---
title: "A Refresher Course in FMCG Marketing Basics for Distributors (Part 5)"
description: "This article discusses how to be an excellent salesperson and frontline supervisor in the FMCG industry, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs, possessing product knowledge and sales skills, seeking guidance, and managing time effectively. It also provides strategic recommendations for Huiyuan, a major juice company, including setting realistic goals, separating production from sales, streamlining product lines, and building a national logistics platform."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2014-09-24"
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# A Refresher Course in FMCG Marketing Basics for Distributors (Part 5)

> This article discusses how to be an excellent salesperson and frontline supervisor in the FMCG industry, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs, possessing product knowledge and sales skills, seeking guidance, and managing time effectively. It also provides strategic recommendations for Huiyuan, a major juice company, including setting realistic goals, separating production from sales, streamlining product lines, and building a national logistics platform.

**Tip: Click the blue text “FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting” above to learn more about marketing and distributor internal management.**

Previously, we discussed sales model design and product planning. Some frontline colleagues might say: “You’re just talking nonsense; these are things that ordinary people like us can’t control. We either adapt or leave. What kind of basic course is this?” Others might question that this is just armchair theorizing, not understanding the real frontline combat. Today, I’ll talk about how to be an excellent salesperson and frontline supervisor.

Frontline supervisors and salespeople will inevitably spend most of their time facing customers. You’ve probably thought about why customers sell our products. As we all know, it boils down to two points:
1. Maximum economic benefit;
2. Minimum sales risk.
Customers are profit-driven, which is understandable. To express these two points precisely:
1. Best-selling products;
2. Fair prices;
3. Thoughtful service (delivery, punctuality, after-sales);
4. Good customer relationships.
It’s that simple. Customers’ needs are that simple. But how you can meet customer needs consistently and persistently is a high requirement for salespeople. Some things you can only adapt to, but there are also things you can work on. So, as a salesperson, what basic qualities should you at least possess? Also simple:
1. Clearly understand your responsibilities and the metrics used to evaluate performance;
2. Product knowledge and sales skills;
3. Seek guidance;
4. Understand your route customers and use time wisely.
See, it’s very simple. If you do these four things well, you’re a good salesperson. Let me briefly explain:
1. **Clearly understand your responsibilities and the metrics used to evaluate performance.** That means you need to know what you’re supposed to do and how to do it. You need to understand how the company calculates your salary and bonuses. If you don’t know these, aren’t you a fool? For example, if Huiyuan tells you that this month only the number of customer visits will be assessed, not sales volume, and you work hard to sell products but fail to meet the visit target, aren’t you a fool? In short, do what the company assesses. As for whether those assessment items are reasonable or meaningful, you can’t change them. You either adapt or leave. If they’re foolish enough to spend money on that, just satisfy them.
2. **Sufficient product knowledge and sales skills.** This is easier said than done. When you promote products to customers, you need to be able to explain the product’s features and benefits. You can’t just say: “My product is good, very good, especially good.” You need to explain why it’s good to be persuasive. For example, if you say Huiyuan’s aseptic cold-fill is good, you need to explain the benefits: what’s the difference from hot-fill? What are the advantages? This really tests a salesperson’s basic skills. It’s not easy, especially for a company like Huiyuan with hundreds of SKUs; being able to explain product knowledge for all of them is impressive. Sales skills are also easy to understand: the 8-step visit, pricing, promotions, etc. In short, you need to close deals, sell products, and do good merchandising. You’re all experts in this, so I won’t elaborate. I generally think that saying less but hitting the point is better than saying a lot. Those who can do are better than those who can talk (in terms of activation ability). In short, customers first accept you, then your product. Good customer relationships are very important!
3. **Seek guidance.** This is crucial for salespeople. You can’t know everything, so when you encounter difficulties, you must seek help. The company and your supervisor are your resources! You need to learn to use them fully. Once you understand, it becomes your knowledge. You’ve grown, haven’t you?
4. **Understand your route and use time wisely.** This means balancing efficiency and effectiveness. You know the 80/20 principle and customer optimization. Don’t waste time on ineffective customers.

It’s that simple. If you do these, you’ll meet customer needs and be a good salesperson. But how to discover, explore, and meet each individual customer’s needs to ultimately close deals depends on your own skills. This involves experience accumulation and requires insight. You’re all smart, so I won’t be verbose.

Now let’s briefly talk about sales supervisors. From a management perspective, a supervisor mainly does four things:
1. Clarify the responsibilities of the team and each team member;
2. Break down goals;
3. Measure performance;
4. Coach.

Let me briefly explain:
1. **Clarify the responsibilities of the team and each team member.** That means you need to figure out what your team should do and how. What should your subordinates do and how? As a supervisor, you must clarify these.
2. **Break down goals.** This can be simple or very complex. If you’re an office director with a monthly sales target of 1 million, and you have 10 subordinates, each gets 100,000—that’s simple. But if you consider each person’s territory, route, promotions, historical data, skills, willingness, resources, etc., and then allocate accordingly, it becomes complex. Simple or complex depends on you. If you’re simple-minded, it’s simple. When breaking down goals, pay attention to the SMART principle. Make a “smart” goal breakdown. Learn to communicate goals with each subordinate so they understand why this number? How to achieve it? What support is available? Then you’re a relatively capable supervisor. I won’t elaborate further; I believe you’re all experts.
3. **Measure performance.** Once your subordinates know what to do, how to do it, and how much to achieve, your job becomes easier. You just monitor whether they complete tasks according to standards and quality. Here, you should know that it’s best to monitor frequently. If you only check at the end of the month, it’s usually too late to solve problems.
4. **Coach.** As a supervisor, you should have certain qualifications in ability and experience. As mentioned, you continuously measure performance, find problems, and then provide targeted coaching to solve them. By continuously training your subordinates’ skills, their skills improve, and your pressure decreases. Of course, how to coach is a technical task.

If you say you also need to follow up on distributor performance and manage distributors, then you’re doing sales, not management. If you do the above well, you’re basically qualified in management. In fact, at the execution level, no matter how senior the leader, from a sales management perspective, they mainly do the above things. As always, it’s easy to say, but actually doing it consistently and persistently is not easy.

**Summary of the Marketing Basics Course**

Let me briefly review the previous lessons: At the beginning, I introduced some conceptual content: from consumer – customer – channel – system – model. Then I used the development of models and systems of several major companies in the industry to basically explain the general model and system development process of FMCG companies. I emphasized the importance of exclusive distribution systems and controlled wholesale systems, telling you that the sales system is not as aggressive as possible, but rather should fully leverage the enthusiasm of the wholesale system. Later, I used Huiyuan’s Jiangsu market as a case to illustrate how to match and plan models, systems, and personnel structures in a regional market. I also analyzed some deviations in Huiyuan from a product perspective. Since I’m a nobody with insufficient persuasiveness, I even brought in Old Niu, who is now practicing the Turtle Breathing Technique, as a lobbyist. I also gave some personal suggestions to the juice leader regarding products. Finally, I briefly talked about how to be a qualified salesperson and sales manager.

I used Huiyuan as a case and discussed many problems that exist in Huiyuan. These problems are obvious to many friends, and my mentioning them doesn’t mean I have any special skill. I’ll end the course with a few marketing suggestions for Huiyuan.

1. **Make good plans.**
The juice leader has a dream: annual sales exceeding 10 billion. In recent years, Huiyuan has set its target at 10 billion. Although this absolute value is not large for a national FMCG company (many small companies in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian have surpassed this number), Huiyuan’s actual performance has hovered around 3 billion. I firmly believe Huiyuan’s revenue can exceed 10 billion, and we’ll see it soon. But as a large company, it must respect the objective laws of development. I mentioned earlier that goals should be SMART, “smart,” making people feel they need to “jump” but can “reach.” If your team feels the goal is clearly unattainable, the result will be worse than originally. Moreover, if you make a 10 billion plan, you’ll plan personnel, market investment, production budget, etc., based on 10 billion. When you find deviations halfway, adjustments will be painful, and early investments can’t be recovered. The logic isn’t complicated, so I won’t be verbose. I suggest President Zhu suppress this 10 billion complex and make a 3-year plan, e.g., 5 billion in 2013, 7 billion in 2014, and 10 billion in 2015. Then, when making annual plans, plan personnel, expenses, production, and promotion according to this progress. I believe a rational goal will better stimulate the team’s fighting spirit, and maybe 10 billion can be achieved faster.
2. **Separate production from sales.**
This means reversing a major problem at Huiyuan: changing from “production determines sales” to “sales determines production,” which respects the market more. The production system must not interfere with sales but should focus on its own professional production, producing better products at lower costs. That’s what factories should focus on. Let the sales team have better weapons and supplies to compete with competitors, rather than making production managers bear sales targets, forcing them to create chaos in the market. You understand the principle of letting professionals do professional work.
3. **Streamline products.**
I dedicated a whole lesson to this earlier. That is, your product line should be clear, with fewer products competing with each other, to facilitate national market and all-channel operations. Medium and high-concentration juice are leading brands; they should be promoted aggressively, defend honor, expand scale, and increase share. Low-concentration juice and beverages should be close to the market and competitors, resolutely follow mainstream products, achieve same quality with better price or same price with better quality, to increase volume and build networks. For Huiyuan to exceed 10 billion, it must break through in low-concentration juice and beverages in immediate-consumption packaging; otherwise, 10 billion will always be a dream.
Improve bottle shapes and labels to stimulate consumer purchase impulse.
4. **Logistics platform.**
To develop all channels and all products nationwide, you must establish a national logistics platform. You must achieve production line complementarity within certain regions, produce the full product range, and be able to fulfill any customer order that meets your full-truckload requirement. You should provide uniform delivered prices to all customers nationwide. You should even cancel so-called customer self-pickup, which is a petty trick. Your main product series must never have jokes like customers paying for long-distance freight. These are problems you should solve yourself, not pass on to customers.
5. **Decentralize authority.**
Reduce the power and functions of the headquarters sales center, and delegate operational authority to regional offices as much as possible. The Chinese market is too large. I’ve discussed the reasons earlier, so I won’t repeat.
6. **Improve the model.**
That is, the sales system adopted must not be blindly aggressive; it should match market scale. Personnel structure should also match sales scale. Cultivate and support high-quality distributors rather than blindly recruiting. Actual sales scale is the only criterion. As sales develop, models, systems, and personnel should follow.
7. **Build integrity.**
Whether internally or externally, build integrity and take responsibility, reduce communication costs and internal friction, increase customer and employee trust and sense of belonging. The logic is self-evident, but Huiyuan has a long way to go in this regard.
8. **People-oriented.**
I mean respecting talent, not nepotism, believing in professionalism rather than hometown ties. Perhaps when less than 10% of Huiyuan’s middle and above management are from Shandong, Huiyuan can truly move forward lightly and stride ahead.
9. **Balance expense ratios.**
That is, all expense expenditures should be proportional to sales growth. Don’t make blind expenditures. As a company, you must take earning reasonable profits as the primary indicator.
10. **Emphasize pull.**
According to authoritative surveys, the biggest decision factor for consumers’ impulse purchases of immediate-consumption products is: “What are people like me drinking?” Why do those giants spend huge sums annually to have the most popular stars endorse their products? When consumers’ ability to judge quality is not strong, advertising has a huge impact on purchase decisions. Appropriate pull will make the sales team’s job easier. A market with balanced push and pull is the healthiest.

Haha! I have an integer complex; I had to make it 10 items. All I’ve said above boils down to two sentences: 1. Do big business; 2. Earn profits. With these two, the company develops; otherwise...

End of article

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