---
title: "13 Key Points Account Managers Must Focus on in Distributor Management"
description: "Distributors play a dominant role in local markets by delivering products to retail outlets. The following are 13 key details that account managers must pay attention to in their daily management of distributors, including sales growth analysis, payment collection, policy compliance, inventory management, and more."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-03-02"
language: "en"
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# 13 Key Points Account Managers Must Focus on in Distributor Management

> Distributors play a dominant role in local markets by delivering products to retail outlets. The following are 13 key details that account managers must pay attention to in their daily management of distributors, including sales growth analysis, payment collection, policy compliance, inventory management, and more.

Distributors play an absolutely dominant role in local markets by delivering products to retail outlets. The following are 13 key details that account managers must focus on in their daily management of distributors:

1. **Sales Growth Rate Analysis:**
Analyze the growth of sales. In principle, a distributor with a significant increase in sales is considered excellent, but the growth must be analyzed in detail. Account managers should compare the distributor's sales growth with market growth and the average growth of the company's products. If a distributor's sales are increasing but market share and the average growth rate of the company's products are not increasing or are declining, it can be concluded that the management of this distributor is not proper.

2. **Payment Collection Statistics:**
Analyze annual and monthly sales and payment collections, and also check the content of sales. If annual sales are increasing but monthly sales fluctuate significantly, the sales situation is not healthy. Only when a distributor's sales show steady growth can the management of the distributor be considered complete.

3. **Understanding Company Policies:**
Account managers should not blindly pursue sales growth. They should ensure that distributors understand the company's policies and comply with them, thereby promoting sales growth. Some improper practices, such as disrupting market order through vicious competition or cross-regional selling (channel stuffing), may increase sales but harm the company's overall interests and are harmful. Therefore, making distributors understand, comply with, and cooperate with company policies is an important aspect of distributor management.

4. **Inventory Status:**
Frequent stockouts indicate that the distributor does not value the company's products and also show that the account manager has insufficient contact with the distributor, which is a serious dereliction of duty. Stockouts cause the company to lose many opportunities, so effective inventory management is the most basic responsibility of an account manager in distributor management.

5. **Participation in Promotional Activities:**
Does the distributor actively participate in and fully cooperate with various promotional activities organized by the company? If the distributor participates in every promotion and sales increase as a result, it indicates proper management. If the distributor is unwilling to participate or does not cooperate, the account manager should analyze the reasons and formulate countermeasures. Without the participation and cooperation of distributors, promotional activities will only cost money without results.

6. **Visit Plan:**
Management of distributors is mainly carried out through sales visits. Account managers should review their visit activities. A common mistake is to frequently visit distributors with large sales or good relationships, while visiting less frequently those with low sales but growth potential, or those with high sales but poor relationships. This practice should be absolutely avoided.

7. **Visit Status:**
Account managers should analyze their visits to distributors. First, check whether the visit plan was seriously implemented, such as planning to visit a certain number of distributors each day and comparing with actual results. If the monthly plan completion rate is low, the account manager should analyze the reasons. Second, account managers should make constructive visits, meaning each visit should help the distributor's management and operations. Distributors should welcome the visits and not consider them a nuisance; only then are the visits successful.

8. **Level of Concern for the Company:**
The distributor's level of concern for the company and whether they maintain a positive attitude towards the company is also an important aspect of distributor management. Account managers should frequently explain the company's policies and strategies to distributors to keep them interested and expectant.

9. **Evaluation of the Company:**
Is the company's position in the industry significant to the distributor? In other words, does the distributor actively expect to increase sales? Account managers should establish their own standing in the eyes of distributors, demonstrate the comprehensive quality of a large enterprise, and help distributors.

10. **Frequency of Suggestions:**
Each distributor under an account manager has unique characteristics, so management should be tailored to these characteristics to achieve twice the results with half the effort. What strategy should be adopted for each distributor, and what suggestions should the account manager make based on that strategy, must be analyzed in advance. If account managers actively implement distributor management, the frequency of suggestions to distributors will greatly increase.

11. **Organization of Distributor Data:**
If account managers can recite sales statistics, growth rates, sales targets, etc., for their distributors, it indicates that they are doing a good job in distributor management and that management is comprehensive. Conversely, if account managers know nothing about distributor data and only engage in blind selling, any sales increase will be short-term. Therefore, recording and organizing distributor data is a very important task.

12. **Assisting in Managing Terminal Stores:**
Although terminal stores fall under the distributor's domain, since stores only recognize the manufacturer's brand and their perception of the manufacturer determines their feelings about product quality, efficacy, and brand, account managers should visit terminal stores, communicate more with store management, listen to their opinions and suggestions for improvement regarding the company's product line, and also build relationships.

13. **Assisting Distributors in Understanding Competitor Conditions:**
Distributors usually focus on their own operations and lack professional market research. Account managers should combine routine market visits with careful observation and analysis of competitors' products and activities in the market, and communicate this information to distributors in a timely manner so they can stay informed of market conditions and adjust marketing tactics appropriately.

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