WINTER 2017

82
THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK
GLOBALFASTENERNEWS.COM
by JOHN WOLZ EDITOR
editor@globalfastenernews.com
ZEHNDER AT NFDA: ‘LOOKS MATTER’
EVEN AT DISTRIBUTORSHIPS
A difficulty in changing “looks” may be that many
fasteners the industry handles are identical to ones
Earnest Machine was selling when
it was founded in 1948 and today,
Zehnder acknowledged.
“Do looks matter?” Kirk Zehnder
asked National Fastener Distributors
Association conferees, while
displaying examples of distributorship
entry waiting rooms on the conference
room screen.
Lobbies at distributorships are
important in “first impressions,” said
Zehnder, who is third generation
in the Cleveland-based master
distributorship Earnest Machine.
One possibility creating a difficulty
for the fastener industry may be that
many of the fasteners the industry
handles are identical to ones Earnest
Machine was selling when it was
founded in 1948 and today, Zehnder
acknowledged.
Zehnder recommended taking a
serious look at how others see your
company’s looks.
“Looks matter,” Zehnder
declared.
He finds three responses to “looks” questions:
First, “This truly represent who we are and where we are
heading.” Second, “I came up with this logo and took the
napkin to our printer.” And “It’s good
enough and I still have three boxes of
business cards.”
• Zehnder countered the
traditional executive’s response that
“I can’t change my look, we are
an established brand,” with a series
of both Pepsi and Coca-Cola logos
changing multiple times over the
decades.
• Office furnishings need to be
kept up to date, Zehnder said. “We
are where we sit,” Zehnder said while
displaying older and current office
chairs and office desk cubicles.
• On internal communication,
Zehnder recalled the days when so
much company information could be
kept private or papers destroyed in a
trash fire. Today there are WikiLeaks,
Google, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook,
Yelp and LinkedIn to spread news.
That forces change on fastener
executives.
But instead of a negative,
Zehnder said he finds today’s openness can help a
business. “Transparency builds trust.”
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GLOBALFASTENERNEWS.COM