Manage your distributors like your own sales team.

The problem is not the distributor you picked

Most device companies treat a signed distributor as a finished job. A price list goes out, and the next contact is an order, or an email six months later asking why there is no order. The distributor is not lazy. It is busy selling the lines that pay it, for the principals who call every week. The fix is old and simple: run it like your own sales team.

Start with an Ideal Distributor Profile

An Ideal Distributor Profile (IDP) lists what your product needs from a distributor, weights each item, and marks the few that are must-haves. Every candidate in a market is scored against the same list. The distributor selection scorecard sets it out in full.

Public registries, and the country pages built from them, show part of the profile before you speak to anyone: licence, roles, device segments, time on the register and, in some markets, the manufacturers a company represents. A distributor that already carries your direct competitor is a conflict, not a partner. The rest only a conversation shows: sales people for your segment, clinical specialists, service, demo stock, tenders, funding for stock and receivables, and willingness to accept written targets. Score each 0, 1 or 2 and candidates become comparable.

Fit is product specific. A distributor with a licensed warehouse, next-day delivery to every hospital and a tender team is close to ideal for a wound care range. For a capital system that needs installation and on-site service, the same company is a poor fit if it has no service engineers. Write one profile per product line.

Targets they agreed to

Set targets from two directions. From the market down: accounts in the territory, what each buys a year, and a realistic share for a new entrant. From the distributor up: sales people on your line, accounts each can work, win rate, average order, and months before a new line sells. Agree a number between the two, phase it by quarter around registration dates, demo stock and tender calendars, and set a lower minimum that keeps exclusivity. A target the distributor never agreed to is a wish.

Targets sit on top of margin. Build the price backwards from what the end user pays so the distributor earns enough to do the work; the margins and pricing guide shows the method with a worked example.

General information, not legal advice. Local law varies; take local counsel before you tie exclusivity to targets or agree who holds the registration.

The KPI set

Ten numbers cover most distributors. Lagging KPIs tell you what happened. Leading KPIs tell you what is about to happen. Steer on the leading ones: a distributor with good sell-in and a shrinking pipeline is a quarter away from a miss.

Pay incentives against these numbers, not volume alone; see how to incentivise distributors.

The one-page scorecard

Put the ten on one page, in the same layout every month: target, actual, last period and trend. Results at the top, leading indicators in the middle, health at the bottom: stock cover, days to pay, complaints, training. Under it, three actions with an owner and a date. A number that needs a paragraph of explanation goes on the agenda, not the scorecard.

The operating rhythm

Your own team runs three meetings, each with a fixed agenda and length.

Weekly deal review: 30 minutes

New deals, wins, losses and moved dates. The five to ten largest deals, or everything closing in 60 days, with stage, next step, date and owner. Then blockers: what the distributor needs from you, such as a demo unit, a price approval or a tender document. The shared deal tracker is the agenda. If a deal is not in the tracker, it does not exist.

Monthly performance review: one hour

The scorecard, line by line: sell-in and sell-out against target, pipeline, forecast against last month's commit, stock and demo units in use, and marketing support delivered.

Quarterly business review: half a day

Results against plan presented by the distributor, accounts and pipeline, market changes, next quarter targets agreed in the room, and actions with owners. The quarterly business review guide has the pre-read list, the agenda and a template.

The checklist

1. Write an Ideal Distributor Profile per product line, with weights and at most three must-haves.
2. Rule out anyone who carries a direct competitor or will not work under a registration holder you choose.
3. Agree targets from the market down and the distributor up, with a lower minimum tied to exclusivity.
4. Build the margin from the net end-user price.
5. Track the ten KPIs on one page, the same way every month.
6. Run the weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews without skipping.
7. Write every decision down with an owner and a date. If a partner misses two quarters with a plan in place, start the replacement process.