There’s a sea change in the way distributors are resetting, rebuilding and refocusing their teams three quarters through the toughest year most companies have faced. Join us for the September edition of MDM LIVE as we discuss innovative ways distribution leaders are creating new value propositions for their customers and carving out stronger competitive differentiation for 2021. Tom Gale and Mike Marks will kick off the program to share what they are hearing from a wide range of distribution sectors, and will also talk with Scott Bebenek, Vice President of industrial buying group IBC.

A lot of summer travel plans have changed, so we're taking MDM LIVE to Germany (virtually) this Friday to talk with Max Meister, CEO of power transmission distributor Ludwig Meister. A winner of MDM's 2019 Digital Innovation Award, Ludwig Meister, a third-generation, $120 million distributor, has been on a multi-year digital transformation journey. MDM CEO Tom Gale and Mike Marks, principal of Indian River Consulting Group, will also share the best ideas they have learned over 4+ years on how to transition the selling process in 2020. In the last 30 minutes, they will cover strategy, inside/outside sales teams, technology support and comp plans. This is the year to transform your sales teams!

Watch this week's LIVE as the MDM Team breaks down the blockbuster WESCO-Anixter deal completed this week that creates a $17-billion electrical distributor; and we also catch up with Jack Templin, President of Affiliated Distributors’ Electrical and Industrial Business Unit.

This week we talk with two talent experts on the front lines in distribution: John Salvadore, GRN Coastal; and Cory Calderon, Valin Corporation for innovative ways to rethink how to build and nurture your best team forward.

This week we are joined by John Caplan of Alibaba.com. We will hear from John on how Alibaba is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and learn how Alibaba is differentiating itself from Amazon Business and other marketplace models.

This week we talk with Barry Litwin, CEO of Systemax, about how they are helping their customers prepare to recover from the impacts of COVID-19. We will also hear from Jonathan Byrnes, senior lecturer at MIT and founding chairman of Profit Isle, on strategies to strengthen your profit core going forward.

In this week's special one-hour edition of MDM LIVE, Tom Gale and Mike Marks share the latest intel learned in the past 10 weeks on how distributors are creating competitive advantage in this sudden shift from face-to-face to low-touch sales engagement.

This week we will hear from Eric Dillon of Dillon Supply Company and Andrew Larson of Gustave A. Larson Company. They will share management strategy, insights into what is working and the short- and long-term moves they are making to build value in the future.

Watch the next episode of MDM LIVE. We will speak with an industrial/safety distributor and a building materials distributor. They will be joined by Brent Grover and Mark Dancer to get their takes on what the "new normal" will be and how distribution will play a role in getting the economy back on track.

This week we'll hear perspectives from a building automation systems provider as well as spend a full hour with inventory management guru Jon Schreibfeder. John Gunderson will also share how sales strategies have changed with the COVID-19 pandemic.

This week we'll review the latest shifts taking place in the industry and the tactics distributors are taking to keep their customers engaged.

This week we'll hear perspectives from a Canadian safety distributor, a West Coast industrial distributor, and an international supplier of abrasive/surface solutions. We'll kick off the program with a dive into how distribution channel partners can navigate the channel disruption and certain partnership shifts ahead.

This week we explore how to avoid group think and lead, ways to strengthen your sales team and hear how a North American PPE wholesaler and other industrial distributors are pivoting to market conditions that shift daily.

This week we'll be joined by well-known industry consultant Brent Grover, Reed Anderson of Houlihan Lokey and several distributors. We will hear the real time tactics they are using during this unprecedented market shift, as well as what they are doing to stay future-focused. We will also look at the financial and M&A impacts of COVID-19.

This week the focus is on financial impacts and planning, including stress testing analysis. We'll also hear from distribution leaders on the impacts of COVID-19 on operations, what they are hearing from customers and how they are leading their teams forward.

In this two-hour discussion distribution executives share their experiences and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on customers, suppliers, operations and team. In our first hour, we cover how to pivot quickly to keep customers and sales teams engaged. In the second hour, we'll hear from distribution leaders on the impacts of COVID-19 on operations, what they are hearing from customers and how they are leading their teams.