; with prices set at list. But, don’t make the same mistake as the dead poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “ Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” You will need to demonstrate and teach the use of the KYKLO system to your sales partners. Reinforce the system isn’t private and designed exclusively for customers. Stress your willingness to simply cancel out any orders they inadvertently place as they show your mutual customers information on the site. Using tools builds awareness, so show them how your sales team puts the tool to work. Open the door to advanced analytics how your manufacturing partner sales teams how finding their product brings customers to your site. Explain how search results are posted – with paid posts (marked AD) and then natural results. Many aren’t internet experts, so a demonstration always works best. Share the analytical data harvested through your KYKLO solution. When properly evaluated, the information gained here tells more about customer trends than other localized resources. Here are a few of the items you might share: Which product searches find their way to your website? What catalog number is the most popularly viewed item? What information did the customer peruse while visiting your online branch? Connecting the dots, this information tells the supply-partner and your organization which products customers are naturally interested in finding. It also provides insight into how well new products have been received and whether some unknown variable is influencing customer interest. Data like this allows for better plans with targeting new product launches and individualized sales calls. Before we go When a Supplier salesperson drives a customer to your website, it reinforces your partnership. The customer hears this message, “We work as a team. The combination of global presence and local support is a powerful mixture.” When distributors and their partners work in unison, amazing things can happen! Tell us what you think  here.

Imagine the KYKLO story as an award winning movie. Some might describe the plot as “customer finds a website, customer loves information, customer buys products.” While in the simplest terms all this is true, there’s a whole lot more going on. The web shop gets lots of attention, but KYKLO is designed to be much more. KYKLO is a critical distributor sales tool. Product Specialists are an important part of the distributor sales equation. The NAW book, The Distributor Specialist: Customer Champion, Profit Generator, outlines the value a specialist brings to organizations. By focusing sales efforts in a segmented slice of the distributor’s business, they move the business forward through all aspects of the sales process. Being part of the sales process, KYKLO becomes another tool in the specialist’s work chest. Let’s look at three examples: Speed of insides sales and customer support responses to customer questions is viewed as a critical measure of the service level provided for customers. Assisting in the selection of a wide range of technologies and thousands of permutations of these products often requires years of experience. It’s not uncommon for customers to be disconnected and passed on to the specialist. The result is lost time and sometimes lost opportunities. A specialist investing time to train inside sales on keyword searches within the KYKLO system amplifies the inside sales group’s customer-facing product expertise. And, once the product is identified complete information can be emailed to the customer for future reference. Customers often judge a company’s quotation by the content provided. Sadly, many organizations still send out proposals with a supplier catalog number and little differentiating data. What’s missing? Descriptions, product data, and technical specifications top the list of deficiencies. Customers considering a couple of options are especially soured by these ERP system proposals. A simple solution comes with the insertion of a link to the product on the KYKLO system as a standard for inside sales. Specialists assist by encouraging the practice with both inside and outside salespersons. As stated earlier, specialists strive to maximize the growth of their lines. This includes some of the ancillary products tied to their main products. This concept of “add-on” selling has been rattled around distributor circles for years and using KYKLO’s suggested product tool has the potential to further expand businesses. Scott Reid, Sick Specialist for Norwood MA based Gibson Engineering, made this comment: “Nearly all of the sensors provided by Sick use some kind of reflector, mounting bracket, adapter or cable. Customers often forget to pick one and spend hours modifying something else to do the job. And, while our customer service team tries to remind them to buy, many customers just can’t visualize why they need them. Gibson’s webstore does a really good job of suggesting all the options, including these axillary products. Pushing out links to the customer moves us one step closer to capturing all the business.” Moving away from some of these more straight forward examples, specialists and their management can use KYKLO’s integration with Google Analytics to better focus selling efforts in the future. The tools allows the user to check on which products customers search for whether they buy online or through traditional means. Using Scott’s Sick product line, here’s how this might work. Review of customer searches reveals a high percentage of customers are not only interested in SICK industrial sensor but also in one of their safety lasers. Armed with this information, salespeople might be trained to “blitz” their territory with probing questions and conversations tied to the laser system. Sales volume increases whether through the webstore or traditional purchase methods. Everybody wins. These are just a few of the best practices available when the entirety of the KYKLO system is put to work for your company. The first KYKLO user’s group meeting scheduled at AHTD in Orlando will be a great forum for learning about still more progressive ways to apply digitalization in your business. Tell us what you think  here.

We didn’t get the calendar mixed up. And, no it’s not the launch of a New Year on the Mayan Calendar or even the Thai Calendar. But this month marks a New Year milestone for those of us at KYKLO. It was just twelve months ago that KYKO signed our very first client in North America. Our first real entry into the North American market involved a trip to the Association for High Technology Distribution (AHTD) Spring (2018) Meeting in California. We met many kindred spirits, shared our mutual visions and left with the feeling North American automation distributors were some really cool folks. We scheduled lots of web-based follow-up meetings. We accepted several invitations to cross country to visit the management teams of a half dozen or so companies. Then about one year ago today, it happened. KYKLO signed their very first North American Distributor. We should have celebrated, but things were screaming down the road like a fast Ferrari. This seemingly insignificant milestone for others was a major deal for us. We thought the American market would be a good match. We hoped we were right, but as we hear Americans say, “The proof is in the pudding.” We’re happy to report the pudding has turned out pretty good. Since that first signing twenty other AHTD members have selected KYKLO and many more are on the verge of signing. Here are a couple of comments from early adopters. “KYKLO brought me a product that not only changed my life but it salvaged a money sucking project of creating our company webstore. After a few years of working on requesting content and designing our webstore, I was introduced to KYKLO and the product they offered. After spending less than an hour with Matthieu and Ryan I knew this investment was going to be a no brainer.” Laura Bruce, Operations Manager, Powermatic Associates. “The KYKLO team, and we have worked with seven or eight of them, is full of helpful, bright and technically knowledgeable people. From the beginning, they answered our questions, told us exactly what they could do as well as what they could not do. We set a timeline and I’m proud to say we’ve met that timeline 100 percent.” Neil Montgomery, President, Davis Controls. Now more than ever, we have what distributors need to be effective. There are over a million SKUs in our product library and more coming each week. Under the heading of other cool news, we recently sent out a press release with this title: KYKLO NAMED A “COOL VENDOR” BY GARTNER Leading Analyst Firm Selects Innovative Companies in the Digital Commerce. If you missed our press release, shoot us an email. We’ll forward a copy of the press release your way. All told, we like the recognition, but nothing compares with the friendships we have created with the many distributors who have selected us as their digitalization platform. THANK YOU! Tell us what you think  here.

Davis Controls selected KYKLO as our partner in moving toward distributor digitalization. I thought it appropriate to share my thoughts, impressions and ultimately my appreciation of their work. I originally met the KYKLO Founders during a brief encounter at the Association for High Technology Distribution (AHTD) Spring Meeting in 2018. It wasn’t until the Fall Meeting that I decided to spend 30 minutes with them during one of the breaks. The meeting set my wheels in motion. Shortly after the meeting, Davis Controls signed a contract with KYKLO. Here’s why. I know the current and certainly the next generation of engineers and other customers shop online. They don’t expect to have to go to a brick and mortar store to get what they need. With a click of a button, they’re able to get not just generally what they need, but precisely what they need. If they can do it in the B2C space, I know we will do it in the B2B space. This generation of up-and-comers are beyond launching their careers. They have worked their way into important roles. They are making buying decisions every day. If we aren’t visible in their space, Davis Controls will miss out. We are all looking for ways to improve our business, increase revenues and ultimately strengthen our bottom lines. Davis Controls, like most in our industry, has tried a lot of things, but they’re not different things. This is key. Large electrical wholesalers have been experimenting with webstores for quite a while, spending millions in the process. Some have produced cool web presences; others missed the mark. Davis Controls needed to not only catch up, we needed to do it better. If we didn’t, we might lose traction and possibly customers. KYKLO appeared to have exactly what we needed to do all these things; and quickly. KYKLO provides more than just a webstore. They provide a turnkey system with product content, search engine optimization and all the customization a person would ever need. They work fast and they have put together several tools to accelerate collaboration with clients. Within three months, KYKLO helped us create a brand-new web site. It was done with both on-site meetings and webinars with their team in Paris and Bangkok. They happily accommodated our schedule in Canada with meetings first thing in the morning for us - around midnight for them. The KYKLO team, and we have worked with seven or eight of them, is full of helpful, bright and technically knowledgeable people. From the beginning, they answered our questions, told us exactly what they could do as well as what they could not do. We set a timeline and I’m proud to say we’ve met that timeline 100 percent. Throughout out dealings with KYKLO, I have made many pleasant discoveries. KYKLO provides us with complete control over the products displayed to customers. Our industry is full of supplier overlaps. Sometimes these are the source of conflict. While KYKLO’s extensive library of catalog items (SKUs) is all encompassing, the distributor can select which products are displayed via the webstore. This allows you to show only the items you want to sell and support. KYKLO can create literally thousands of new product SKUs every week. We had a couple of product lines which are not common with other distributors in our industry and KYKLO agreed to add them. The products are now in place and we have a special collaboration tool which allows us to change priorities for product lines and track the progress in their creation. To date, every commitment has been met like clockwork. Since we do business across Canada, this means we need our website and webstore in both English and French. KYKLO’s ability to provide content in multiple languages really proved valuable. While we had to fine tune a few of the words from Parisian French to Canadian French, the swift conversion was smooth and our site offers up its content to Canadians from coast to coast. Low hanging fruit was the most pleasant surprise. KYKLO’s search engine work is exceptional. They really move you forward on the internet search list. Customers and potential customers find us; and we find them. Each time someone we don’t know comes to our site, a new sales lead is created; whether they make a purchase at that time or not. This must be part of every small distributor’s plan. If you are a small automation or related product distributor, I would heartily recommend investing a few minutes with the KYKLO team. What you learn could forever change the direction of your business. Neil Montgomery President Davis Controls Ltd. Tell us what you think  here.

KYKLO NAMED A 2019 “COOL VENDOR” IN DIGITAL COMMERCE BY GARTNER Vendors Selected for the Cool Vendor Report Are Interesting, New and Innovative Bangkok, Thailand and New York City, New York June 5, 2019 KYKLO The distributor-focused ecommerce and content provider, today announced that it has been named a “Cool Vendor” based on the May 17, 2019 report titled,  Cool Vendors in Digital Commerce  by  Gartner, Inc. The report evaluates “interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services” in the digital commerce market. Gartner’s report points out, “Digital commerce is a key component of any digital business strategy and transformation. Application leaders, especially those working for B2B companies, should evaluate these emerging vendors that offer innovative ways to enable customization, optimization and flexibility.” The report’s key findings include:   “Because the digital commerce sector is competitive and highly transparent, vendors must be able to launch new digital business models, or evolve existing digital business, rapidly and effectively or risk losing relevance to the competition. The three biggest challenges in launching a digital commerce site — including B2B implementations — are integration to other systems, lack of internal resources and implementation costs.”   “We think it is a fabulous to be named a Gartner ‘Cool Vendor,’” said Remi Ducrocq, CEO and Co-Founder of KYKLO. “Since day one, KYKLO’s vision has been to provide our customers with the easiest, fastest and most cost effective path to ecommerce and distributor digitalization.  After launching in Asia, we were pretty sure our service was world-class and would appeal to distributors everywhere.  The reception we’ve had in North America has been amazing.  As far as the “Cool” part, we always thought our company was cool.  We tried to build a cool culture, but everybody says that.  Our whole team feels like we are empowering our clients and preparing them for the long range future in ecommerce.  We are both pleased and honored to have a research and advisory company with the insight of Gartner include us as a Cool Vendor.” According to the report, “Digital commerce is a critical component of many organizations seeking to increase profits, improve customer experience, and develop long-lasting relationships with customers. Vendors are upping their game in response to the accelerated growth in the B2B digital commerce space. This is the driving force behind the unifying theme of our selection of companies in this Cool Vendors list: rapid and flexible implementations and adaptations that are designed to optimize time to market, customization and customer experience.”   Gartner, Cool Vendors in Digital Commerce . Subscribers may access the report  here. Disclaimer: The GARTNER COOL VENDOR badge is a trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates, and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. About KYKLO  KYKLO was founded in 2015 by Remi Ducrocq and Fabien Legouic who were both employed by Schneider Electric in Thailand.  Recognizing the issues facing distributors, resellers and others on the customer facing side of the industrial and electrical market, they launched KYKLO Sales Operation Management – a product designed to allow this important sector of the industry to move online. After enthusiastic reception throughout Asia, the company launched a North American initiative in Spring 2018.  Within a year, KYKLO has captured a significant and growing place serving independent distributors in the automation, electrical, industrial and fluid power wholesaling business. Headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand, KYKLO serves the North American Market from New York City and Buffalo, New York. For more information, please visit  http://www.kyklo-usa.com Media Contact:  sales@kyklo-usa.com

January’s gone and 2019 seems to be racing forward… New Year’s resolutions seem to come and go but there is still plenty of time to evaluate that list of goals. Are your goals important to your business’ long term profitability and growth? Are they strategic or just a litany of miscellaneous stuff you would do anyway? Do they include digitalization?  The right goals set direction, focus your actions toward the most important tasks and generally allow you to achieve more with less effort. If you are reading this, growing and developing online sales are important to you. But, for some reason many of the self-proclaimed experts in the field of B2B ecommerce feel the need to lace their advice with hard to understand technical “gobbledy-gook” and their examples of mega companies with dedicated teams of IT guys focused on their business don’t ring any bells for guys like you. KYKLO takes a uniquely different; a distributor friendly approach.    Here are three practical ideas for distributors to measure improvement and drive growth in their business. We’ll call them Key Performance Indicators, KPIs for short. And keeping with our jargon free philosophy: A KPI is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives. Use these and you will move toward you goal.  KPI One:  Quotation Response Time   Distribution experts tell us, the chance of closing a sale improves with the speed of response time. Providing a near instantaneous quote generates more business than a quote sometime next week. This KPI will demonstrate your team’s commitment to fast and efficient customer service. Customers will respond with more orders; pretty simple.   KPI Two:  Numbers of Customers using the Web-shop   In the distribution world, customer are the life source of the business. You have worked hard to earn their business and, more importantly, their trust.  Put past efforts to good use. Publicize your webshop, let customers know they have a choice, and ask/encourage them to place an order on your website. Only after existing customers are comfortable placing orders through the web-shop will you reap the rewards of the Digital Era. Improved efficiency, increased customer satisfaction, more visibility in the market and expanding sales will follow.  KPI Three:  Sales Offline VS. Online    Sales are part we love to talk about. Nearly every distributor measures Sales and Gross Margin. By measuring the online sales dollars versus traditional sales, the distributor can measure the adoption rate of the ecommerce store. Obviously, the higher the percentage going via ecommerce, the better. Set a goal and work your plan to drive the number forward.  These three easy to measure but important KPIs are a practical indicator of how your organizations ecommerce shop is performing and will steer your business through its digital journey.  Tell us what you think  here.

Make no mistake, customers are thinking and behaving differently today than just a couple years ago. When I was a rookie sales guy, the primary source of product information for my customers was their favorite salesperson. Introducing customers to new products, providing catalogs for additional product data searches and demonstrations of new features (and benefits) of existing products was job one. Early on, I discovered the salesperson who provided the best and most valuable information held a position of grace and favor. Once I worked my way into the favored spot, I became the trusted “human search engine” used to find solutions and new products. Here’s how it went. The customer described their problem, I took notes, drew pictures and scurried off to research a list of possible solutions. A week or two later, I returned with a few catalog data sheets, a dozen or so pictures and we refined the “search” and the process was repeated. Today , our friends at Google provide the same service only quicker and better. The customer determines their problem and they can search the globe for potential solutions in a matter of milliseconds. If they don’t like the information served up, they simply refine their search. Instead of a few catalog sheets, they can review information, read feedback from other customers and find detailed video clips of the potential trouble spots of the application. Are salespeople still needed? You bet. But salespeople are now needed in a different capacity, meaning less frequently and no longer tied to product centric solutions. Google Search Numbers tell the Story While much of this information has been rattling around in my mind for the past few years, only recently did I come to the realization of the depth and breadth of the situation. Recently, I had the opportunity to sit with an expert on Google and the back-side resources available. Using the data provided via Google Ads, formerly known as AdWords, the advertising component of Google, we did a search for automation related words searched by Google users; our customers. Entering some of the most commonly used terms by automation professionals, buzz words like PLC, VFD, Servo Drive, Proximity Sensor and a dozen more, we discovered there were 12,000+ searches per day: just in the State of Ohio! That’s a whole lot of searching going on every day (in one state). Google doesn’t take weekends, holidays or vacation time, so the numbers on a business day are probably higher. Thinking more, it seems like way more product information than could possibly be provided by every sales guy living there in a day; even if they were driving company helicopters. There is a Selling Information Gap Let’s do a little analysis and toss out a few numbers. Based on my knowledge of the market, I would conservatively (over) estimate, there are 400 salespeople working in automation in Ohio. The typical salesperson averages three calls per day (another over estimate). Doing the math, there are 1,200 opportunities for a “real-live salesperson” to provide information to customers. This means less than 10 percent of the information provided to customers comes via the traditional method. The other 90 percent is handled via Google searches over the internet. What are our Customers doing Online? Since we are all grown-up sales types here, let’s toss out a few ideas as to what these folks in Ohio (or any other state) might be doing. 1. Collecting automation product pictures - While there are people who collect pictures of well-designed cars, beautiful boats and cutting edge aircraft as a hobby, we can mostly rule out the collection of shiny automation eye candy. 2. Researching our industry as a potential career path - It is conceivable there may be a few youngsters looking at automation as a potential target of their life’s work. Robotics (which wasn’t one of the search words used) draws a lot of attention, so there may have been a few teens involved in things like the FIRST Robotics Competition. Robots are cool, but one can only wonder about VFDs. 3. Some Purchasing Agent searching for bargain basement prices – Yeah, it happens. Their search for low prices to use against value providing suppliers is never ending. 4. Existing customers searching for installation procedures – A lot of manufacturer’s have discontinued the practice of putting installation and data sheets in the box with their products. So a few people may be double checking their installation procedures. 5. Existing customers researching new products – These people buy from your company on a regular basis and often turn to salespeople for product information, but they are busy. Distributor websites typically do not carry good product information. Instead, the websites include links to major suppliers and once on the supplier’s site, a whole new set of searches must be completed. The customer sees this as a waste of time so they “Google” the information on their own. This by-passes the distributor completely. 6. Potential customers researching products – The story is pretty much the same as in the description above, except you don’t know these people. What’s worse, they don’t know you. What happens next? The “what happens next” part seems to be the million-dollar question. Reviewing the list, one might surmise distributors benefiting from numbers 4-6 on the list above. For example, in number four (4) above, an existing customer searching for installation data may discover the need for a mounting bracket and, since the cost is minimal, simply place the order. Pushing the envelope further, in number five (5) an existing customer researching a new product will no doubt be exposed to other suppliers. What happens if they see and like something you don’t carry? Not a happy ending. Potential customers discovering you as a supplier is a topic unto itself. While I sincerely doubt the average knowledge-based, solution focused distributor will double their size in the next five years based on this kind of business, new customers are hard to find. Distributors constantly complain their salespeople aren’t prospecting enough (or prospecting at all). But, new customers are important. E-commerce is more than just throwing catalog numbers into a web-store In E-commerce, content is king. To be successful, a distributor needs more than just content. Quality is key! A catalog number with a 25 character description, in down home, Iowa vernacular, “ain’t gonna cut it.” Sadly, the first attempts at distributor webstores where just that – catalog numbers with highly abbreviated descriptions. For the most part, manufacturers are not in a position to help much. Quality content comes with a price. We have had conversations with distributors in this narrow segment (Automation) who have already invested a half-million bucks on content. A few report spending even more. The cost issue alone puts it outside the realm of most organizations. Further, the cost is never ending. Each year our supply partners introduce new products, creating the need for new content. The same holds true for revisions to existing products. So the investment in content requires continual re-investment. There’s even more to the picture. Ralph Waldo Emerson reportedly said, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” Ralph was a poet: however, not a business man. You might build the coolest content on the planet but customers have to find you. Further, the site has to compare with the global giants (Amazon, Grainger and others) in speed, ease of use and general customer experience to be credible. A new model is emerging While this isn’t a commercial for a particular company, I would like to use a client of mine as an example. KYKLO is a global company based in Thailand. Their business model is a subscription service that gets distributors high quality content, SEO optimization and a world class webstore. Distributors who sign up with them pay a flat fee and their customized cloud-based webstore integrates with both the distributor’s website and ERP system. Why I like the model • The cost of content and maintaining the content is spread over the whole of KYKLO’s subscriber base. This lowers the cost for each participating distributor. • The subscription price means it’s not a sunk cost. Invest 250,000 dollars on a specially designed website and you are stuck with the cost regardless of what new innovation takes place on the web. Innovation is a never ending thing. • The temptation to not maintain your website during times of economic downturn is removed. Remember earlier comments on the need for constant maintenance? I believe you need better technologies during recessions. Further, distributors have the tendency to think of internet based expenses as a one-time deal. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of five year old distributor websites. These websites were outstanding when new. Fast forward to today-- they are beyond obsolete. • KYKLO must develop and refine their service each year or the distributor can simply pull the plug and move to something else. Further, the CEO of the company readily admits, they will face competition in the future. Competition is good for users of services like these. In my mind, for automation distributors, this is the single best opportunity for distributors in the automation and electrical space. I suspect similar models will develop in the fluid power, power transmission, industrial supplies and other lines of trade. Perhaps it will be KYKLO pushing in a lateral direction or maybe it will be some other group of young entrepreneurs. But, today in automation KYKLO is the leader. To read the original article, please refer to:  Here