What's the best way to decide which companies to do business with? I'm an independent rep, often I get the luxury of choosing which brands I get to work with, as well as the challenge of making the choice. Sometimes I end up working with companies that I don't get along with. Because of that risk I had to come up with a filter to help me decide whether or not to partner with any given brand. I call it Points of VUE.

By the numbers. There are 30 points on the line, 10 in each of the 3 categories. There's 1 caveat; you have to decide what your threshold of acceptance is. Mine is 60% or 18 points. I will make exceptions for the brands that are taking the steps to raise their score. For me to make an exception there has to be an action plan in place along with a reasonable timeline. Otherwise, it's not going to work between us.

Category 1- Value

The value a brand offers can go 3 ways. First, they can offer the consumer a bargain. A price that beats out their competition, any price manipulation fits this option. Next, they can have a kick ass margin for their retail partners. If your rivals have a 40-50% margin and you roll up with a 55% margin for a similar product you're likely going to win the purchasing battle that day. The last way and the rockstar of the group is to have both a competitive price and a great margin. That's a 10/10 every time. If you have one or the other you can still score well depending on your value in either price to the end user or price to the retailer.

Category 2- Uniqueness

How unique is your product or brand? Does it offer a solution to a problem in a way that no one else does? Is it the only solution in a particular space? Does it put a spin on a current trend or product? Your product needs to stand out in some way, where does your value proposition come into play? If you want to score a 10 in this category then you had better have a product that stands head and shoulders above their rivals. You can still find yourself with a decent score as long as you're doing something differently to help your product stand out from the crowd.

Category 3- Ease of doing business

Take my money! It's a bit more involved than that. It boils down to how easy is it to buy your products. Do you have inventory ready to ship, fast shipping, an intuitive website, a good b2b site? Do you offer easy and secure payment processing methods? To score high on this one you better make it easy for people to buy from you. If you're having trouble imagining a brand that would actively place obstacles in the path of their customers, good. These brands exist and they're almost always blind to it. It's 2022 and you want to build your dealer network, you don't have a b2b site, or even a secure payment processing system then you're at a severe disadvantage. Another big part of ease is communication. Most issues can be resolved by talking to your customer and forecasting what's coming next.

Let's give this a test and drop a few brands through this filter, remembering that it's subjective to the user's perspective.

Amazon - Value = 10 This is an easy one for me. I use Amazon as a price comparison tool and I'm sure you and your customers do too. They play such a huge role in price comparison that it's almost a dirty word in brick and mortar retail stores. I say almost because some retailers have discovered that they can use the platform as a way to reach new customers and sell more products. Yup, Amazon sells the ability to sell and that creates a huge value to both retailers and the consumers. Uniqueness = 10 How many companies are doing what Amazon is doing? Nobody is doing it as well. Heck they solved the most expensive part of the equation, the last mile of delivery. Ebay, Walmart, and Alibaba aren't on their level. Ease of doing business = 10 How easy is it for me to buy from Amazon? They have an app that is wildly easy to use. It's so easy that on occasion we hear stories on the news about a child that accidently makes a major purchase on their parents phone. We have gift lists that we can share, birthdays, weddings, baby showers and more. They've redefined the idea of gift registry for people. Gift giving and shipping has been made too easy to pass up. They'll wrap it, give it a custom note, and ship it to any address I desire. For payments, they save my cards and billing addresses. They even offer 1 touch purchases. I can drop an item in my cart and in a single click the item will appear at my front door. Also I should mention that when they drop off my package the driver takes a picture of it and posts it in the app. I could go on about some of the other shopping benefits, I think you catch my drift, 30 points to Amazon.

SodaStream - Value = 2 Oh man, it's $100 for the starter pack. I can just buy a 2 liter of cola and save myself the step of cooking up my own soda. The value isn't there for me. I'm sure if you break down the cost of each bottle you produce it might be a savings. The time invested in making it and maintaining it is a negative factor for me too. Uniqueness = 10 You've gotta give it to them, they're incredibly unique. Who else is in the homemade soda space? There are a few options ranging from $40-$113,000. You read that correctly, $113,000. That's the industrial set up. There are so few setups that the industrial rig populates in the shopping tab results. It's extremely unique. Ease of doing business = 5 it's easy to buy one. Head to their site and snag it, you can even buy it on Amazon. My issue is where do you buy replacement cylinders, bottles, syrup, with ease? What's the learning curve for maximizing value? How long does a bottle of syrup last? I've owned one for about 3 years, It sits on a shelf not being used because it's not an easy task for me. Again, this is a subjective process and you might find this product to be exactly what you wanted. For me it only racks up 17 points. It falls below my 18 point threshold and as a result you won't have to fight me for an opportunity to buy their products. If they improve their value and ease of doing business I might change my mind and dust off the bottle. These scores aren't set in stone. If a brand makes changes they can earn a higher score. My next example has a history of improving.

Domino's Pizza - About 10 years ago Domino's was ketchup and cardboard pizza. Not a super delicious meal. Then it happened, we were at Disney world smashing ride after ride, we were legit hurting and fatigued from being on our feet all day. We got back to the hotel room and stumbled upon a Domino's coupon. We ordered and were reintroduced to their pizza. Value = 10 It costs $6-10 for a pie! That's 2240 calories for a Large Pepperoni pizza. A days worth of calories baked into a $10 package. Don't go out and live on pizza alone, lol, it's not healthy. You can survive on a budget because the value is there. Uniqueness = 6 In my house we classify our pizza in 2 categories. Bougie pizza and Cheap pizza. Bougie pizza is the mom and pop $20/pie pizza. Cheap pizza is everything else. Domino's is Cheap pizza with a Bougie feel. For contrast, Pizza hut has a Cheap pizza feel with a Bougie pizza price tag and Little Caesars is textbook cheap pizza. Domino's has raised the bar on the quality of their food, marketing, and customer service. They're next level Cheap Pizza. Ease of doing business = 10 The app is intuitive, it saves our order, our payment history, and it goes a step further by tracking our order process in a status bar. It even allows us to send the person baking our pie a special note. Domino's nets a solid 26 points.

Takeaways, this system is subjective. Don't judge me based on how I rated these examples, they relate to my lifestyle and my experiences. They may not reflect your values and that's ok. The objective is to have a system in place that helps you make challenging decisions. Don't use Points of VUE to help you decide where to buy lunch; use it to decide whether you should partner with a brand, take a job offer, and make difficult choices. It's a powerful tool that you can take with you anywhere, enjoy...

As always, remember that I'm human and I make mistakes. You'll find some spelling errors, missing or misplaced commas too. Please forgive me, send me a direct message and I'll work to correct these mistakes. I appreciate the fact that you spent your time reading this today. I hope that you found it helpful in some way; if you did, please share it with your network. Cheers!