their expertise in marketing. And for a lot of dealers, it makes sense. Many of us don’t have time to think about marketing, and if someone can help do it for us, then why not.

But it’s not for us at fone doctors. Despite our being a small company, marketing cannot be an afterthought. It’s a fundamental part of our strategy. It’s what makes us unique and stand-out, and it’s one of the things we do well. Look at our pilot TV show at fonedoctors.com/ lym to see the effort we put in. When we invited 20 dealers to breakfast at our London Bridge store in January, before our meeting with Ofcom, many of the group were surprised that we had only five staff because our advertising made us appear a lot bigger.

As a repair centre with trade customers of our own, it’s important that our customers are able to benefit from strong marketing, and we’ll often help them devise posters and flyers.

Where distributor support can be effective is where it leads to dealers sharing a recognised brand. I thought Hugh Symons’ Unity concept had a lot of potential (along the lines of Euronics). But with the current owners, I don’t think it will be developed in the way it can.

The panellist:

Chris Caudle, Mfonex:

Up to now our team has done all our marketing ourselves as there has been little help available from the existing distributors. Businesses can sell more with the right marketing; and cash incentives are ok, but we would still prefer marketing assistance.

A good (and important) move which will help businesses like ours is exemplified by the new Hugh Symons Assist team. They will deal with your business customers, sending them letters and contracts for instance, doing the proofs for you, and more.

I don’t believe marketing support is common yet across all distributors – but it should be. Most of the distributors are much the same these days, and it’s addedvalue services that would genuinely make for working in partnership with us. We want the distributor to demonstrate that it does take an interest in wanting to grow our business rather than just supplying handsets and airtime connection.

Importantly this approach should be applied to consumer marketing and not just B2B, as consumer sales is still the bread and butter of most dealers.

In today’s competitive market any edge that we can gain through marketing with the help of our distributor will benefit both of us. I think distributors need to be innovative in what they provide in their support for dealers and our business to maximise sales and increase customer loyalty and retention.

Holidays, designer suits and cash are ok – but after the glitter has gone it’s not as effective as good targeted assisted marketing. I would like something that’s going to help the business grow. Distributors should be planning and implementing marketing support for their dealers and not relying on the current system. If they already have a marketing system to help dealers then for goodness sake – take all your clothes off, run down the street and shout about it, because up to now dealers have not heard much.

The panellist:

Chrissie Mayers:

Based predominantly in retail with only a small number of B2B customers (and possibly as a result of the fact that I am located in the Scottish Borders area) I do not find distributors offer either cash benefits or wide variety of marketing support.

Maybe I just am not asking, or didn’t realise it was available.

As far as I can see, though, offering marketing support in preference to cash incentives can only be beneficial for both parties –distributors having access to a more varied and cheaper product for bulk purchasing, to pass on to retailers giving them more useable selection of products, to increase sales, and theoretically to increase profits too!

It does not produce negative feedback from lower levels of staff, with managers getting extra bonus for extra sales, but should increase customer satisfaction and experience.

Within retail I find it important to have up-to-date point-of-sale material. But frequently I have to pick and choose what I can supply to customers based on marketing budget for the month. Sometimes I will decide that it’s more important to order basic stationary than a flash new poster. On the other hand, if these items were supplied at a reasonable price then I wouldn’t have to do the design and print costs alone.

I have no problem in sourcing some PoS material. For example Sony Ericsson is both plentiful and wide ranging. By contrast, PoS for Motorola products is non-existent. Access to any unavailable product can only be beneficial.

While I would always rather show a customer a working handset, that is not always possible – maybe because the handset is unavailable or because of the sheer cost involved in stocking the product. For on-the-road salesmen there’s also the risk of carrying stock around, which means the product simply won’t get shown.

Good brochures – or better, dummy handsets – decreases customer queries and therefore increases the chance of making a correct sale first time around.

The panellist: