Your Competitors Didn't Get Better. They Got Online. Here's How You Catch Up.
The only 90-day Done-For-You Program that aligns your Sales and Marketing teams, builds your digital infrastructure, and generates quality leads — built exclusively for Wholesale Distributors.
Schedule Your Strategy Call Free call. 20 minutes. No pitch — just an honest conversation about fit.Something Has Shifted
You know your products. You know your customers. You've built a business on relationships, industry knowledge, and a sales team that delivers. But something has shifted.
Buyers aren't waiting to call your rep anymore. They're researching online for weeks, sometimes months. And if they can't find you, can't figure out what you stand for, or can't get useful information from your website? They move on to someone who has that figured out.
Meanwhile, your competitors — some of them younger, some of them frankly less experienced — are showing up in searches, filling inboxes with relevant insights, and closing deals you never even knew were in play.
You've probably tried fixing this before. Maybe you hired an agency. Maybe you invested in a CRM that nobody uses. Maybe you built a website that looks fine but does nothing. And after spending real money, you have very little to show for it.
That's not a you problem. That's a sales-and-marketing-alignment issue.
"Your competitors are showing up in searches, filling inboxes with relevant insights, and closing deals you never even knew were in play."
Digital Distributor Essentials
A 90-day, done-for-you program that aligns your sales and marketing teams, builds your digital sales and marketing infrastructure, and hands you a fully operational system — with the automation running, the content live, and your team trained to use all of it.
This is not a course, and it's not a consulting engagement where we tell you what to do. We build it for you.
Generic Marketing Programs Fail Distributors.
This one doesn't.
Most marketing programs are built for other industries.
Distribution isn't like other B2B businesses. We have long sales cycles, complex channel relationships, margin pressure, and a sales culture that has run the company for decades. Any marketing program that doesn't account for all of that is going to fail.
"Digital Distributor Essentials is different because it was built from the ground up for how distributors actually operate."
Every template, every workflow, every strategy inside this program reflects the way your customers buy and the way your sales team sells. We don't adapt. We don't generalize. We build.
And then we do the work so you don't have to figure it out yourself.
Built and Delivered in Just 90 Days.
Before we touch a single tool, we make sure your sales and marketing teams are working from the same playbook — and that we have the data, the systems, and the shared definitions in place to make everything downstream work.
Foundation: alignment, data, CRM, tracking, and handoff.
Your definition of a qualified lead. Your goals. Your metrics for success. When both teams are rowing in the same direction, everything downstream works better.
Most distributors have years of customer data that's never been put to work. We organize it, clean it, and segment it so your campaigns reach the right people.
Your CRM and your marketing tools must talk to each other but not interfere with each other. Our proven process ensures leads won't fall through the cracks.
You'll know what's working. Not a gut feeling, but actual data. We set up the dashboards and tracking systems that connect your marketing activity to sales outcomes.
We build the process that defines what a qualified lead looks like, when it moves from marketing to sales, and what happens next. This alone eliminates one of the biggest sources of friction between your teams.
With the foundation in place, we build and deploy. Live campaigns running to your real list. Purpose-built landing pages. A content plan your team can actually execute. And lead scoring so your sales team knows exactly who to call first.
Launch: campaigns, landing pages, lead scoring, and training.
Not just templates. Live campaigns, running to your actual list, with targeted messaging built around your customers and your products.
Purpose-built pages that speak directly to what your prospects need when your sales team can't be in the room. When someone is researching at 11pm, these pages capture the opportunity.
A realistic, executable content plan your team can actually stick to. Built around the topics your buyers are searching for.
Keep your sales team tuned in to which prospects are most active and ready to buy so they stop chasing cold leads and start closing warm ones.
We don't just build you a system and walk away. We ensure your people are fully comfortable with how to use everything we've built.
We review what the first two months produced, fix what isn't working, and hand you a system built to keep running after we're done — including a custom content generator trained specifically on your business.
Optimize: performance, content systems, and the next 90-day roadmap.
We look at what the first two months produced, fix what isn't working, and double down on what is.
Your buyers are on LinkedIn. Your competitors are, too. We make sure your company page and your sales team's profiles are working for you, not against you.
We build a custom content generator trained on your products, your customers, your industry language, and your voice. It sounds like your best salesperson, not a robot.
Before we hand things off, we sit down and map out what comes next. You'll have a clear plan in hand, not a question mark.
All assets, all access, all documentation, all systems and processes mapped out clearly for you to confidently move forward with.
A Fully Operational Digital Sales Infrastructure
Automated systems that work around the clock
Marketing automation integrated with your CRM, lead scoring identifying sales-ready prospects, email nurture campaigns running automatically, and an analytics dashboard showing you everything that matters.
Sales and marketing teams that actually collaborate
Shared lead definitions, clear handoff processes, weekly meetings with shared KPIs. These two departments will stop working against each other.
A content generation engine built on your expertise
Your custom AI content assistant handles the volume. Your team focuses on the relationships.
A direct line to us — even after the engagement ends
Platforms change. Strategies evolve. New tools emerge. That's why you'll always have direct access to us even after the 90 days, whether you're a current paying client or not.
You just read everything we build in 90 days. If you're thinking "we need this" — trust that instinct.
Schedule Your Free Strategy Call20 minutes. Free. The fastest way to find out if this is the right fit for your company.
I can see how Susan's digital tools will lead us to introductions and invites for face-to-face meetings at the right point in the sales process.
Jim Banovich, CEO, Marsh ElectronicsDistribution Is the Only Industry We Work In
Susan Merlo has spent more than a decade working exclusively with wholesale distributors.
She is the author of The Digital Distributor: Six Steps to Accelerated Sales, published by Modern Distribution Management (MDM), the leading trade publication in the distribution industry. She has authored dozens of articles for MDM and other leading industry trade publications, and has been frequently quoted as a subject matter expert across the distribution trade press. She has advised hundreds of distribution companies, and her clients include regional specialists and national distributors across manufacturing, industrial, and specialty distribution sectors.
She is not an agency that learned distribution as a niche. Distribution is her entire professional focus.
What that means for you: When you work with Susan and her team, you are not educating your consultant on how distribution works. You are working with someone who already understands the channel dynamics, the margin pressures, the long sales cycles, and the relationship-driven culture that defines this industry. Digital Distributor Essentials is a program designed specifically around those realities.
Susan presents a robust roadmap for distributors to compete online effectively. Susan has done all the hard work for you. It's time for us to get moving.
Pradip Krishnadeverajan, NAW Fellow and Co-Founder, ActVantage
Susan provides an excellent roadmap for distributors to follow. I have personally worked with Susan for the last two years while launching our digital marketing initiatives at BPI. She is a wealth of knowledge, and distribution leaders would be wise to follow her program as they look to innovate their sales and marketing strategies for the future.
Kyle Schull, President, Building Products Inc.This Program is a Strong Fit if You...
- Run a wholesale distribution company with a real sales team and real customers and you're ready to build the marketing infrastructure to match
- Know you're losing business to competitors and you're done watching it happen
- Have tried marketing before and it didn't work, and you want to understand why before you spend another dollar
- Want measurable results that connect to actual sales, not a report full of impressions and clicks that don't mean anything
- Are willing to commit your team to the process
What It Costs — and What It Gets You
Here's what that gets you: A fully built marketing infrastructure — CRM integrated with automation, live campaigns, segmented contact data, lead scoring, a custom AI content assistant, trained teams, and a forward-looking strategy. Not a plan. Not a recommendation. The actual system, fully automated and running successfully.
Consider this: The average mid-size distributor who loses one meaningful customer relationship to a more digitally capable competitor loses far more than $18,000 in lifetime value. This program is designed to make sure that doesn't happen to you.
"Not a plan. Not a recommendation. The actual system — fully automated and running successfully."
Our Guarantee
Show up, attend the working sessions, let us do the work, engage with the process, and if you're not satisfied, tell us. We'll fix it. We offer this guarantee because we've done this before and we know it works. We don't offer it to sound bold. We offer it because we mean it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Very few agencies understand distribution. They understand marketing, and they apply it generically. We've seen distributors spend months educating them on what a distributor actually does, and the work still never quite fits. Digital Distributor Essentials was built from scratch for this industry. Every workflow, every template, every strategy reflects how distributors sell and how your customers buy.
Yes! And honestly, this program is built for exactly that situation. Most of our clients have a sales-driven culture with little to no formal marketing function. All you need is someone on your leadership team who is committed to the process and who can dedicate a team member or two to our working sessions. We do all the heavy lifting.
No, not at all. In fact, this program was specifically designed to maintain full momentum going forward. By the end of month three, you will have systems that run everything and a content generator that keeps producing. If you'd like, you could extend your engagement with us at a cost-effective retainer rate, and even if you don't, you'll always have direct access to us to answer questions, make adjustments, or give you further strategic input. The relationship doesn't end when the program does.
Distributors are always busy. That's the nature of this business. The question isn't whether you have time. It's whether you can afford to keep losing ground to competitors. This program is designed to minimize the burden on your team. We do the building. Your people show up for working sessions (the session frequency is up to you). And that's the only commitment we're asking for.
Still have questions about whether this is the right fit? Let's talk. No obligation. No pitch.
Let's Talk — No ObligationIt means we're not here to rip out your existing systems and replace them. We simply connect your CRM to your marketing automation so leads flow correctly, data stays clean, and your sales team sees the prospect activity that matters before they make a call.
Digital Distributor Essentials delivers a fully built system in 90 days for $18,000 total. After that, you own it. And if you want our team in your corner on an ongoing basis, most clients keep us engaged for a fraction of what a full-time hire would cost.
For comparison, a mid-level marketing hire with even half the skills this program delivers runs $70,000–$90,000 a year in salary alone — before benefits, onboarding, and the months it takes before they're actually productive. If they have real distribution experience, add more. For less than what that hire costs in the first quarter, you get a fully built system, a trained team, and experienced support whenever you need it.
We're glad you asked. Most AI content tools are generic. They are loosely built to a one-size-fits-most model. You put something in, you get something out that sounds like every other distributor, and that's not what this is.
Your custom content generator is built specifically for your business — trained on your products, your customers, your industry language, and the way your company actually communicates. It knows the difference between the products you sell and the problems they solve. It knows how your best salesperson talks to a prospect. It knows your voice.
What that means in practice: anyone on your team — a sales rep, an inside sales coordinator, someone in marketing — can open it and produce a professional LinkedIn post, a targeted sales email, a product article, or a customer-facing piece in minutes. No blank page. No generic output. No sounding like a robot.
It stays with you after the engagement ends. And because it's trained on your specific business, a new sales rep can sound like your best salesperson from day one.
Most of our clients tell us this ends up being the thing they use most. It's not a feature added at the end. It's a competitive advantage built into everything we do.
Yes, and we'd rather tell you upfront than waste your time. This program isn't the right fit if you're looking for a quick fix or a one-time campaign — we build infrastructure, and infrastructure takes 90 days to do right. It's also not right if your sales and marketing teams aren't willing to work together, or if your leadership isn't committed to the process. We've seen what happens when those conditions aren't in place, and it doesn't serve anyone. If you're not sure whether you're a fit, the strategy call will tell us both.
Susan's playbook gives you step-by-step instructions on what we all need to do to communicate our value to more people. Follow Susan's compass — you will find your distribution company surrounded with more customers for whom you are a better fit to help solve their problems.
Brian Peters, CEO, Peters Supply
Still weighing your options? Here's the honest comparison.
Most distributors who come to us have already tried the alternative. Here's what that looks like versus what we build.
Generic Marketing Program
- Impressions and clicks with no revenue connection
- Disconnected campaigns that don't talk to sales
- Generic content calendar built for any industry
- Weeks spent educating the agency on distribution
- Content that looks busy but doesn't move deals
Distributor-Built System
- CRM + marketing automation working as one
- Defined sales handoff with shared lead definitions
- Lead scoring that surfaces sales-ready prospects
- Buyer education content built for your industry
- Revenue-connected metrics your leadership can relate to
90 Days From Now, Your Company Could Be Competing on a Whole New Level.
You've built your business on years of relationships and expertise. That still matters. But the buyers coming up behind your best customers are researching online before they ever call a rep. If you're not showing up where they're looking, someone else is.
Digital Distributor Essentials gives you the online presence, the infrastructure, the automation, the content, and the internal alignment to compete in a market that has moved online. No need to hire a full marketing department. No need to spend years figuring it out. And no need to work with an agency that doesn't understand what a distributor does or how a distributor sells.
90 days from now, your new systems can be running smoothly, your teams can be aligned, and your digital presence can actually reflect the quality of the business you've built.
Or you can wait. And watch the gap get wider.
Schedule Your Free Strategy Call Today