Distributors are the builders of a company's market channels and terminals, and strategic partners in the company's channel pathways and product terminal sales. The relationship between a company and its distributors is interdependent and close. A professional and excellent distributor team will effectively implement marketing strategic plans and promote rapid company development; conversely, it will cause the company to stagnate. This requires companies not only to carefully select and develop distributors but also to strengthen the management and training of the existing distributor team, building a new type of distributor team that is excellent, professional, and dedicated. Based on his experience in providing marketing theory training to brand company distributors in recent years, practical terminal marketing management expert Mr. Guo Hanlao lists the erroneous concepts in distributors' specific operational management affairs:

Mistake 1: Distributors believe that the brand is unrelated to them and is solely the headquarters' responsibility. In today's highly homogenized and competitive market, customers' purchases largely stem from their identification with the brand. While distributors share in the benefits brought by the brand, they cannot leave brand building solely to the headquarters. They must actively participate in brand building because an important part of brand building is terminal display, sales, after-sales service, etc. The quality of products and services is the actual sense of identification customers have from purchase to use. The brand culture runs through many aspects of products and services, and it is the result of joint efforts by the company, distributors, and even terminal stores. To achieve higher brand recognition, distributors must participate in brand building to better share the brand effect.

Mistake 2: Distributors are unwilling to invest in brand advertising, showing serious short-term behavior. Distributors are at the forefront of the product sales chain and are often the biggest beneficiaries of brand profits. Wise distributors should be good at promoting the brand, creating the best sales atmosphere to leverage brand strength, attract more customers, achieve greater sales, and thus capture a larger market share in the region. This investment can be manifested as: sparing no effort to seriously implement the headquarters' advertising strategic deployment, using every advertising dollar and every poster well, timely investing in advertising to promote the brand at the terminal and seize the market. However, some distributors are unwilling to invest in brand advertising, only taking without giving, even killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, showing serious short-term behavior.

Mistake 3: Distributors wait for customers passively, only knowing how to sit and sell, not how to market actively, and not knowing how to go out to expand customer resources. The era of "good wine needs no bush" is long gone. The market, with product homogenization, diversification, and intense competition, requires refined and penetrating terminal sales. Distributors must go out, actively promote and guide, build more connections, and let more people know about your store, products, and services to achieve better sales. Connections are money; continuously increasing network resources will effectively promote sales. Active selling is more effective than passive selling. As a distributor, you cannot wait for customers passively, only knowing how to reap without sowing; you must learn to go out and expand more customer resources.

Mistake 4: Distributors sell special-priced items designated by the brand headquarters as regular products to reap huge profits, affecting the brand. Special offers are part of a company's marketing strategy. Based on the characteristics of special items (such as different quality, inventory, off-season goods, trial new products, etc.), the company uses special sales to achieve strategic goals such as market research, new product development, and timely clearance. In this activity, distributors are the company's eyes and hands, playing a major role in market feedback. Selling special items as regular products, this petty behavior will directly prevent the company's special sales strategic goals from being achieved, and ultimately harm the distributors' own interests. It is like a "three-edged sword," harming the company, distributors, and consumers alike. Distributors should fully follow the brand manufacturer's deployment, sell special-priced items at special prices, and not seek short-term huge profits that affect brand reputation.

Mistake 5: Distributors do not participate in the company's unified promotional activities, only pursuing high added value of product profits. The company's nationwide unified promotional activities carry important marketing strategic purposes and are formulated after thorough market research. Their purpose is to promote the brand, attack competing brands, create sales highlights, and create a nationwide sales atmosphere, thereby driving rapid brand improvement and nationwide product promotion. Only when all distributors actively and consistently participate can a trend be formed and the expected strategic goals be achieved. At the same time, promotions are also important means for regional distributors to activate regional consumers' active purchasing, attract and increase new customers, and achieve expanded sales. Distributors participating in the company's nationwide unified promotional activities not only jointly promote brand growth and improvement but also effectively expand the brand in the region, thereby enhancing terminal sales.

Mistake 6: Distributors sell products at high prices, pursuing high added value per unit product profit, ignoring economies of scale, failing to achieve win-win cooperation between manufacturer and distributor, and failing to pursue a win-win value chain for social interests. Distributors who make this mistake first fail to recognize the economies of scale in product marketing. They only see the sky from the bottom of a well, winning temporary small profits but losing precious integrity. In product sales, price is the most concerned factor. The unified market guidance price set by the company is formed through precise market analysis and is scientifically reasonable. The company requires unified terminal and price, aiming to form a brand product scale effect with unified price and consistent service. At the same time, in today's network era with rapid information transmission, raising prices can only win today but lose tomorrow. Secondly, good brands should have strong social win-win characteristics, pursuing a triple win for the company, merchants, and consumers, creating a harmonious social supply-demand environment, and realizing the brand's social value is also the responsibility and obligation of merchants.

Mistake 7: Distributors are content with small success, lack ambition, and affect the brand and product's market share in the local market. "Learning is like rowing upstream; not advancing means falling back." The same applies to business: those who are content with small success and easily satisfied are extremely wrong and dangerous. In today's fiercely competitive era, if you don't run, you wait to die; if you run slowly, you are eliminated. Distributors who lack ambition not only affect the brand and product's market share in the local market but may also be caught up by competing merchants who occupy your original market. Therefore, as a distributor, you must dare to grow bigger, dare to think and act, and only then can you grow together with the brand and dominate the region.

Mistake 8: Distributors do not cooperate enough with the brand headquarters, insufficient terminal image display, and cannot strengthen terminal image presentation according to the headquarters' intentions. Terminal image display is an important part of attracting customers and achieving sales. Good display not only effectively communicates the brand image but also impresses passersby, attracts attention, guides consumption, and promotes sales. The terminal image of brand specialty stores is usually carefully designed by the company: comprehensive consideration, exquisite design, reasonable display, strong brand culture and appeal, and requires all specialty stores to be the same, achieving highly consistent brand recognition. Only by strengthening the image presentation of terminal specialty stores can it be consistent with the company's brand promotion, making customers think of the brand when they see the sign and display, directly promoting sales.

Mistake 9: Distributors do not attach importance to after-sales service, saving after-sales service costs, and short-term behavior cannot increase repeat purchases from old customers. After-sales service is an important part of product marketing and one of the important contents of brand building. Good products + good after-sales service = good brand. Customer recognition, satisfaction, and repeat purchase rate come 100% from good after-sales service. Therefore, distributors must do a good job in after-sales service to drive more old customers to purchase and promote faster terminal development. Ignoring after-sales service, on the surface, saves costs, but in essence, it quickly loses existing customers. "Bad news travels fast" quickly spreads throughout the market, making sales work impossible.

Mistake 10: Distributors do not stock up during the brand's peak season, do not understand that "abundant goods allow rotation," insufficient ordering, and cannot replenish orders during the peak season, affecting sales performance. New distributors and seasoned distributors are prone to this mistake. The former lack experience and dare not order enough; the latter often use their resource advantages to replenish goods when needed. The result of both is not only causing themselves to be flustered but also disrupting the company's plans, making it impossible to respond, ultimately having no goods to supply, affecting both parties' sales performance and greatly damaging the distributor's own interests and image. Therefore, during peak season sales, it is necessary to fully investigate the demand market, stock up sufficiently, and do the peak season sales well and thoroughly. Only with abundant goods can rotation occur; insufficient ordering leads to stockouts, and stockouts are equivalent to suicide. In the futures system era, the timeliness of replenishment orders is increasingly not guaranteed. Therefore, stocking up during the peak season and ordering enough goods is an important guarantee for improving sales.

There are many reasons for distributors making the above mistakes, such as cultural vision, sales knowledge, regional conditions, etc. But all distributors want to earn more money. How to teach them to correct their views? Only better development can win a larger market. This is an important task for brand companies. No one is born knowing, and no one becomes excellent without learning. Brand companies must have an excellent new-type distributor team that keeps pace with the times. While providing comprehensive, complete, and sufficient technology and funds, they also need to pay attention to communication and training with distributors. Training is the fastest weapon for unifying thoughts. Only by continuously strengthening distributor training can the brand headquarters build a dedicated, professional, and committed distributor team to win together.

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