What it looks like from the distributor's side
Picture a sales rep at your distributor preparing a proposal. They use the presentation from onboarding, the price list in their shared folder and the datasheet they downloaded last spring. As far as they know, it's all current.
Meanwhile, three kinds of things may have changed at your end:
- Sales materials. A new presentation, revised positioning, updated specifications or certifications. Uploaded somewhere, perhaps mentioned to one contact.
- The business model. A new pricing structure, changed discount tiers, a shift in which customers you handle directly, a new service or subscription offer.
- New products. A new version replacing the one the distributor is quoting, or a new product that would have suited the customer better.
The distributor usually finds out on their own, and late. A customer mentions a newer datasheet they found online. A quote comes back with questions about a product that has been replaced. A price turns out to be wrong at the point of order. By then, the sales process is either delayed while things are corrected, or it stops completely because the customer has lost confidence in the offer.
For the distributor, this is costly in a way the principal rarely sees. The rep has to go back to the customer and explain that the offer was based on old information. That's their credibility on the line, not yours, and they will be more careful about risking it for your products next time.
Why it looks like underperformance from your side
From where you sit, none of this is visible. You see a pipeline that doesn't convert, deals that drag, and a distributor who seems less engaged than before. If you only measure revenue against target, it all adds up to a performance problem.
That's why it's worth checking the information flow before concluding anything about effort. Revenue tells you something is wrong. It doesn't tell you where (more on that in How to Measure Distributor Performance).
There's also a quieter effect. A distributor who has been caught out by outdated material a couple of times starts to hedge. They wait for confirmation before quoting, stick to products they know are stable, and put your newest products last. That can look a lot like a distributor who has lost interest (see The Difference Between a Slow Distributor and One Who's Given Up), when what they've actually lost is trust in the information.
Why updates don't reach distributors
In most cases, nobody decides to keep distributors in the dark. It happens because there is no fixed structure for it:
- Changes are made by product management or marketing, whose focus is the product, not the channel. Informing distributors is a step nobody owns.
- Updates go to one contact, usually management at the distributor, and stop there. The people who write the quotes never hear about it.
- Putting new material on a website or partner portal is treated as the same as telling people. It isn't. Nobody checks a portal for changes they don't know have happened.
- Old material is never withdrawn, so old and new versions live side by side and nobody can tell which one is valid.
- Business model changes are announced after they've been decided and implemented, so distributors have no time to adjust their own offers.
Business Sweden's recent survey of Swedish exporters found that 76% consider their distributors non-transparent. That's a fair complaint. But transparency runs both ways, and a principal who changes prices, products and materials without a reliable way of telling distributors is part of the same problem.
What a working update process looks like
It doesn't need to be complicated. It needs to be fixed, so it doesn't depend on someone remembering.
- One owner. Name the person responsible for making sure changes reach distributors. One person, not "everyone involved".
- One channel, a fixed rhythm. A short monthly update (what changed, what's new, what's withdrawn), sent the same way every time. Plus an immediate notice for anything that affects live quotes, such as prices or discontinued products.
- Valid-from dates. Every price list, datasheet and presentation should show when it's valid from. When something is replaced, say explicitly that the old version no longer applies.
- Reach the sales force, not just management. Ask each distributor who should receive updates, and include the people who actually write quotes.
- Notice before change. Business model changes affect the distributor's own business. They deserve a conversation with enough lead time to adjust, not a document after the fact.
- Check that it landed. In your regular reviews, ask which version of the price list and presentation they're using. It takes a minute and tells you whether your process works.
A quick check you can do this week
Ask each of your distributors to send you the presentation and price list they used in their most recent quote. Compare them with what you consider current.
If they match, your update process works. If they don't, you've found at least part of the explanation for a pipeline that isn't moving, and it's a part you can fix on your own side.