---
title: "A Letter to Business Office Managers: How to Become an Excellent Manager?"
description: "As a grassroots manager, a business office manager must serve as both a参谋 and assistant to superiors and a leader for frontline sales personnel, fulfilling duties of standing guard, keeping watch, and fulfilling responsibilities. The manager entrusts the regional team management to the office manager, who, as the 'soldier-head and general-tail' role, should live up to the mission and do their best. As the saying goes: to forge iron, one must be strong oneself. A manager must possess qualities such as good ideology, refined skills, business acumen, management ability, upright conduct, high drive, and credibility to lead the sales team to achieve targets. In reality, however, some managers are giants of words but dwarfs of action, often making meticulous plans but faltering in execution due to weak basic capabilities."
author: "海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-03-06"
categories: "Management & Methods"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ow-tgNP75wNwSbjHSyualg"
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citation: "海游. “A Letter to Business Office Managers: How to Become an Excellent Manager?.” New Distribution, 2020-03-06. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/a-letter-to-business-office-managers-how-to-become-an-excellent-manager-ad6bbed1/"
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# A Letter to Business Office Managers: How to Become an Excellent Manager?

> As a grassroots manager, a business office manager must serve as both a参谋 and assistant to superiors and a leader for frontline sales personnel, fulfilling duties of standing guard, keeping watch, and fulfilling responsibilities. The manager entrusts the regional team management to the office manager, who, as the 'soldier-head and general-tail' role, should live up to the mission and do their best. As the saying goes: to forge iron, one must be strong oneself. A manager must possess qualities such as good ideology, refined skills, business acumen, management ability, upright conduct, high drive, and credibility to lead the sales team to achieve targets. In reality, however, some managers are giants of words but dwarfs of action, often making meticulous plans but faltering in execution due to weak basic capabilities.

As a grassroots manager, a business office manager must serve as both a参谋 and assistant to superiors and a leader for frontline sales personnel, fulfilling duties of standing guard, keeping watch, and fulfilling responsibilities.
The manager entrusts the regional team management to the office manager, who, as the 'soldier-head and general-tail' role, should live up to the mission and do their best.
**As the saying goes: to forge iron, one must be strong oneself. A manager must possess qualities such as good ideology, refined skills, business acumen, management ability, upright conduct, high drive, and credibility to lead the sales team to achieve all targets.**
In reality, however, some managers are giants of words but dwarfs of action. When executing sales targets, they often make meticulous plans, but when it comes to specific tasks on the front line, their basic capabilities are weak, leading to numerous errors.
A thousand-mile dike collapses from an ant hole; the decline of an enterprise often stems from the failure of frontline managers to effectively prevent such 'ant holes'.
To become a qualified manager in the FMCG industry, one must possess three fundamental skills:
> **1. Strong dealer management capability; 2. Proficient market operation capability; 3. Excellent team building capability.**
Today, we will share how to forge a qualified business office manager based on these three fundamental skills.
**-01- An excellent business office manager must possess strong dealer management capability**
It is not uncommon to see phenomena in local markets: for example, a product with strong brand power may be sparsely visible in a local market, with extremely low distribution rate and product atmosphere, and sales needless to say, being ruthlessly crushed by third-tier competitors.
Conversely, a product with no brand power may thrive in a local market, with high distribution rate and product atmosphere, beating first-tier competitors. Hence the industry saying: **No matter how strong the brand, there are weak markets; no matter how weak the brand, there are strong markets.**
What logic lies behind this for the business office manager?**
**1. Dealer evaluation must be thorough: survival of the fittest, compensate for deficiencies**
As the primary entity in the market, if the dealer's capabilities are mismatched, the manufacturer's efforts will be half as effective. Finding a suitable dealer or identifying and correcting the dealer's shortcomings is the first step for a business office manager to improve dealer management capability.
It is recommended to evaluate from the following four dimensions:
> 1) The dealer's attitude towards their own business and the match with your product; 2) The match between the dealer's service model and business philosophy; 3) Comprehensive evaluation of people, vehicles, outlets, displays, and after-sales service; 4) The match between the business team's office setup and market innovation capability.
**2. Act as a lubricant to establish good manufacturer-dealer relations: seek common ground while reserving differences, achieve efficient win-win**
Friction between manufacturers and dealers is inevitable. As a lubricant, the manager must understand each party's interests, balance benefits, coordinate relations, reduce communication costs, improve efficiency, and maximize mutual benefits. This is the second step for a business office manager to improve dealer management capability.
It is recommended to proceed from the following three aspects:
> 1) Understand the respective interests of both parties and seek a balance point; 2) The core demands of the brand owner from the dealer must be met by the dealer; 3) Three magic weapons for good manufacturer-dealer relations: mutual understanding, mutual responsibility, and mutual giving.
**3. Assist dealers in building secondary network: hitch a ride to improve coverage**
In actual market operations, dealers may not cover all channels and outlets, such as outlets with low monthly sales and long delivery distances; outlets requiring special relationships to enter; outlets requiring specific documents and times for delivery. These outlets may be brand windows or high-volume customers, and dealers cannot serve them directly. In such cases, distributors are needed to improve service quality and density. This is the third step for a business office manager to improve dealer management capability.
It is recommended to execute in the following five steps:
> 1) Survey market distributors, mainly to understand their needs and assess sales opportunities for your product;
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> 2) Provide practical product sales policies and plans for later assistance to distributors, alleviating their concerns;
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> 3) Build trust through efficient methods. Trust is essentially the customer relationship often mentioned in teams; once the relationship is good, as long as the price is not too far off, transactions are no problem;
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> 4) Reach an agreement, sign a sales contract, and specify sales target rewards;
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> 5) Manage distributor risks and maintain customer relationships in the later stage.
Summary: **A business office manager should achieve precise evaluation, efficient cooperation, and effective assistance for dealer bosses.**
**-02- An excellent business office manager must possess proficient market operation capability**
The market under a business office manager is typically 3-5 counties or a prefecture-level city, characterized by proximity, similar customs and consumption habits, and similar brand influence. Therefore, the manager should operate the market with the same model and consistent pace.
Specific recommendations are as follows:
**1. Strengthen basic work follow-up in regional markets: consolidate foundations, seek stability and victory**
When studying, if exam rankings fluctuate, teachers would say your basic knowledge is not solid. When things go well (you know the test points), you get high scores and rank high; when not (you don't know the points), you get low scores and rank low, but you can't expect every exam to go well.
The FMCG industry is similar: weak basic work directly leads to fluctuating performance, unstable markets, and vulnerability to competitor impact. Common symptoms include significant market impact from objective factors.
For example, if competitors' promotions are slightly stronger, you feel sales slow down; for beverages, a bit of wind or rain affects performance; if one or two major accounts stop cooperating, you feel performance pressure. Therefore, the first step for a business office manager to improve market operation capability is to consolidate foundations.
Basic work includes two major parts:**
**First, market basic work**: There are six points: press storefronts, stock shelves, enter freezers, create multiple displays, enhance visibility, and maintain cleanliness. The main focus is to strengthen hands-on ability in traditional channels, achieving: carry, unpack, cut, paste, and arrange.
**Second, sales basic work**: Includes total customers served, daily customer visits, visit success rate, SKU count per store, daily order count, order SKU count, order amount, daily new customer development, daily new product distribution, etc. The main focus is to strengthen sales personnel's selling ability, breaking down monthly targets into daily tasks and implementing them in every store.
**2. Create beverage model stores and model streets: uniform and enhance atmosphere**
Setting core store placement requirements, creating model stores and streets, and fostering a good brand atmosphere in the market is the second step for a business office manager to improve market operation capability. As everyone knows, only similar scenes deepen memory and stimulate purchase desire, so strive to achieve in the regional market:
> **1) The boss is willing to recommend; 2) Visible outside the store; 3) Visible everywhere inside the store.**
To achieve these three points, it is necessary to realize:
> **1) Turn 'cashiers' into promoters; 2) Turn 'cash registers' into promotion counters; 3) Turn auxiliary display equipment around the cash register - end caps and freezers - into your product display space.**
Ultimately, achieve a market pattern from point to line, from line to surface, uniform and orderly.
**3. Deeply analyze the underlying logic of sell-through: seven strategies for deep sell-through**
**Distribution solves the channel stocking problem, while sell-through solves the essence of sales.**
Leading the dealer team to learn to layout the market with sell-through as the core principle is the third step for a business office manager to improve market operation capability. The essence of sell-through is closely related to the product's strength in the region. In strong regions, the logic is to do brand display; in weak regions, the logic is to do category display.
The following 7 steps can help improve product sell-through:
> 1) Category display, 'lean on the big tree', highlight competitive advantages, shape new consumer perceptions; 2) Scene setting, highlight purchase intent, shape new consumer perceptions; 3) Atmosphere creation, closely combine with festival atmosphere, shape new consumer perceptions; 4) Category association, cross-selling, build a bridge for consumer category cognition; 5) Lock special high-volume outlets, implement exclusive sales, let consumers choose within the brand; 6) For first-line brands, brand display, strengthen consumer awareness; 7) If sell-through is insufficient, use gifts to change consumer perception and compete in a different dimension.
Summary: **A business office manager should enhance service capabilities in different business districts, especially focusing on basic work follow-up, market atmosphere creation, and market layout centered on product sell-through.**
**-03- An excellent business office manager must possess team building capability**
Market competition now compares team competitiveness. Excellent teams are composed of business backbone. As an excellent business office manager, it is more important to have several business aces among subordinates.
Where do these aces come from? How to cultivate them? How to make them exert greater power in the market? These are important indicators testing the manager's basic skills. Specific recommendations are as follows:
**1. Possess the ability to forge excellent teams: recruit, cultivate, and forge backbone**
Building a cohesive and combat-effective sales team is the manager's top priority. An excellent team is composed of excellent soldiers. Learn to forge new employees into core backbone within the first 3 months of onboarding.
Specifically, proceed from the following five aspects:
> 1) An excellent sales team needs team culture; 2) An excellent sales team needs to do well in recruitment and pre-onboarding work; 3) An excellent sales team needs to do well in accompanying visits and coaching for new employees; 4) An excellent sales team needs to do periodic training, timely checks, and thorough checks; 5) An excellent sales team needs high-EQ managers, a harmonious atmosphere, and business work with a balance of tension and relaxation.
**2. Understand the underlying logic of team motivation: multi-dimensional motivation to improve human efficiency**
Motivation is an art and the most direct and effective way to improve human efficiency. A manager who doesn't understand motivation is not qualified. Motivation is not simple assessment and rewards/punishments; effective motivation means achieving the goal while making more people feel they can unleash their full potential in a fair and just competitive environment.
It is recommended to proceed from the following five aspects:
> 1) Motivation assessment must strictly adhere to authenticity; if not authentic, the harm of motivation is greater than punishment; 2) The environment for motivation assessment must be based on fairness; losing fairness brings more negative emotions to the team than punishment; 3) Different levels and job types should have different motivation standards; 4) Monetary motivation is not the only effective means; 5) If conditions allow, try to motivate in advance.
Summary: **The core result of a business office manager's team building capability is the improvement of human efficiency. On one hand, learn to forge a team for high output; on the other hand, motivate personnel to continuously break through themselves and achieve higher output.**
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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 海游
- Published: 2020-03-06
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/a-letter-to-business-office-managers-how-to-become-an-excellent-manager-ad6bbed1/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ow-tgNP75wNwSbjHSyualg

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