Set against a backdrop of a rapidly evolving B2B sales environment that increasingly resembles the world of B2C sales and marketing, Stampede president and COO Kevin Kelly welcomed more than 125 representatives from 65 of its manufacturer partners to an expanded 2015 Stampede Vendor Summit in Buffalo, NY. The three-day summit, which ran from October 4 through October 7 at the Marriott Niagara Falls Hotel, consisted of exhibits, one-on-one sales meetings, training sessions, and two full days of presentations that included three keynotes from futurists and industry experts, and the first-ever industry-wide panel on drone video systems featuring manufacturers, end users, market and legal analysts, and educators.
- “The only way to succeed in this new era of pro AV sales is to work with a distributor that maintains a 100 percent laser focus on the pro AV market and all of the many richly varied opportunities it now presents to dealers, manufacturers, and, most importantly, the end-user customers in all of the vertical markets we serve,” Kelly stressed in his opening keynote presentation. “Stampede does not sell appliances. Stampede does not sell PCs. Stampede does not sell motherboards. Stampede sells incredibly well thought-out, integrated pro AV solutions that meet highly customized individual customer needs. You can’t succeed in doing this year after year unless you are 100 percent focused on the industry and the channels the industry serves.”
- And the result of this focus for 2015 speaks for itself, Kelly said. “Stampede is having a record year in sales this year, and more importantly, a record year in sales in virtually every major product category. We are enabling our dealers to capitalize on every available business opportunity. This is what a high-value added distributor can do for its retail partners and it’s something that a mass market-focused distributor will never do.”
- Kelly said that Stampede has been able to deliver these results at a time when the entire B2B selling process is changing dramatically, becoming more and more like the B2C marketplace. “The pro AV buying process is becoming less linear, with buyers conducting far more research online prior to their involvement with a sales professional,” Kelly said. “As a result, our strike zone to make a sale happen is shortening and our window to drive the spec of a sale is changing. The bottom line in all of this is that we have to enhance collaboration to respond faster than ever before to influence the purchase decision.”
- Stampede is responding to this challenge by making the investments necessary to enrich the customer’s experience of working with Stampede and creating “the best final mile to the sale” in the pro AV industry.
To prepare for the increased sales these investments are expected to generate, Stampede is adding to its field sales management team, opening new offices in the rapidly growing Mid-Atlantic region and Montreal, Quebec, and increasing its team of vertical market specialists. The company is also going to continue its aggressive move into new product categories, such as Drone Video Systems. “DVS offers unprecedented revenue opportunities for end users in specific vertical markets,” Kelly explained. “However, these new categories are not a replacement for traditional ProAV solutions. They are in fact new categories that will drive sales in all traditional product categories. That’s the really great thing about this industry. By maintaining 100 percent of our focus on the pro AV market, we are uniquely positioned, unlike any other distributor in business today, to bring meaningful new innovations to market in a way that revitalizes and reignites sales for all of the product categories our dealers sell.”
See SCN's managing editor Kelleigh Welch's writeup of the event here.
