Having sat on both sides of the table, the distributor's side and the principal's, I recognise the silence from both ends. Here is what distributors in the maritime business tend to want from their principals, and why it so rarely gets said.
"Ask us for a budget and a marketing plan"
From the distributor's side, the most useful thing a principal can do is also the least glamorous: require a budget and a sales and marketing plan for the year. The distributor should write it, because they know their market. The budget has to be agreed with you, but the details are theirs: which segments, which owners and yards, which events, which salespeople. Without a plan, there is nothing to discuss progress against. Every review turns into a conversation about revenue, and revenue is the last number to move and the easiest one to explain away.
When I worked on the distributor side, this was what I missed most. Not more product training, not a better price list, but a principal who asked for our plan, agreed the budget with us and then followed up on it. A distributor rarely volunteers a plan, because a written plan is something you can be measured against. But most distributors would rather be measured against a plan they wrote themselves than judged on a feeling the principal never shared.
"Call and ask what we are missing from you"
The second unspoken wish is simpler still. Most principal contact runs one way: you call to ask about the pipeline, the forecast, the order that has not come in. Very few principals call to ask what the distributor is missing from them.
The answers would be useful. Sales material that does not fit the local market. A sales engineer who needs a technical contact at the factory for the next vessel project. Training that was cut short. A competitor who has just lowered prices in the region. A distributor will often sit on these for months, because raising them unprompted feels like making excuses. If you ask, you get the list. If you do not, you get the excuses later, when the numbers miss.
"Tell us when you are unhappy with our numbers"
This one I know from the principal's side. I have been dissatisfied with a distributor's results and started thinking about replacing them, without ever saying so clearly to the distributor. The reason was not a lack of honesty. It was that I did not have the tools to take the difficult conversation: no plan from the distributor to point to, no budget both of us had signed up to, nothing to make the conversation about facts instead of frustration.
From the distributor's side, that silence is the worst outcome. A distributor who knows you are unhappy can change something: reallocate a salesperson, push a different segment, ask you for help. A distributor who only finds out when the termination letter arrives has had no chance to do any of that. And very often they sensed it anyway, through fewer visits, slower replies or a cooler tone, which tends to make the effort drop further, not rise.
If you are considering a change, the distributor should hear about the problem before they hear about the decision. That conversation is much easier to have when there is a budget and a plan behind it (see above).
"Be clear about how you handle customers who come to you directly"
At a maritime trade show this autumn, two distributors raised the same issue without being asked: the principal taking orders directly from shipowners or ship managers when a vessel calls in the distributor's own territory. Both also described principals answering customers directly when the customer contacted the factory first.
There can be good reasons for direct sales, and many shipowners do buy centrally. The problem is not the direct order itself. It is that the rules are never spelled out, so the distributor learns about it afterwards and draws their own conclusions about how much the territory is actually worth. If you sell directly in some cases, say which cases, and say how the distributor is credited or compensated. An uncomfortable rule agreed in advance does far less damage than a surprise found out later.
"Make sure there is enough in it for us"
The same distributors were blunt about margin: it has to be big enough to justify real effort. One summed it up as "we have to live too." A distributor carrying ten or fifteen principals will put their time where the return is, and a product that is hard to sell, needs technical support and pays a thin margin will quietly drop down the list.
This is rarely said directly to the principal, because it sounds like a negotiating position. But it is useful information. If your margin structure cannot change, you may be able to change the other side of the equation: better leads, joint customer visits, stronger technical support, less work per sale.
Why none of this gets said
Both sides have reasons to stay quiet. The distributor does not want to look weak, demanding or ungrateful. The principal does not want to start a conflict, or simply has no structure for the conversation and too many other things on the calendar. For an area sales manager who also carries their own territory, the distributor conversation is the one that slips first.
The fix is not better intentions. It is making these topics a fixed part of the cooperation, so nobody has to raise them on their own initiative:
- A budget and sales and marketing plan written by each distributor, with the budget agreed with you, reviewed at least twice a year.
- A standing question in every review: "What are you missing from us?"
- Written rules on direct sales and house accounts, agreed before the first case comes up.
- An honest status on performance, given early, against the plan rather than against a feeling.
None of this is complicated. It just has to be in place before it is needed, because the moment you need it is the moment it is hardest to introduce.
If you want to see what happens when these conversations do not take place, read about the difference between a slow distributor and one who has given up, or how to measure distributor performance against a plan both sides agreed to.