Treat that as a workforce strategy because that’s what it is. The distributors, wholesalers and merchants that frame AI this way are already pulling ahead. The ones still running AI primarily as an IT project risk losing twice: first the people, then the knowledge they take with them.

Walk into almost any trade counter or branch in the UK and find the person everyone relies on. In a builders’ merchant, electrical wholesaler or industrial distributor, it is often someone in their 50s. They know which fittings actually cross-reference, which customer pays in 30 days and which one needs chasing, and which substitute to offer when a product is out of stock.

Almost none of it is written down.

I ran branch and call center operations at Grainger for the better part of a decade, and those were the people who kept the place standing. Last year, I watched a regional distributor lose three of them in a single quarter to retirement. The replacements were capable. They just didn’t know what the people who left knew. Service scores slipped, returns crept up, and the branch manager spent his days answering questions that used to answer themselves.

That’s the real AI story in our industry right now, and it has almost nothing to do with chatbots.

The Clock You’re Actually Racing

Here’s the uncomfortable part. The retirement wave may be the most important workforce issue on your five-year horizon, and many distribution leaders are managing it primarily as a hiring problem when it is also a knowledge problem. You can’t recruit your way out of a demographic cliff.

Look at the numbers in the trades that feed our sector. In UK construction and building materials, 35% of the workforce is over 50 and only 20% is under 30, with the average bricklayer now 52, according to 2025 data cited by ecomerchant. By 2035, more than a third of today’s workforce will reach retirement age, and roughly 750,000 workers are due to leave by 2036. Over the same period, the sector needs 251,500 additional workers by 2028 just to meet demand, against more than 140,000 unfilled vacancies as of December 2025.

The math doesn’t balance. The people aren’t there to hire.

This runs straight through the broader workforce supporting distributors, wholesalers and merchants. A March 2025 study by Flip and Workplace Intelligence, covering 500 UK frontline managers and employees in manufacturing and retail, found that 57% of the most experienced frontline workers are within five years of retirement. Sixty-eight percent of their managers fear vital expertise will be lost when those people go, and 78% aren’t confident their company is ready for the skills gap that follows.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development made the broader demographic challenge clear in its 2025 Employment Outlook: Developed economies increasingly face labor scarcity as populations age and the ratio of older people to working-age populations rises.

Now set AI against that backdrop.

The Signal in the Data

Read that table from top to bottom and the strategy begins to write itself. The people who hold your operating knowledge are leaving. Distributors, wholesalers and merchants know they face a labor problem, and they increasingly see AI as a way to keep productivity rising with a workforce that may be smaller and less experienced.

What many haven’t done is connect those two problems directly.

Where Distributors Get Stuck

Three hard truths, and I’ve watched all three play out.

They buy tools before they capture knowledge. The instinct is to start with a chatbot or forecasting model. But your veteran employee’s know-how is part of the knowledge base AI needs, and if you don’t capture it while that person is still on the payroll, no model can magically recover it later.

In our December 2025 State of AI in Distribution survey, 52% of distributors named people as the biggest barrier to AI: a skills gap at 33% plus change resistance at 19%. Leadership buy-in ranked last. Read that carefully. The executives are increasingly convinced. The organization is struggling to execute.

They frame AI as replacement, and the workforce hears it. Almost no distributor in our data actually expects AI to become primarily a headcount-cutting exercise. Sixty percent expect it to increase the productivity of the people they retain. But if your branch team believes the model exists to replace them, they have little incentive to feed it what it needs.

That creates a dangerous contradiction. The veteran employees whose knowledge you most need to capture may be the least inclined to share it if the project is presented as a way to eliminate jobs.

They wait for clean data and a big platform. Nearly two-thirds of distributors, 63%, are still exploring or piloting rather than scaling AI. The leaders didn’t wait for perfect conditions.

As Grainger Chief Technology Officer Jonny LeRoy put it: “We’ve learned you’ve got to break down your problem into smaller chunks.”

That’s the difference. This is the kind of problem worth working through with people who have already done it, which is a large part of why we built the AI Forum for Distributors in the first place.

What This Means for Your Operation

Reframe the whole thing.

AI is part of your knowledge-retention strategy and your productivity strategy for a workforce that is going to change whether you prepare for it or not. For a UK builders’ merchant, an electrical wholesaler, a European industrial distributor or a multinational distribution group, the terminology may differ, but the operational challenge is the same.

The companies getting this right treat every approaching retirement as a body of knowledge at risk, and they act while the employee is still there to teach the organization.

They point AI first at high-volume, knowledge-dependent interactions: quoting, substitutions, order entry and technical lookups. Email order automation is already the most widely adopted customer-facing AI application in our survey, at 62%, precisely because it handles high volume and its return is relatively easy to see.

The appetite to invest is there. Sixty-five percent of distributors plan to increase AI spending over the next 24 months, with 88% naming productivity as their No. 1 reason for adopting it.

The leaders prove the point. Of more than 300 distributors we analyzed for The AI Execution Gap, only six reached the top AI maturity tier. One of them is Sonepar, the Paris-based global electrical distributor, which has committed more than €2.5 billion to logistics and €1 billion to its Spark digital platform.

The distance between those six and everyone else comes down to execution discipline, not simply budget or software.

What Changes Monday Morning

You can start this week. Five moves.

1. Build a retirement heat map. List everyone within five years of leaving and identify what only they know. That becomes your knowledge-risk map and helps establish your AI priorities.
2. Pick one knowledge-heavy, high-volume workflow. Product substitutions or quoting are strong first targets. Sit with your best person and capture how they do it, including the decisions, exceptions and judgment calls that never made it into the process manual.
3. Start with retrieval, not transformation. Getting technical product information, previous orders and account history in front of a new employee in seconds is a modest, provable win. It also takes pressure off your veterans immediately.
4. Put one senior owner on it. Don’t leave it to IT alone. Our data shows that technology-led efforts can stall when they aren’t tied closely enough to business outcomes. Name a senior person accountable for the result.
5. Measure a commercial number, not activity. Quote turnaround time, first-contact resolution or return rate. If you can’t tie the work to a number a branch manager, managing director or commercial director cares about, it won’t hold.

Notice what’s not on that list: a moonshot, a platform overhaul or a two-year roadmap.

Individually, these moves are modest. Running together, they build the muscle to capture institutional knowledge faster than your people retire.

That’s the game.

Come Work It Through With Your Peers

None of this is theoretical, and none of it is easy to build from a report alone. It is much easier in a room full of leaders wrestling with the same demographic math you are.

That’s what the AI Forum for Distributors, UK and EU is built for. It takes place Oct. 15, 2026, at the National Conference Centre in Birmingham, England, bringing together managing directors and senior commercial, operations, technology and digital leaders from distributors, wholesalers and merchants across the UK, Ireland and continental Europe.

The focus is practical: what’s actually working in distribution, lessons directly from distribution leaders, and a vetted group of technology companies already working in the sector.

Whether your company calls itself a distributor, wholesaler, builders’ merchant, electrical wholesaler or merchanting group, the problem is the same. If some of your best people are within five years of walking out the door, the time to build the capability that preserves what they know is now, not after they’ve gone.

Register for the AI Forum for Distributors, UK and EU, and come build it with people facing the same challenge.

The post Your Best People Are Retiring, But Your Best New Hire Is AI appeared first on Distribution Strategy Group.

U.S. employers added 162,000 jobs in August, with manufacturers increasing payrolls and the unemployment rate holding steady as the labor market posted its strongest monthly gain in more than a year.

Manufacturing added 16,000 jobs during the month, continuing a recovery that has added 58,000 jobs since manufacturing employment reached a recent low in December 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Sept. 4.

The gains were concentrated in sectors closely tied to industrial distribution. Machinery manufacturers added 6,000 jobs, while fabricated metal products manufacturers added another 6,000.

The manufacturing gains came as overall nonfarm payroll employment increased by 162,000 in August. That compares with an average monthly gain of just 31,000 over the previous 12 months.

The unemployment rate remained at 4.1%, with about 7 million people unemployed.

The August numbers offer a stronger labor market signal for the industrial economy after several months of weak overall job growth. They also come as other economic indicators point to a more uneven manufacturing environment.

The Institute for Supply Management reported this week that U.S. manufacturing continued to expand in August, although growth in new orders, employment and order backlogs slowed from July. The latest employment data suggests manufacturers are still adding workers despite that moderation in demand.

Hiring among distributors was more subdued.

Wholesale trade employment changed little in August, according to BLS. Transportation and warehousing, another sector closely tied to distribution activity, also recorded minor change.

Construction employment increased by 22,000, which BLS characterized as little changed. Nonresidential specialty trade contractors added 8,000 jobs and continued an upward employment trend.

The combination presents a mixed picture for distributors. Manufacturers are adding workers to machinery and fabricated metals, while construction remains stable. Those sectors represent significant customers for industrial, electrical, construction and maintenance, repair, and operations distributors.

Distributors themselves, however, are not adding workers at the same pace.

Outside the industrial economy, job growth was concentrated in several sectors. Food services and drinking places added 59,000 jobs, compared with an average monthly increase of 12,000 during the previous 12 months. Local government education added 42,000 jobs, reversing a decline in July.

Health care employment continued to trend higher, adding 13,000 jobs in August.

Information was a significant weak spot, shedding 23,000 jobs. Employment declined by 8,000 in computing infrastructure providers, data processing, web hosting, and related services, 7,000 in publishing and 5,000 in broadcasting and content providers.

The labor force also expanded. The labor force participation rate increased to 61.6% from 61.4% in July, although it remained 0.5 percentage points below its January level.

The number of people working part time for economic reasons declined by 414,000 to 4.4 million. Those workers wanted full-time employment but were working fewer hours because their hours had been reduced or they could not find full-time jobs.

Wages continued to rise. Average hourly earnings for private sector workers increased 10 cents, or 0.3%, to $37.75 in August. Average hourly earnings were up 3.1% from a year earlier.

BLS also revised previous payroll estimates higher. July employment was revised to a gain of 21,000 from a previously reported decline of 23,000. Combined revisions to June and July added 55,000 jobs to previously reported payroll levels.

For distributors, the August report points to continued demand across important industrial end markets without a corresponding surge in distributor hiring. Manufacturing employment is moving higher, particularly in machinery and fabricated metals, while wholesale trade and transportation and warehousing payrolls remain flat.

That gap could indicate distributors are taking a cautious approach to labor even as activity among some of their customers improves. It also puts a greater emphasis on productivity as distributors look to handle demand without significantly expanding payrolls.

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Essendant is eliminating another 103 jobs in California, bringing confirmed workforce reductions across six states to 1,278 as the national wholesaler closes facilities and considers potential sales and new capital to avoid liquidation.

The latest California WARN records cover 99 employees at Essendant’s Sacramento distribution center and four employees at its Perris operation. The cuts are scheduled to take effect Oct. 3.

Distribution Strategy Group continues to reach out to Essendant for comment on the layoffs, facility closures and the company’s plans but has yet to receive a response.

The California cuts expand a restructuring that already covers 1,175 employees in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona. The actions include Essendant’s corporate offices and several distribution operations.

The latest filings provide further evidence of the scale of the restructuring less than a year after Essendant announced plans to reshape its business around janitorial and sanitation products, food service and technology and reduce its exposure to traditional office supplies.

Essendant plans to eliminate 99 jobs at its distribution center at 7021 Roseville Road in Sacramento and four positions at 4555 Redlands Ave. in Perris, according to California WARN data.

Both actions are scheduled to take effect Oct. 3.

The four Perris positions are separate from a much larger workforce reduction Essendant announced there last year. California Employment Development Department records show Essendant filed a WARN notice in September 2025 covering 146 employees at the Perris facility, with those layoffs effective Dec. 31, 2025.

Those 146 positions are not included in the 1,278 jobs covered by the current multistate restructuring.

Illinois has the largest number of affected employees in the current round of reductions.

State WARN records show Essendant plans to eliminate 510 jobs at its offices at 200 Tri-State International in Lincolnshire and 134 jobs at its Carol Stream operation, for a combined 644 positions. The first layoffs are scheduled for Oct. 3.

The Illinois actions alone account for slightly more than half of the 1,278 positions identified in the six states.

Outside Illinois and California, WARN records show Essendant-related actions affecting 192 employees in Georgia, 150 in Pennsylvania, 136 in Texas and 53 in Arizona.

In Georgia, Essendant is permanently closing its operation at 125 Horizon Drive in Suwanee, affecting 192 employees. The closure is scheduled for Oct. 3.

In Pennsylvania, Essendant Management Services LLC plans to close its facility at 125 Green Tree Road in Phoenixville, affecting 150 employees. That closure also is scheduled for Oct. 3.

The Texas action affects 136 employees in Irving, while an Arizona WARN notice covers 53 employees at Essendant’s Phoenix operation.

Combined with the 644 Illinois positions and 103 California positions, the actions bring the confirmed total to 1,278 jobs across six states.

The WARN notices are significant beyond the number of jobs being eliminated.

In notices reviewed by Distribution Strategy Group, Essendant said it has been exploring strategic alternatives, including potential sale transactions, while seeking additional capital to avoid liquidation.

The language indicates that the company’s restructuring has moved beyond a conventional distribution network consolidation.

Essendant has not announced a buyer, new financing, bankruptcy filing or a decision to liquidate.

The company’s future therefore remains uncertain as the Oct. 3 effective date for many of the layoffs approaches.

The latest cuts come less than a year after Essendant began a major overhaul of its product strategy and distribution network.

The company moved away from much of its traditional office-products business and said it would concentrate on categories including janitorial and sanitation supplies, foodservice, and technology. It also outlined plans for a streamlined distribution network intended to support that strategy.

The WARN actions now reach several markets that were part of that network.

The scale and timing of the cuts suggest Essendant is moving rapidly to reduce operations. Many of the announced layoffs and closures are scheduled for Oct. 3, including actions in Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Texas.

Essendant has not publicly detailed what its distribution network will look like after the restructuring or which operations will remain open.

For customers, suppliers and independent dealers, the growing number of WARN filings leaves a larger question unresolved: whether Essendant will emerge as a smaller national distributor, find a buyer or source of new capital, or cease operations.

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Essendant is eliminating at least 1,175 jobs across Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona, significantly expanding a restructuring that is now hitting several markets the wholesaler previously identified as central to its streamlined national distribution network.

Distribution Strategy Group has reached out to Essendant for comment on the layoffs, the status of its operations and its plans for the business but has yet to receive a response.

New Illinois Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act records show Essendant plans to eliminate 644 jobs in the state — 510 at its Lincolnshire operation and 134 at its Carol Stream facility. Both actions were reported to Illinois officials Aug. 3, with the first layoffs scheduled for Oct. 3.

The Illinois cuts come on top of 531 previously disclosed layoffs in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona, bringing the number of employees affected by the latest WARN actions to at least 1,175 across five states.

The scope of the cuts represents another sharp contraction for Essendant, a national wholesale distributor that has spent the past year reducing its distribution footprint and exiting much of the traditional office products business.

The Illinois actions are particularly significant because Lincolnshire is home to Essendant’s corporate headquarters and the Chicago area was one of six markets the company identified last year as the foundation of its redesigned national distribution network.

Essendant said that network would be centered on distribution hubs in Dallas; Atlanta; Chicago; Oaks, Pennsylvania; Phoenix; and Sacramento, California. The company said the network encompassed more than 2 million square feet and was designed to provide one- to two-day delivery to more than 98% of U.S. customers.

The latest WARN actions affect operations in four of those six markets: Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and the Philadelphia-area market served by Oaks.

Illinois Cuts 644 Jobs

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity lists two Essendant WARN actions reported Aug. 3.

Essendant plans to eliminate 510 jobs at 200 Tri-State Drive, Suite 400, in Lincolnshire, with the first layoffs scheduled for Oct. 3.

A second action covers 134 employees at 230 Lies Road E. in Carol Stream, also beginning Oct. 3.

The state classifies Essendant as a wholesale trade employer and identifies both actions as covered by WARN.

The latest Illinois cuts follow an earlier Essendant WARN action in the state. In November 2025, the company reported 44 affected employees at its Greenville operation, with layoffs beginning Jan. 19, 2026.

Layoffs Spread Across Five States

The Illinois actions bring the latest round of confirmed Essendant layoffs across the five states to at least 1,175:

• Illinois: 644 employees
• Georgia: 192
• Pennsylvania: 150
• Texas: 136
• Arizona: 53

In Georgia, Essendant is permanently closing its operation at 125 Horizon Drive in Suwanee, affecting 192 employees. The action was reported Aug. 4, with layoffs scheduled to begin Oct. 3.

In Pennsylvania, Essendant Management Services LLC plans to close its operation at 125 Green Tree Road in the Phoenixville area, affecting 150 employees. The layoffs are scheduled for Oct. 3.

In Texas, Essendant reported 136 affected employees at its Irving operation in Dallas County, with layoffs scheduled for Oct. 3.

In Arizona, a WARN action covers 53 employees at Essendant’s facility at 1500 S. 71st Ave. in Phoenix.

Essendant Warns of Possible Liquidation

The Pennsylvania WARN notice provides the clearest indication yet of the financial pressure behind Essendant’s restructuring.

Essendant said in the notice that it has been exploring strategic alternatives, including potential sale transactions, while attempting to secure additional capital to avoid liquidation.

If those efforts are unsuccessful, the company said it currently expects to cease operations and close the business.

The language stops short of saying liquidation is certain. Essendant instead identifies a shutdown as a potential outcome if it cannot complete a transaction or obtain additional capital.

The Illinois state WARN database confirms the number of employees affected, locations and timing of the two Illinois actions, but it does not include Essendant’s underlying WARN letters. As a result, it is not known whether the Illinois notices contain the same language about potential sales, additional capital, and liquidation as the Pennsylvania filing.

Cuts Hit Essendant’s Redesigned Network

The latest actions come less than a year after Essendant unveiled a major restructuring intended to reposition the company around a smaller national distribution network.

In 2025, Essendant said it was exiting the independent office products dealer channel and concentrated on janitorial and sanitation, foodservice and technology products.

The company described its strategy as a “New Way Forward,” centered on six distribution hubs and a more concentrated network designed to improve inventory availability, delivery speed, and operating efficiency.

Essendant also announced a managed transportation partnership with Hub Group and expanded its parcel delivery relationship with UPS. The company said the redesigned network would provide one- to two-day delivery to more than 98% of U.S. customers.

At the time, Essendant characterized the restructuring as a strategy for long-term growth and told customers it was “here to stay.”

The latest WARN actions now affect four markets that were part of that redesigned network.

Essendant’s website remains active and continues to market the company as a wholesale distributor focused on janitorial and sanitation, foodservice and technology products.

But the latest WARN filings show the restructuring has become broader. At least 1,175 employees are now affected across five states, including 644 in Essendant’s home state of Illinois, while the company’s Pennsylvania filing says it is pursuing potential sales and additional capital to avoid liquidation.

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Then his wife got a diagnosis that changed everything. Ray wants to be home, and no reasonable person would argue with him. Three years just became four months.

Now, let’s watch that same announcement land in two different companies.

One Announcement, Two Companies

In Distributor A, the news sets off a scramble. Nobody has mapped Ray’s relationships, so nobody knows which accounts are held together by Ray alone. The customer relationship management system (CRM) has contact names, phone numbers, and not much else. There’s no successor identified, so the region manager starts interviewing while Ray runs out the clock. The eventual handoff is a spreadsheet, a few joint calls squeezed into Ray’s last three weeks, and a sincere “call me if you have questions” that expires the first time Ray’s boat gets decent cell coverage.

In Distributor B, the same announcement still stings. Four months instead of three years is a sprint, no matter how prepared you are. A structured transition program doesn’t prevent the surprise, and it doesn’t eliminate the initial panic that comes with an accelerated departure like this. But in Distributor B, Ray’s key relationships are already mapped. His top accounts have more than one person from the company in them. His account plans are living documents, not annual paperwork. The CRM actually says something useful. The scramble in Distributor B is about accelerating a plan that exists. The scramble in Distributor A is an archaeology dig.

The difference between these two companies isn’t luck, and it isn’t Ray. It’s a system. The rest of this article is about how to become Distributor B.

The Silver Tsunami Has a Date Attached

However they refer to it, distribution leaders have worried about the silver tsunami for years, usually in the context of ownership transitions and the labor force in the warehouse and on the counter. It applies just as much to the sales force, and the numbers say it’s not a distant problem.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data (compiled by Data USA), the average age of wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives is roughly 46. More telling: the three largest age cohorts in the occupation are 50–54, 55–59, and 45–49, which together make up more than a third of the entire workforce. And in most distributors, age and book size correlate. Your most seasoned reps often hold your largest accounts, because those relationships took decades to build.

Investors treat the average age of a senior leadership team as a yellow flag when it’s high and there’s no succession plan in place. The same logic applies to your sales force. If a third of your revenue is managed by people within striking distance of retirement, and you have no transition discipline in place, that’s not a talent issue. That’s an enterprise risk sitting in plain sight on your org chart.

Here’s what makes this problem sneaky: accounts rarely leave at the retirement party.

They drift. A category moves to another supplier. A location starts buying elsewhere. A new project gets quoted with someone else “just to compare.” Meanwhile, the account still shows active in your system, still orders regularly, and still looks fine on the report. The revenue erosion happens one product line and one location at a time, which is exactly why nobody notices until the annual review, when someone asks why a $2 million account is now a $1.3 million account. (Wallet-share erosion deserves its own article, and I plan to write it. For now, know that a botched transition is one of its most reliable causes.)

What a Sloppy Handoff Really Costs

And let’s be honest about the competitive dynamics. Your competitors know Ray retired. Some of them sent a card. The months after a veteran rep leaves are the single best window a competitor will ever get to break into an account you’ve held for twenty years, because the one thing protecting that account, the personal relationship, just left the building. (Sidebar: this is amplified when the average age of your buyers mirrors the average age of your sellers—a separate but related risk that isn’t often discussed.)

Retirement Forecasting Is Succession Planning for the Sales Force

Companies run succession planning for executives. They identify critical roles, forecast likely departures, develop successors, and review the plan annually. Almost nobody does this for the sales force, even though a veteran AM’s departure can move revenue as fast or faster than most executive exits.

Retirement forecasting is the succession planning of the silver tsunami. It means maintaining a forward view of your sales team: who is within five years of likely retirement, which of their accounts matter most, and which of those accounts depend on a single relationship. It means starting transition work 12 to 24 months out, not 90 days out, so there’s a runway for mentoring, introductions, and knowledge transfer while the veteran is still engaged and earning.

One caution on ownership: the frontline sales manager should feel real accountability here and should actively support the incoming AM. But like leadership succession planning, this can’t be delegated down and forgotten. Executives and human resource (HR)/Talent own protecting the company. If retirement forecasting lives only in a manager’s head, it retires when the manager does.

Map the Landscape, Multithread the Accounts, and Solve the Comp Problem

This is the heart of the work, and it has three parts.

Map the Landscape

First, map the current state of the account. In The CoNavigator Method, I call this Buyer Landscape Mapping: documenting who the players are in each key account, their level of influence, their attitude toward you, and their role in decisions. Most companies, when they attempt this at all, do it blindfolded, spun around, and overly confident. The map gets built from assumptions and optimism rather than evidence. I jokingly call Buyer Landscape Mapping the business version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey: the skill is in placing every stakeholder and their buyer type and buyer role, in their correct spot on the map, considering those factors and their influence and attitude. Not by guessing, assuming, or hoping.

For each of the veteran’s key accounts, name the stakeholders, score the relationships truthfully, and ask the uncomfortable question: if Ray disappeared tomorrow, who in this account would take our call? If the answer is one name, or no name, you’ve found your exposure. A seven-figure account hanging on a single handshake is not a relationship. It’s a liability.

Multithread the Accounts

Second, multithread before the transition, not during it. Introduce the successor while the veteran still has equity to spend. Add technical specialists, inside sales partners, and executive sponsors to the accounts that matter most, so the customer experiences a team rather than a person. And keep qualifying. Ongoing qualification means watching for changes: new decision makers, shifting priorities, a competitor suddenly getting meetings. Those changes matter in any account. During a transition, they’re everything.

Solve the Comp Problem

Third, deal with the money, because this is where good transition plans go to die. The veteran has no incentive to hand off accounts early. In many cases, a veteran’s final working years are also their highest-earning years, and Social Security calculates its benefit from a lifetime’s highest-earning years. Cutting Ray’s commission in year 31 doesn’t just cost him current income — it can quietly shrink one piece of his retirement income, on top of whatever else he’s counting on. Meanwhile, the incoming AM won’t spend a year developing someone else’s book for peanuts. And distributor margins don’t leave a lot of room to pay two people generously on the same revenue.

There’s no free lunch or Easy button here, so stop looking for one. What works is a deliberate overlap structure: split books with a glide path that shifts commission gradually from veteran to successor, transition bonuses tied to retention milestones (measured 12 and 24 months after the handoff), and paying the veteran explicitly for mentoring and knowledge transfer as part of the job, not as a favor. It costs money. So does losing the account. Price both and decide. And when in doubt or concerned, engage an expert compensation firm to help you develop a plan that your leadership team and board or investors can live with.

The default knowledge transfer plan in many distributors is “ride along for three months.” Loose plans like this leave too much to chance.

Capture What Ray Knows Before It Drives Away

Structured knowledge transfer means a repeatable, account-by-account debrief: the history of the relationship, commitments made (formal and informal), pricing agreements and how they came to be, service quirks and workarounds, each stakeholder’s goals and pet peeves, and every open thread. Treat it like the interviews you’d conduct if you were writing the biography of the account, because that’s what you’re doing.

Then make it findable. Sales enablement platforms like Allego (I’ve worked with them since 2017 and fully endorse them) and similar content management systems are built for exactly this: short, searchable videos of Ray walking through each major account, in his own words, that the new AM can revisit six months later when a situation Ray predicted actually happens. A binder gets written once and never opened. A series of three-minute, searchable videos gets watched, during transition and on-demand, as needed.

Make Your CRM the Brain of the New AM

Here’s a simple test: pick one of your veteran’s top ten accounts and read the CRM record. If a stranger read it, could they have an intelligent conversation with that customer next week?

For most distributors, the honest answer is no. And that’s the problem in one sentence: if it isn’t in the CRM, it retires with the rep.

CRM data quality is usually framed as an administrative annoyance, something sales managers nag about and reps grudgingly minimally comply with. Reframe it. Complete account records, documented relationships, buying history with context, and current opportunities are succession assets. The company that treats CRM hygiene as a succession issue builds a brain the new AM can actually use. The company that doesn’t hand its new AM a phone book.

Account Planning Makes Handoffs Survivable

If you’ve read my work here before, you knew this was coming. Living account plans, the kind that get reviewed and updated in a regular cadence rather than built annually and filed, change the nature of a transition entirely. (I laid out the full process in How to Build Key Account Plans That Get Results, right here on the Distribution Strategy Group blog.)

With a real account plan, the new AM inherits the account’s history and direction already worked out: the COIN-OP analysis (Challenges, Opportunities, Impacts, Needs, Outcomes, Priorities), the PCF-L account objective (Past Performance, Current Performance, Future Potential, and Likelihood — the analysis that determines whether an account should be Acquired, Grown, Retained, Reactivated, or Retired), the buyer landscape and relationship map, the growth strategy, current initiatives, and the open risks. The transition becomes a driver change, not a rebuilt race car on a new track. The race, the car, and the course don’t change just because someone new is behind the wheel. Without a plan, the new AM isn’t taking over a lap in progress — they’re handed the keys to a car they’ve never driven, on a track nobody mapped for them, mid-race.

Don’t Forget Who This Is Hardest On: Your Customers

Amid all the internal planning, remember that the customer didn’t ask for any of this. From their side, a trusted advisor is leaving and an unknown is arriving. Handled badly, a transition feels like a downgrade they have to tolerate. Handled well, it can actually strengthen the relationship.

Two concepts from my value drivers work apply here.

Execution Value is the value of making things run smoother: reducing friction in day-to-day processes and interactions. Purpose Value is alignment with the customer’s mission and strategic objectives. A well-run transition delivers both. Low friction, because the customer never has to educate the new AM on their history, their pricing, or their quirks. And genuine upside, because a transition is the perfect occasion for a forward-looking business review: fresh eyes on the account, a re-examination of the customer’s goals, and visible proof that the company, not one individual, stands behind the relationship.

Plan the customer communication with the same care as the internal plan. Who tells them, when, and how. What they hear about continuity and what they see that proves it. The goal is a customer who finishes the transition thinking, “That was easier than I expected, and our new rep seems well-informed, caring, and attentive.”

Closing Thoughts

The retiring rep problem is not a surprise. The demographics have been public for years, the pattern is well known, and every distribution executive can name the veteran reps whose departures would hurt. What’s missing in most companies isn’t awareness. It’s a system: retirement forecasting owned at the executive level, honest buyer landscape and relationship mapping, multithreading done early, compensation structures that make the handoff workable, structured knowledge capture, CRM records that function as a brain/memory aid, account planning discipline, and a customer experience that turns a risky moment into a moment of value.

Distributor B isn’t a fantasy. It’s a set of decisions, made before the announcement instead of after it.

Because somewhere in your sales force right now, a rep is planning a retirement you haven’t forecasted. Do you know who? And if they walked into your office Monday morning and gave you four months, could you name every relationship and the associated revenue that walk out with them?

If yes, congratulations on the purposeful management of the silver tsunami. If not, you have some work to do and a way to go about it.

The post The Retiring Rep Problem: How to Transition Accounts Without Losing Them appeared first on Distribution Strategy Group.

Winsupply Inc. has expanded its national area leader team after opening 11 local companies and completing four acquisitions during the past year, adding leadership resources to support growth across its network of independently operated distributors.

The Dayton, Ohio-based distributor said it has increased its area leader team to 13 members with the appointments of Terry Dickens and Luke Larkin. The company said the expansion is designed to provide more strategic support to local company presidents as they grow market share, scale their businesses and develop future leaders.

Area Leaders recruit new local company presidents, serve as business advisers and board members to independently operated local companies, and provide coaching and operational guidance within their assigned territories.

Dickens joins the area leader team after serving as president of Olathe Winwater for 27 years. He began his Winsupply career in 1989 as a driver at KC Winwater and will work alongside arealLeader Jesse Backman to support high-growth opportunities across the company’s network.

Larkin succeeds Steve Lyon, who retired in June, as the Area Leader responsible for Florida. Most recently, Larkin served as president of South Atlanta Winsupply. He previously held leadership positions at Bowling Green Winnelson and Fayetteville Winnelson.

Winsupply said the larger area leader team will allow it to provide more focused coaching for local company presidents while strengthening entrepreneur recruitment and leadership succession across its network.

The company operates through a decentralized ownership model in which local presidents hold majority ownership in their businesses while receiving purchasing, business services, and operational support from the parent organization.

Founded in 1956, Winsupply’s network includes more than 680 wholesale distribution companies serving contractors and industrial customers across the United States. The company reported fiscal 2025 sales of $8.4 billion and employs more than 9,500 people.

Winsupply Local Companies distribute plumbing, HVAC, electrical, waterworks, pipes, valves and fittings, pumps, irrigation, fasteners, and other products serving residential, commercial, industrial, municipal, and maintenance, repair, and operations markets.

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Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits is restructuring its U.S. commercial organization, introducing a hybrid sales model that combines field sales, inside sales and digital commerce while reducing its U.S. workforce by approximately 1%. The changes took effect immediately.

The nation’s largest beverage alcohol distributor said certain independent customers will now be served through a combination of field representatives, a redesigned inside sales organization known as the Customer Solutions Team and its Proof Commerce digital ordering platform. The new model expands inside sales coverage to an additional 1% of the company’s independent customer base.

Southern Glazer’s said the restructuring reflects changing customer engagement preferences and increased use of digital commerce and data-driven selling. The company said it is using customer data, digital tools, and artificial intelligence to redesign its commercial organization and improve service efficiency.

The reorganization will affect part of the company’s commercial workforce. Southern Glazer’s said it expects to place as many affected employees as possible into existing openings across the organization, resulting in a net reduction of about 1% of its U.S. workforce. The privately held company employs about 21,900 people and operates in 47 U.S. markets and Canada.

The move comes as distributors across multiple industries continue to shift routine and transactional accounts from outside sales representatives to inside sales teams supported by digital commerce platforms and AI-enabled analytics. The strategy allows field sales organizations to concentrate on larger accounts while lowering selling costs and expanding self-service ordering.

The restructuring also follows a series of strategic moves by Southern Glazer’s this year, including the closing of its acquisition of Clare Rose Inc., the announced acquisition of Eagle Rock Distributing Co., expanded supplier agreements and a realignment of its fine wine sales organization.

“The marketplace is clearly signaling us to think differently about how we operate and best serve a portion of independent customers,” said CEO Wayne Chaplin.

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Google is investing $50 million to expand skilled trades training across the United States, betting that a larger workforce pipeline will be needed to support the rapid construction of data centers and other infrastructure required for artificial intelligence growth.

The funding, announced June 11 through Google.org, is expected to help prepare more than 300,000 workers for careers in construction, electrical, HVAC, welding, plumbing and other high-demand trades. The initiative will support 14 labor unions and four trade and contractor associations operating in more than 20 states.

The investment comes as technology companies race to build new AI data centers, power infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing facilities, creating growing demand for skilled workers at a time when contractors across the country are already struggling to fill positions.

Google said the funding will be used to expand training capacity, modernize workforce development programs, and increase access to apprenticeships and industry-recognized credentials. The company also plans to support the integration of modern technologies and AI-enabled tools into training programs.

Among the recipients is TradesFutures, a workforce development organization affiliated with North America’s Building Trades Unions, which plans to expand apprenticeship readiness and job placement programs. The Electrical Training Alliance, a joint initiative of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the National Electrical Contractors Association, will use funding to deploy mobile training centers in high-growth markets. The United Association’s International Training Fund will develop workforce expansion programs for plumbing, HVAC, refrigeration, and pipefitting trades, while the International Training Institute for the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Industry will update training curricula and apprentice support services.

Google said the initiative builds on previous workforce investments and is intended to help address a widening gap between labor demand and available skilled workers. The company noted that hundreds of thousands of skilled trade positions remain unfilled nationwide.

The labor shortage has emerged as a growing concern for both technology companies and contractors as billions of dollars flow into AI-related infrastructure projects. Industry groups have increasingly warned that workforce constraints could become a limiting factor in the pace of data center construction and other large-scale industrial developments.

The announcement reflects a broader trend of private-sector investment in workforce development as employers seek new ways to attract workers into the skilled trades. Demand has accelerated in recent years as federal infrastructure spending, manufacturing reshoring initiatives and data center construction have increased competition for electricians, welders, HVAC technicians, and other specialized workers.

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Wholesale distributors are increasingly hiring employees dedicated to artificial intelligence as the industry shifts from AI experimentation to enterprise deployment.

The trend is creating new roles, driving compensation higher and forcing distributors to compete for talent that was once recruited primarily by technology companies.

Among the most visible examples is W.W. Grainger, which recently posted an opening for an AI Enablement Lead responsible for identifying AI opportunities, supporting adoption across business units, and helping employees integrate AI into daily workflows. The position carries a salary range of $176,900 to $294,800 in Chicago, excluding incentive compensation.

The role illustrates how distributors are approaching AI differently than many technology companies. Rather than building teams of researchers, distributors are focused on hiring professionals who can apply AI to specific business challenges, including pricing, inventory management, ecommerce, forecasting, customer service, and sales operations.

“The industry is moving beyond proof-of-concept projects,” said one distribution technology executive. “The focus now is on building internal capabilities that can deliver measurable business results.”

New Roles Emerge

The most common AI-related positions appearing across distribution fall into five categories: AI enablement leaders, machine learning engineers, AI product managers, governance specialists, and data professionals.

AI enablement leaders are responsible for helping employees adopt AI tools, identifying use cases and coordinating deployment across departments.

Machine learning engineers and AI engineers are being hired to develop and support applications such as product search, demand forecasting, pricing optimization, and digital commerce tools. In the Chicago market, machine learning engineers typically earn between $130,000 and $195,000 annually, while senior-level professionals can command compensation exceeding $250,000. AI engineers frequently earn salaries ranging from approximately $115,000 to more than $175,000.

Another emerging role is AI product manager, a position that serves as a bridge between business leaders and technical teams. These employees help prioritize projects, evaluate technology vendors, and measure business outcomes from AI investments.

At the same time, distributors continue to invest heavily in data engineers, analytics specialists, and data architects. Industry executives consistently cite data quality as one of the largest barriers to successful AI implementation, making data infrastructure a prerequisite for broader adoption.

Governance Becomes a Priority

As AI systems become more deeply embedded in business processes, distributors are also adding responsibilities related to governance, compliance, and risk management.

These positions oversee data usage policies, model performance, cybersecurity controls, and regulatory compliance. Interest in governance has increased as states continue to advance AI regulations while Congress has yet to establish a national framework.

For distributors using AI in pricing, forecasting, procurement and customer-facing applications, oversight is becoming an operational necessity rather than a future consideration.

Large Distributors Lead Hiring

Some of the most visible AI recruiting activities are occurring among larger distributors.

Grainger continues to expand AI-related hiring as it integrates AI into customer search, ecommerce, and operational processes. Technology distributors including Ingram Micro and TD SYNNEX are also investing in AI-focused talent to support growing demand for AI-enabled products and services.

Healthcare, food service, and industrial distributors are increasingly seeking professionals focused on forecasting, inventory optimization, warehouse automation, and customer experience initiatives.

Notably, most distributors are not creating standalone AI departments. Instead, they are embedding AI expertise within existing functions such as sales, marketing, pricing, supply chain, and customer service.

The Cost of Adoption of AI

The salary levels associated with AI roles underscore the growing financial commitment required to build internal expertise.

Senior AI leaders can command compensation approaching $300,000 annually, while experienced machine learning engineers and AI specialists often earn well into six figures. For many distributors, recruiting and retaining that talent may prove as challenging as selecting the right technology platforms.

As a result, companies increasingly value candidates who combine AI skills with deep distribution knowledge. Executives say employees who understand pricing, procurement, inventory management, and sales processes often deliver returns faster than technology specialists with limited industry experience.

The hiring trend suggests distributors increasingly view AI as a core business capability rather than a technology initiative.

The next phase of competition may depend less on which AI tools distributors purchase and more on whether they can recruit, train and retain employees capable of turning those tools into measurable business results.

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The National Association of Electrical Distributors has launched a national recruitment campaign aimed at attracting new talent to the electrical distribution industry as distributors grapple with labor shortages and an aging workforce.

The initiative, called “Careers with Power,” is designed to increase awareness of career opportunities in electrical distribution and connect prospective employees with jobs throughout the industry.

The campaign marks the first phase of NAED’s broader workforce development strategy and comes as distributors face mounting challenges recruiting workers for sales, operations, supply chain and technical positions.

Electrical distributors have increasingly cited workforce development as a strategic priority amid growing demand from construction, electrification, infrastructure, data center and industrial markets. At the same time, many companies are preparing for retirements among experienced employees and seeking to broaden their talent pipelines.

NAED said the campaign will use digital marketing, social media outreach and partnerships with workforce development organizations to introduce job seekers to careers in electrical distribution and direct them to employment opportunities across the channel.

The effort targets three groups that the association identified as key sources of future talent: students exploring career options, military veterans transitioning to civilian employment and women pursuing careers in technical and industrial industries.

Industry leaders have long argued that electrical distribution remains relatively unknown as a career path despite offering opportunities in sales, operations, logistics, technology, customer service and management.

The campaign is intended to raise the industry’s profile and position electrical distribution as a career destination tied to some of the fastest-growing segments of the economy, including energy infrastructure, electrification, automation and data center development.

NAED said additional workforce development resources and recruitment tools for distributors will be introduced in the coming weeks.

The launch reflects a broader trend across wholesale distribution, where trade associations and individual companies are investing more heavily in workforce development as labor availability becomes a growing constraint on long-term growth.

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