Search engines are changing. The days of simply stuffing keywords and chasing domain authority are fading. Now, the focus is on Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). The goal isn't just to get a click: it is to provide the direct answer inside tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI overviews.

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Kyler Nixon sits down with Wendy Sponaugle, Vice President of Marketing at SupplyOne, to break down this massive shift in digital discovery. Wendy explains why distributors must move from generic product descriptions to conversational content that solves specific problems.

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They discuss why "zero-click" searches are becoming the norm and how to structure your website to survive the change. You will learn why context now beats keywords and how to find the exact questions your customers are asking—sometimes by looking in unexpected places like Reddit or even their browser history.

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Guest Bio

Wendy Sponaugle is the Vice President of Marketing at SupplyOne, Inc., the largest independent supplier of corrugated and value-added packaging products in the U.S. With over 15 years of experience in manufacturing, distribution, and logistics, Wendy specializes in data-driven demand generation and transforming complex operational capabilities into clear market narratives. She focuses on aligning product positioning with the "Voice of the Customer" to drive measurable revenue growth.

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What We Cover

1. Defining AEO: The critical difference between traditional Search Engine Optimization and the new world of Answer Engine Optimization.
2. The Conversational Shift: Why content must sound human to rank in AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude.
3. Three Key Content Pillars: Wendy’s strategy relies on FAQs, Case Studies, and specific Blogs to capture traffic.
4. Context Over Keywords: Why describing the job site or the problem is now more effective than listing product specs.
5. Mining for Questions: How to use sales team feedback and platforms like Reddit to identify what customers actually need.
6. The Search History Strategy: Kyler shares a bold tactic for finding out exactly how procurement professionals search for products.
7. Value-Add Services: How moving beyond "lowest price" and offering expert consultation creates sticky customer relationships.

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Resources Mentioned

1. SupplyOne, Inc.
2. ChatGPT

Most business leaders try to keep their personal beliefs separate from their professional lives. Kyler Nixon sits down with Craig Penland to discuss what happens when you do the exact opposite. Craig opens up about the terrifying winter of 2009, when he dropped to his knees in a quiet office to seek direction, only to receive a call that saved the business days later.

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You will hear how Craig navigates the tension of being a "faith-based business" without forcing it on his team. He explains why he refused to remove religious messages from his invoices, even when a sales rep warned it would cost him business. Kyler and Craig also discuss the "NASCAR smoke" visualization that changed how Eurolink handled the uncertainty of 2020: instead of slowing down, they accelerated. This is a candid look at building a company that prioritizes people over profits and service over volume.

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Guest Bio

Craig Penland is the Founder, President, and CEO of Eurolink Fastener Supply Service. Based in Greer, South Carolina, Craig launched the company in 2000 to solve a specific problem in the industrial market: sourcing hard-to-find metric fasteners. Under his leadership, Eurolink has become a premier "master distributor" known for stocking C-class items that larger competitors ignore. Craig is also an active member of C12 and partners with nonprofits, including JUMPSTART SC, to provide employment opportunities.

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What We Cover

1. The specific prayer in 2009 that preceded a company-saving order from a lost customer.
2. How Craig handled a sales rep who wanted him to hide his faith to win more business.
3. Why does Eurolink pay for a chaplain to visit the office every two weeks?
4. The "NASCAR smoke" analogy: How to lead when you cannot see what is in front of you.
5. Navigating the hiring process as a faith-led company without being exclusionary.
6. Why does Eurolink focus on "No Quote" and "No Stock" items rather than competing on volume?
7. Separating your personal identity from the financial success of your business.

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Resources Mentioned

1. Eurolink Fastener Supply Service
2. C12 Business Forums
3. JUMPSTART SC

Most family business transitions happen quietly behind closed doors. For Andrew Johnson, the handoff included a meeting he now calls "The Apocalypse." Before he became the CEO of ShelfAware, Andrew was just a son trying to modernize his father's legacy company, O-ring Sales & Service.

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Host Kyler Nixon talks with Andrew about the messy reality of entrepreneurship. They discuss the friction between founders and the next generation, specifically how Andrew and his brothers-in-law presented a massive growth plan that led to them being "fired" for a night. Andrew also breaks down how constraints—like wanting to compete with giants like Fastenal without adding headcount—forced them to invent the RFID technology that eventually became ShelfAware.

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👤 Guest Bio

Andrew Johnson is the CEO of ShelfAware LLC and an Owner at O-ring Sales & Service, Inc. Growing up in the family business, he started inspecting parts in the warehouse before earning an accounting degree to prove his financial literacy to his father. Today, he runs a connected ecosystem of industrial businesses in the Greater Kansas City area. Andrew focuses on "Digital VMI" (Vendor Managed Inventory), using RFID technology to help independent distributors automate replenishment and compete with national chains.

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📌 What We Cover

1. The "15-15-15" Plan: The specific goal Andrew and his partners set to hit $15 million in revenue with 15 employees in 15,000 square feet.
2. Surviving "The Apocalypse": The story of the night, the next generation presented a modernization plan to the founder, and nearly lost their jobs.
3. Founder's Syndrome: Why creators often treat their company like a "fifth child" that no one else is allowed to raise.
4. Practical Education: Why Andrew’s father forced him to get an accounting degree instead of a marketing one before joining the firm.
5. Competing with Fastenal: How O-ring Sales & Service needed a VMI solution that didn't require expensive field reps or branch locations.
6. RFID Smart Labels: Transforming standard inventory shelves into "virtual vending machines" to track consumption without hardware-heavy investments.
7. The "False Start" in Succession: The consequences of executing major business changes—like a new ERP implementation—without fully communicating the vision to the founder or the staff.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

1. ShelfAware VMI

Distributors often look to direct-to-consumer giants for website inspiration, but B2B buyers have fundamentally different needs. They are not shopping for entertainment: they are doing a job. Kyler Nixon sits down with Tari Elkin from Restek Corporation to break down exactly how to convert busy lab managers into loyal customers.

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The secret is not adding more features: it is removing the barriers that stop the sale. Tari explains why Restek moves past vanity metrics to focus on pure utility. She shares a specific case study in which shifting the burden of account verification from the customer to the internal team led to a 40% increase in conversion rates. Kyler and Tari also discuss the critical role of accurate product data in preventing costly downtime for clients and how to prepare your digital infrastructure for the upcoming shift toward "Answer Engine Optimization."

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Tari Elkin helps lead the digital experience at Restek Corporation, an employee-owned developer and manufacturer of chromatography products based in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. With a background in research at Oregon State University, Tari bridges the gap between technical scientific needs and seamless e-commerce experiences. She focuses on data-driven enhancements that simplify procurement for lab managers and scientists worldwide.

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1. The Utility Mandate: Why B2B buyers care more about finding invoices and tracking shipments quickly than they do about flashy website designs.
2. The 40% Conversion Win: How Restek changed their account linking process to remove friction at the cart level and drastically increased sales.
3. Customer Advisory Panels: A practical framework for meeting with your most vocal customers biannually to validate your roadmap.
4. Rethinking Subscriptions: Using subscription models to give buyers control and flexibility rather than trapping them into unwanted monthly orders.
5. The Cost of Bad Data: Why a wrong SKU is just an annoyance in retail but causes massive revenue loss and downtime in industrial and scientific sectors.
6. Roadmap Strategy: Organizing agile development into boulders, rocks, and pebbles to balance major innovations with necessary maintenance.
7. Future-Proofing for AI: Preparing product data for "Answer Engine Optimization" so bots and humans can find your inventory.

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1. Restek Corporation

Most entrepreneurs believe the distribution market is a "solved game" dominated by giants like McKesson and Medline. Kevin Finley disagrees. In less than five months, he launched Keystone Supply Group and is already profitable by doing exactly what the legacy players refuse to do. This episode is a masterclass in supply chain resilience and aggressive, scrappy sales tactics for new distributors.

Kevin reveals how he leverages public government data to build prospect lists from zero and why he purposefully avoids net-30 terms to secure unbeatable pricing. He explains the critical role of "secondary distributors" when Tier 1 supply chains break down, citing the recent Baxter manufacturing crisis as a prime example. If you believe the market is too crowded for a new player, this conversation proves that agility, cash flow, and direct manufacturer relationships still beat massive scale.

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Kevin Finley is the Founder and CEO of Keystone Supply Group, a rapidly growing distribution firm based in Wayzata, Minnesota. With a background forged in the high-stakes pressure of COVID-19 procurement, Kevin specializes in bypassing traditional supply chain bottlenecks to serve healthcare and industrial clients directly. He champions a "Partner in Preparedness" philosophy, emphasizing transparency, speed, and the elimination of unnecessary intermediaries to deliver essential supplies when Tier 1 distributors fail.

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1. The COVID Wake-Up Call: Kevin explains how the pandemic exposed massive lapses in the traditional supply chain. He realized that when the "big guys" run out of stock, the entire market breaks down, creating a significant opportunity for agile secondary distributors.
2. Capitalizing on Crisis: The conversation shifts to the recent impact of Hurricane Helene on the Baxter manufacturing plant. Kevin details how smaller distributors can step in to support downstream clients, such as surgery centers, when national supply lines are severed.
3. The "Ripple Effect" Sales Method: Starting with zero customers requires scrappy tactics. Kevin describes how he dissects a single win—such as selling gloves to a New Jersey wholesaler—to immediately identify and pitch similar businesses in the same region.
4. Hacking Government Data: You do not need to buy expensive lists to find leads. Kevin explains how he uses tools like BidNet and BidPrime to find public bid requests, using specific keywords to identify exactly who is buying which products right now.
5. State vs. Federal Bidding: If you want to enter the government market, do not start with federal contracts. Kevin advises focusing on state and local bids first, where the paperwork is manageable (5-10 pages) compared to the 100-page complexity of federal RFPs.
6. Building Systems to Scale: Kevin discusses the importance of documenting every process before hiring. He shares his strategy of recording screen captures for invoicing and shipping to ensure new hires can replicate his work without constant supervision.

B2B distribution marketing is changing fast. The old playbook of sending a catalog once a year and waiting for the phone to ring is dead. Today's business buyers are consumers first. They check texts between meetings. They listen to podcasts on their commute. They doom-scroll TikTok.

In this episode, Kyler sits down with Damien Garber from Groomer’s Choice Pet Products to break down how a legacy distributor is aggressively pivoting to digital channels. Damien reveals why they didn't just start a podcast: they acquired an audience instead. He also shares the data behind their massive success with SMS marketing and why asking for a phone number on your website might not be as scary as you think.

If you want to modernize your marketing mix without alienating your core customers, this conversation is the blueprint.

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Damien Garber is the Sales & Marketing Manager at Groomer’s Choice Pet Products, a family-owned manufacturer and distributor based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Since joining the team, Damien has helped steer the company's commercial strategy, overseeing marketing initiatives and customer experience for independent salon owners. He plays a central role in the company's growth, including the recent 2025 acquisition of Showseason® Animal Products. Damien focuses on equipping professional groomers with the education and tools they need to run profitable businesses.

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Most companies try to start a podcast from scratch. Groomer’s Choice took a smarter route. They partnered with Joe Zello, an existing industry influencer with a 40-year track record. By bringing the "Hey Joe" podcast under their umbrella, they instantly tapped into a loyal audience.

The result: The email announcing new episodes has a 40% open rate. It replaced their generic "welcome" sequences and now serves as a high-value top-of-funnel entry point.

There is a myth that texting is only for B2C brands. Damien proves that wrong. Groomer’s Choice uses SMS for abandoned carts, re-engagement, and flash sales. Because groomers are often on their feet working with animals, they respond to texts faster than to emails.

The data: Open rates are as high as 97% for text campaigns. It is quickly becoming a top-three revenue channel for the business.

Conventional wisdom holds that asking for too much information on a sign-up form reduces conversion rates. Damien’s team tested this. They required a phone number alongside the email address on their site pop-ups. The result? Zero drop in opt-in rates. If customers value what you offer, they are willing to share their contact information.

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1. Why Groomer’s Choice partnered with an existing podcaster instead of starting from zero.
2. Moving from 6 catalogs a year to a digital-first ecosystem.
3. Seeing 40% open rates on podcast-related...

Manufacturers need great distributors and great distributors need great manufacturers, especially when the line between B2B and B2C keeps blurring. On this conversation of Darn Good Distributors, host Kyler Nixon sits down with Jonathan Costa from Rex-Cut Abrasives to highlight the relationship between a manufacturer and its distribution network.

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Jonathan shares how a full scale abrasive manufacturer with around 10,000 SKUs structures a business that is roughly 90 percent distribution and 10 percent limited B2C e commerce for mom and pop shops, garage guys, and hobbyists. He talks about distributors who are committed to finding the best solution for their customer, service that feels like a first name relationship, and why education over promotion matters in the abrasive world.

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Kyler brings the distributor perspective on product data, pricing, and big contracts, and both sides talk honestly about morals, ethics, quantity limits on web stores, and why everyone has to work together for the benefit of the customer.

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Jonathan Costa represents Rex-Cut Abrasives, an abrasive manufacturer that has been in business since around 1920. Jonathan describes Rex-Cut as a full scale, full service abrasive manufacturer known for cotton fiber abrasives, grinding wheels, cutoff wheels, non woven products, and high quality niche solutions for aircraft, aerospace, automotive, and other applications.

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Working with roughly 400 to 500 distributors and a smaller B2C web store, Jonathan focuses on relationships, service, education, and solving problems for end users while respecting long term distribution partnerships in both B2B and B2C settings.

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• Why the relationship between manufacturers and distributors matters and how that ecosystem should look when manufacturers sell primarily through distribution
• How Rex-Cut Abrasives reaches roughly 90 percent B2B distribution and 10 percent B2C through a limited web store, Amazon, and other supplier partners
• What makes a good partnership from the manufacturer side, including distributors who are committed to finding the best solution for their customer even when a current process already works
• Service as a differentiator, including answering the phone, dropping by shops, first name relationships, outside sales reps, and distributors who go to bat for a manufacturer
• Why Jonathan and his team focus on education over promotion, using distributor trainings, product composition, tips and tricks, YouTube, LinkedIn, video, photo, and content
• How product specs like size, grit, grain type, bonds, and clear data help distributors avoid incomplete product data sheets and support customers who need to fit a product to a machine, part, or job
• Frustrating moments when manufacturers and distributors compete for the same customer, including examples of lower direct pricing and big contracts that damage trust
• How quantity limits on a B2C web store, respect for the line in the sand, morals, and ethics help balance B2B distribution and B2C e commerce
• Closing thoughts on distributors and manufacturers working together, holding integrity high, communicating clearly, and driving value for the customer

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Acquisition costs are up, ad costs are up, and retention is a core focus of 2026 and beyond for distributors. On Darn Good Distributors, host Kyler Nixon brings on friend of the show and business partner Jeff Felten from Forward Studios to talk about going deeper inside your existing house file and getting second, third, fourth, and fifth orders from customers you already acquired.

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They focus on warm, consent based email lists that sit in tools like MailChimp, HubSpot, or Klaviyo and walk through three ways distributors are using email to drive retention in 2026. Jeff explains why segmenting customers as inside the buying window or outside the buying window lines up with real B2B buying behavior, how to match the right message to the right person at the right time, and why simple text based emails that feel like they came from another person can quadruple conversion rates. If retention, LTV, and AOV are front of mind, this practical conversation keeps your brand top of mind for business buyers.

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Jeff Felten is a friend of the show and business partner to Kyler Nixon. Together they run Forward Studios, where they help distributors leverage email marketing to improve retention, increase LTV, and increase AOV. Jeff works in the weeds with clients on warm, consent based email lists and practical campaigns so distributors can capture more high intent buyers and drive second, third, fourth, and fifth orders from customers who already purchased.

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• Cold email versus warm, consent based email and why this conversation is only about the list you already own
• Why standard demographic segmentation by vertical, job title, or engagement delivers an incomplete picture of B2B buying behavior
• Segmenting customers as inside the buying window or outside the buying window based on real buying signals and behavior
• How to hit customers inside the buying window with product recommendations, category recommendations, direct promotions, and clear brand positioning that help them move faster
• Nurturing customers outside the buying window with helpful tools, resources, blog posts, PDFs, checklists, finder tools, and off season examples like golf courses in Wisconsin
• The piggy bank picture of email marketing, balancing deposits of nurture content with moments when it is time to sell
• Why business buyers tune out flashy, heavily designed promos that feel like ads and respond to short text based emails that look like person to person messages
• Key metrics for email driven retention like revenue per recipient, revenue per campaign, conversion rate, AOV, and how stronger email can lift organic and direct revenue

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• Forward Studios
• Kyler Nixon on LinkedIn
• Jeff Felten on LinkedIn
• MailChimp
• HubSpot