Manufacturers and distributors with rocky relationships need to distinguish what's personal and what's business.
When a marketing channel breaks down, it means distributors are seeing business slip away. It also means manufacturers are finding different ways to reach their markets. Manufacturer and distributor personnel caught up in these situations may grow testy with one another at times, although that's an effect rather than a cause of their problems. What everyone needs to face up to is there are certain fundamental business dilemmas that can't get resolved by a friendly phone call between golfing buddies. Some problems may have no solution at all, no matter how well the buyers and sellers get along.