Reading time: 7 minutes · For owners of SMEs in the March region, on the Obersee and around Lake Zurich
A manufacturer develops an excellent dental implant. A dental depot adds it to its range. And in the dental practice where the buying decision is actually made, nobody has ever heard of it. That is not an edge case — it is the default in every industry where a product passes through two hands before reaching the end customer.
What sounds like a dental-industry peculiarity affects many SMEs in this region: furniture makers selling through specialist retailers, producers of building components that reach the contractor via resellers, technology firms with distributors. In my mandates with manufacturing and trading businesses — including in the dental industry — I have seen the same pattern for years. Dental is the running example here because the dynamics are sharpest there: manufacturer, distributor, dentist.
What B2B2B means – and where head-office marketing ends
B2B2B stands for business-to-business-to-business: you sell to a company — the dealer — which in turn sells to another company: the dental practice, the joinery, the construction firm. Most manufacturers aim their entire marketing at the first hand: catalogues, price lists, trade-fair stands, product training. It stops at the distributor’s door. What happens after that — whether the dealer brings your product into the end customer’s conversation — is left to chance.
The real problem sits deeper: in most dealer networks, nobody ever agreed where head office’s responsibility for growth ends and the dealer’s begins. Both sides feel undersupported — because the work in the middle, creating demand, positioning and following through, was never assigned to anyone.
A dealer network rarely underperforms because nobody is trying. It underperforms in the gap between two parties who each assumed the other had it covered.
Where growth actually leaks
The typical setup: head office assumes the dealer takes care of local demand. The dealer assumes brand and demand are the manufacturer’s job — he handles relationships, stock and logistics. Both wait. And when revenue stalls, the dealer asks for «more support», and head office delivers: another brochure, another rebate programme, another training.
But support is not an answer to the question of who owns what. The growth conversation is really an ownership conversation wearing a marketing costume. As long as the split is not written down, market by market, growth leaks where nobody feels responsible — and clarifying it is the cheapest growth lever in the entire network.
Lesson 1: demand is created at the end-customer level – not in the channel
The most important lesson from the dental industry sounds paradoxical: the best leads do not come through the dentist. For decades the industry assumed demand originates in the treatment chair — the distributor waits until the practice orders. Yet the fastest-growing categories of recent years, aligners and aesthetic treatments, did not grow because dentists ordered more supplies. They grew because someone built brands that made patients actively ask for them.
The patient is not looking for a product but for an outcome: a nicer smile, chewing without pain. Whoever captures that search, builds trust and routes pre-qualified prospects to a practice steers the market. The formula: the dentist will always own the treatment. But whoever owns the demand owns the growth.
Translated for your SME: your dealer’s customer has customers too. Create demand at that level — with content that addresses real pain points rather than keywords instead of recycling catalogue copy — and you make your dealer stronger, not weaker, provided demand is routed through the channel, never around it.
Lesson 2: who owns the lead, who owns the brand?
The moment you create end-customer demand, delicate questions arise — and they belong in writing, per market and per dealer:
- Who creates demand – and who converts it into orders?
- What can the dealer realistically do that head office cannot – and vice versa?
- What does «support» mean in concrete deliverables: which services, by when, owned by whom?
- Who owns the lead, who owns the customer relationship, who owns the brand?
The proven ground rule: the brand belongs to the manufacturer, the customer relationship to the dealer — and every lead is handed over qualified, cleanly attributed and free of charge. Sell past your dealers and you win short-term margin and lose the network. Fill their order books instead, and you stop being an interchangeable supplier and become the reason their business runs. The order-taker becomes a market maker.
Lesson 3: co-marketing that dealers actually use
The reflex of many head offices: a polished brochure with a placeholder for the dealer’s logo. That solves head office’s problem — «we delivered» — not the dealer’s. What dealers actually use are recipes rather than gloss: the concrete offer, the sequence, the objections with the answers that worked, the channel, the budget range — and what can be skipped.
The test is simple: could a dealer who was not in the room run the campaign next quarter from the document alone? If not, it is a presentation, not a tool. The best recipes rarely come from head office — they come from the markets. How to organise that exchange: see my article on distributor meetings that set things in motion.
What this means for an SME in the region
None of this requires a corporate budget. A furniture manufacturer in Galgenen selling through twenty specialist retailers can do three things in one quarter: first, put the split in writing with its five most important dealers — one afternoon per dealer. Second, build one single channel to the end customer, for example a guide section for builders and interior designers. Third, set up clean lead routing: every enquiry reaches the responsible retailer with name, source and need attached.
Exactly this kind of work — getting the right task owned by the right party without adding headcount — is classic work for a fractional marketing lead. For businesses from around ten employees there are mandate models built for this; an overview is on the services page.
Frequently asked questions
We only have a handful of dealers. Is this still worth it?
Especially then. The fewer dealers, the more weight each relationship carries — and the faster the split is clarified. A written agreement per dealer takes one afternoon, and the effect shows in next quarter’s order numbers.
Won’t we upset our dealers if we address end customers directly?
Only if you sell past them. As long as every lead lands with the dealer qualified, attributed and free, dealers experience the opposite of competition: full order books they did not pay for. For a manufacturer between Lachen and Reichenburg, this is often the step that turns a quiet supply relationship into a real partnership.
Where do we start?
With one market, one dealer, one quarter. One conversation, one written split, one joint test — and a fixed date after 90 days. The start needs nothing more.
Do you sell through dealers?
Take the self-check and see in five minutes where your marketing stands today – or book a free 30-minute intro call to talk about your dealer structure. No pitch, just clarity.