1. Product Portfolio Adjustment The sales off-season is the best time to review and consolidate the product portfolio in the region. Since sales are relatively stable and slow, adjusting product layout and structure moderately will not significantly impact market sales. 1.1 Select new products to create new profit points. During the off-season, most manufacturers and distributors adopt conservative contraction strategies. Launching new products at this time often faces less competition, making it easier to enter the market and build momentum. Additionally, new products give salespeople and distributors a fresh feeling and motivation, ultimately bringing new growth points to the market and boosting overall sales. 1.2 Adjust old products through survival of the fittest. Some unprofitable and aging products are "tasteless to eat, but a pity to discard." However, because they hold a certain market share, it's risky to remove them during the peak season when sales are booming. The off-season provides an opportunity to phase out old products while launching new ones, ensuring a smooth transition and connection between old and new products. 2. Terminal Distribution is Key After product adjustments, attention must be paid to distribution. New product distribution requires attention to the following: 2.1 Ensure basic terminal display fees. Price is the most dominant factor in new product distribution. Distributors should guarantee basic fees monthly, control core terminals, and offer varying rewards to terminal stores of different sizes. 2.2 Grasp core secondary distributors. In the early stage of new product distribution, achieving quick sell-through is difficult. At this time, channel construction, promotional momentum, and consumer cultivation become crucial. Rely on strong secondary distributors for distribution, set reasonable profit margins for them, and motivate them to promote actively, achieving a win-win situation. 2.3 Actively expand into township and rural markets. With the improvement of consumption levels in counties, townships, and villages, consumer brand awareness is gradually awakening. The consumption potential of baijiu in township markets is also increasing. Regional distributors should intensively cultivate township markets, send key business personnel to visit rural areas for market research, maintain township terminals and customer relationships, and continuously improve the distribution network for new products in township markets. 3. Channel Expansion is Timely After launching new products, actively expanding and broadening channels is essential for better market performance in the off-season. During the off-season, competitors are relatively conservative, which presents an opportunity for us to develop channels and expand networks. Channel expansion includes the following: 3.1 Establish "enemy-occupied base areas." In the off-season, distributors often neglect network maintenance. This is a chance to seize competitors' sales outlets and continuously expand our own sales network. By leveraging new product distribution and offering special preferential policies, we can attract competitors' customers to join, laying the foundation for market growth. 3.2 Seize blank outlets. Aim to cover all blank outlets in townships and streets through a "sweeping" distribution approach. During the peak season, everyone focuses on promotions and shipments, making it difficult to develop blank outlets. By conducting comprehensive development and coverage of these outlets in the off-season, the increased number of new outlets may lead to a qualitative change by the peak season, potentially bringing unexpected surprises. 3.3 Open a "second battlefield." That is, use the off-season to vigorously develop special channels or pathways. By broadening channels, products can enter more sales channels, increasing opportunities for consumer contact and subtly entering the minds of target consumer groups, thereby increasing sales. 4. Brand Promotion Must Not Be Neglected Generally, liquor companies and distributors engage in explosive brand promotion during the Spring Festival peak season, but once the peak passes, they are reluctant to invest in promotion. This provides us with an opportunity for low-cost promotion. If we adopt short-term, high-density promotion in regional markets, it can achieve unexpected results. However, for many small micro-terminal stores, the main promotional method is in-store posters, which represent product selling points and company image. To make posters the "face" of the product, the following principles should be observed: 4.1 From left to right. When posting posters, if there is a symmetrical stacking area in the store, try to post the poster on the left side of the symmetrical object. Reasons: It conforms to people's left-to-right reading habit; when posters are posted on symmetrical parts, the right side is more likely to be damaged, with a higher probability of destruction than the left. 4.2 Do not avoid key stores. The purpose of posting posters in key stores is to establish a strong brand image, enter consumers' field of vision first, and compete with competitors for consumer attention. Whoever enters consumers' consideration set first gains the initiative. 4.3 Timely "subsidies." Personnel responsible for poster posting should be familiar with competitors' subsidy times, communicate with sales points in a timely manner, know both ourselves and the enemy, and always understand competitors' posting trends. When competing for poster areas, try to cover rather than tear down competitors' posters. 5. Market Maintenance Must Be Retained "Peak season for sales, off-season for market" has become an internal rule. The post-Spring Festival off-season for liquor sales provides ample time for manufacturers and distributors to maintain customer relationships and consolidate the market. 5.1 Provide good service. In the off-season, strengthening customer service is the most effective means for salespeople to gain customer favor and preference. However, any service must be what customers care about and need. For example, tidying and cleaning at terminals, if done well, can improve the distributor's and brand's image. 5.2 Standardize service. The off-season is a good time to standardize service. Through the off-season, salespeople should further clarify visit steps, operating standards, and processes. High-standard service can differentiate from competitors, enhance brand image, and make customers remember you more deeply. 5.3 Maintain customer relationships. Due to ample time in the off-season, salespeople can take advantage of significant and memorable occasions such as customers' weddings, births, birthdays, and children's schooling to "act when necessary." This helps build good personal relationships with customers, making them more loyal to the company and more enthusiastic about sales, thereby increasing customer loyalty to the company and brand. Strengthening customer relationships in the off-season is the most direct way for salespeople to make their products stand out quickly and maximize sales. Internal Management Must Be Emphasized; Backyard Fire is a Big Deal During the Spring Festival peak season, there is no time or energy for refined team management. After the peak, it's the right time to stabilize morale and consolidate internal management to improve combat effectiveness and cohesion for the next peak season. 6. "Oh my, employees, don't leave!" After a period of Spring Festival sales peak, salespeople become relatively relaxed, and even a large number of employees choose to resign. The main reasons include: year-end bonuses have been received; the off-season is coming, so leaving now results in less economic loss; after the peak, they are physically exhausted and want to rest and consider their next career steps. Facing this situation, distributors are anxious. When people are united, the business thrives. For distributors, personnel management is particularly important at this time. 6.1 Help employees sort out long-standing grievances at work. In daily work, employees inevitably encounter internal or external conflicts. If not resolved for a long time, they will harbor resentment. Distributors should use a tabular format to let employees report problems encountered at work, discuss them by category, and help employees sort them out. 6.2 Be a down-to-earth boss and communicate more with employees. In personnel management, face-to-face communication with employees is the most cost-saving method. It not only brings superiors and subordinates closer but also helps eliminate misunderstandings and facilitates timely feedback on employee issues. 6.3 Pay attention to employees' career prospects. Surveys show that employees who leave after working for more than 2 years mainly do so because they cannot continue to improve themselves or learn new skills in their original positions; while those who leave after 5-10 years often do so because they see no career prospects and cannot explore promotion possibilities in routine work. 7. "Work hard, and you won't be short of money!" This part is closely related to the resignation wave above. If business personnel's pay is not proportional to their efforts, they may develop the idea of leaving. When setting compensation standards for staff, distributors should consider the following factors: 7.1 Team size. Make a comprehensive assessment based on your own business scale and team capabilities, ensuring everyone has a clear role, neither wasting talent nor being redundant. 7.2 Set sales targets. Reasonable sales targets can motivate employees and are essential for enterprise development planning. 7.3 Allocate market and product resources. Allocate different markets and products according to different salespeople's abilities, which helps leverage their initiative and facilitates more accurate assessment. 7.4 My expectations and goal setting. What is the planned base salary? What is the minimum expected task volume? If the target task amount is completed, what is the planned reward? 7.5 Set up a compensation assessment mechanism. For example, minimum target, assessment target, and sprint target. What is the salary for completing the minimum target? What is the salary for completing the assessment target? What is the salary for completing the sprint target? Convert these numbers into formulas. For example, completing the minimum target rewards 3%, completing the assessment target rewards 4%, and completing the sprint target rewards 5%. 8. "Assessment! Without assessment, how can we pay?" In the sales off-season, there is another crucial core task that must be done well and solidly. It is the premise for maintaining or increasing off-season sales. This task is the sales assessment in the off-season market. In the off-season, salespeople's laziness will be fully exposed, especially some old employees who "have great potential" in attendance, travel, etc. Therefore, strict management and assessment of salespeople must be implemented during the off-season. 8.1 Attendance is the foundation. Link basic salaries to attendance, implement daily reporting, use local fixed-line phones for reporting, and if conditions permit, consider installing "attendance software" on employees' phones to ensure they are in the market. 8.2 Distribution rate is a requirement. As long as the market and channels have a high distribution rate, it will give the target audience a certain impact in terms of momentum and senses. Especially, terminal displays should be well done. Through terminal visualization and activation, product visibility and frequency of consumer contact can be improved, thereby increasing sales opportunities. Therefore, distribution rate is a core requirement and important standard for assessing salespeople. 8.3 Product structure should be a bonus. In the off-season, product sales volume may decline, but if the product structure is adjusted well, sales revenue can be maintained. To achieve this, it is necessary to assess salespeople's product structure indicators. By reasonably planning the proportion of high, medium, and low-end products, the goal of reducing off-season sales volume while maintaining turnover and profit can be achieved. 9. "Training is essential; you are the best!" Distributors using the off-season for training is also a necessary task. During the peak season, salespeople are often busy with product delivery and payment collection, but in the off-season, they have plenty of time. Therefore, using the off-season to organize a series of targeted training activities can "recharge" salespeople. Use the off-season to train salespeople and promoters on marketing skills, mindset adjustment, etc. Sales managers should also take the lead as speakers and be good at using meetings for training. In off-season sales, salespeople are very critical because they are the executors of the distributor's strategies and tactics, and product sales depend on them. Therefore, training salespeople is also a strategic investment in the off-season market. For example, they can be trained on practical skills and methods such as how to distribute and arrange products, how to recommend new products, and how to sell more profitable products. By improving the operational skills of distributor's business personnel, they can be motivated to carry out market promotion with confidence even in the off-season and do a good job in daily work. Sharpening the axe does not delay the cutting of wood. Through training and the improvement of the marketing team's quality, the operational skills of marketing personnel can be enhanced, promoting the overall market sales growth! -END-