Author: GAWDA MEDIA

SMC 2022 Photo Galleries SMC 2022: Women of Gases & Welding Mixer SMC 2022: New Comer’s Reception SMC 2022: President’s Welcome Tailgate SMC 2022: General Business Session SMC 2022: Educational Sessions SMC 2022: Contact Booth Program SMC 2022: Booze Brothers Mixer

By Jay Spielvogel, Venator Sales Group, LLC One of the most common complaints we hear from sales leadership is the challenge with driving consistent usage of the company CRM. No matter the size of the distributorship, sales managers from across the gas and welding industry share the same frustration.  “Our salespeople are treating the company CRM as a glorified rolodex.” “We have invested in expensive technology and our salespeople still aren’t using it properly!” Sound familiar?  At Venator, we have a saying, “You can’t coach what you can’t see, and you can’t manage what you don’t look at.” If we…

By McKinnon Shisko, Indian River Consulting Group In April 2019, a large national consulting firm surveyed 1,000 executives of large firms (classified as having 500+ employees) with the intent of discovering key points about their ability to leverage data in making business decisions. Their study found that 37% of respondents considered their companies to be highly mature on the Insight-Driven Maturity Scale while 63% of respondents were “aware of analytics but lack infrastructure, are still working in silos, or are expanding ad hoc analytics capabilities beyond silos.” Interestingly, “among the 37% of companies in the survey with the strongest analytics cultures, 48%…

by Thomas J. Armitage, site-seeker, inc. Here’s a fun game. In your next meeting, ask the group how they prefer to communicate with companies. It seems like a simple question, but as you’ll find out, there are lots of answers.  Form fill? Email? Phone call? Live chat?  It will be different for everyone, since many factors come into play, like who the company is, what the needs are, and how quickly the buyer needs a reply.  Although it’s used in our personal lives daily, text messaging is so often overlooked by businesses as a method of communication and customer service.…

Ask Your Board is a new feature that will run in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Quarter issues of Welding & Gases Today. The purpose of Ask Your Board is to ask common business questions that all GAWDA members might be dealing with and to see how GAWDA’s Board of Directors are dealing with these issues within their own companies. To submit a question for GAWDA’s Board Members to consider, please email [email protected]  THE QUESTION As the industry is facing a “labor shortage,” what has your company done to combat this issue? How have you found success in recruiting and…

In late 2021, the American Welding Society launched a new online course called “Solution Selling for Welding.” As the world of welding, manufacturing, and fabrication continues to evolve and become more competitive, the success of any organization often hinges on the strength of its salesforce. The Solution Selling for Welding Course was designed to help develop highly knowledgeable and effective sales personnel. Created in tandem with welding industry experts with decades of sales and engineering experience, this course focuses on two key aspects: foundational welding concepts and the “solution selling” methodology. Collectively, this provides welding salespeople with a strong, well-rounded…

By Tom Badstubner, Marilyn Dempsey, Michael Dodd, Rick Schweitzer and Steve Guglielmo The GAWDA Consultant Program is a GAWDA member benefit that is included as part of your member dues to the association. It is consistently rated as one of the most valuable member benefits that GAWDA provides. Between the four of them, GAWDA’s consultants bring more than 100 years of industry-specific experience to the association. In the first quarter issue, we spoke with the consultants about a variety of topics that will impact your business in 2022. From recently passed or upcoming legislation, to the continued impact of COVID,…

If you would like a High-Res version of any of these images, please reach out to [email protected] who can provide one.

If you would like a High-Res version of any of these images, please reach out to [email protected] who can provide one.

If you would like a High-Res version of any of these images, please reach out to [email protected] who can provide one.