As the epidemic gradually eases, more trading companies are resuming operations. However, even after resuming, there is still a problem: downstream stores are not fully open, and consumer spending is relatively limited, affecting overall sales. At this time, the workload of distributor sales staff is relatively underutilized.

To this end, New Distribution invited Mr. Li Feng, President of Hongye Hengda Trading, to discuss how sales staff can improve their internal skills and use the epidemic gap to deploy market strategies during this special period. To prepare thoroughly for a successful sales battle after the epidemic ends!

This content is divided into three parts:

1. When work is underutilized, what should sales staff learn? 2. Analyze competitors' core stores and plan to seize them in advance. 3. Analyze internal own stores, find problems, and think of measures.

After the Spring Festival, as of now, Hongye Hengda Trading has completed sales of 10 million yuan. Many distributors might say that you are an agent for Jinlongyu, and your category is a daily necessity. The epidemic has given you a dividend. I do admit that there is a dividend, but what I want to say is that if you compare horizontally with other grain and oil distributors, the gap is very large.

Why? Because Hongye Hengda's overall sales strategy and tactics, especially during the epidemic and difficult times, test each distributor's operational level.

Today, I will focus on what Hongye Hengda has done after resuming work, facing the situation where frontline sales staff are underutilized, hoping our practices can bring some inspiration and thinking to distributor friends.

-01- When work is underutilized, what should sales staff learn?

Work is underutilized, but never let sales staff be idle. Fill their time, and use the epidemic gap to improve overall combat capability and level. Hongye Hengda's philosophy is: Only the thought of off-season, no off-season market; as long as thoughts don't slide, methods are always more than difficulties.

How to do it specifically? Notify the sales department: at 8:30 AM as usual, visit customer stores for check-in, and return to the company at 2:00 PM for learning. The core of learning is divided into two parts: First, sales skills learning; second, product knowledge learning.

It's not that customers have no needs; customers have needs. Who gets more orders depends on the salesperson's communication skills and customer relationships. Regarding communication, sales staff must remember four elements:

1. First, say what the other party wants to hear; 2. Then, say what the other party can listen to; 3. Then, say what you should say; 4. Finally, say what you want to say.

The correct approach is: When entering a store, the goal is to replenish old products, promote new products, or promote cooperation, etc. First, confirm your primary goal, and design communication scripts based on the goal. Communication language without design is powerless. The process of communicating with customers is the process of persuading them to agree with the salesperson's ideas.

In business communication, there is inevitably negotiation. My requirement is: Never say 'no' during negotiations with customers! But you must have the sales mindset of 'exchange conditions for conditions.'

For example: A milk distributor asked me, now the date is not good, and the upstream manufacturer happens to have a policy with quotas for external donations, but who should we donate to? My suggestion is to talk to the local union chairman and donate to hospitals for free. But see if we can use our brand's products as welfare benefits for the Mid-Autumn Festival this year. Treat donations as resources to exchange for future sales cooperation.

Another example: Recently, a supermarket requested a 0.5 percentage point increase in rebates. Our salesperson's negotiation approach was: increasing by 0.5 points is no problem, but can you support two free end caps? The result of the negotiation was that the supermarket did not increase the rebate.

Listen more and talk less, not letting customers talk all the time, but guiding customers to talk more. Through customers' answers, learn as much as possible about the other party's information, demand quantity, number of people, etc. The more you know, the clearer the customer's needs, and then help promote profitable products. At the same time, when promoting new products, don't ask customers how many boxes they want, but proactively provide package options, such as 5 boxes or 10 boxes.

My suggestion is that distributors can now arrange for each salesperson to write 10 successful communication and promotion cases, and also write 5 unsuccessful cases, compile them into a manual.

That's not enough. Every week, let sales staff share their successful cases on stage, and share cases in the group every day. Many of these cases are 'unconventional' techniques. Through sharing, other sales staff can master them immediately.

In terms of product knowledge learning, in the past, after the Spring Festival, it was the off-season for grain and oil distribution, and work was underutilized. We would invite brand managers or sales directors from upstream manufacturers to train sales staff on product expertise for a specific new product.

Now, when manufacturers launch new products, many times the price is tens of percent higher than similar products. How to sell them? Sales staff must clearly know where the value of the new product lies. This value includes not only the product's ingredients and origin, but most importantly, the product's selling points and the value that makes consumers willing to pay more.

Finally, after learning, there must be an exam. Although the exam is not the purpose, it must be there. With result assessment, sales staff will listen carefully during learning; otherwise, they just listen and forget. Without inspection, sales staff will not seriously do the process.

-02- Analyze competitors' core stores and plan to seize them in advance

In fact, this work should be done at any time. But during the epidemic, it is even more necessary! Why? Because with the epidemic, it is certain that the share of online e-commerce will grow faster than in the past, especially for FMCG. At the same time, for offline distributors, the tasks given by manufacturers each year only increase, not decrease. Under this background, how can distributors complete them?

There is only one way: seize the share of competitors, that is, snatch food from the tiger's mouth. How to do it specifically?

Find competitors' core large stores, such as a KA supermarket, obtain POS data for that category, focus on analyzing the share of the top three brands, find out the specifications and price bands, two key data points. Adjust product structure and design activity schedules accordingly. Like fighting a battle, deploy troops and strike precisely.

Another example: For a large township customer, the competitor's sales volume is more than 3 times that of our product. President Li Feng personally went to communicate and understand the situation. The competitor had signed a task completion reward agreement with the store. Subsequently, we allocated special expenses to compete for the competitor's market, even operating at zero profit.

Of course, sometimes we must seize opportunities. For example, if a competitor's distributor changes sales staff, during the gap, do customer relationship work with the competitor's core customers. When a salesperson changes in a region, the new salesperson needs at least a month to familiarize with the market and build new customer relationships. There may also be issues like policy settlement and market leftovers. If the new salesperson handles them improperly, customer relationships are almost lost. This is a good opportunity for our product. Similarly, when manufacturers change regional distributors, it's the same.

Additionally, for department heads, proactively make friends with excellent sales staff from competitors, have meals and chats, learn about the market situation in the area from the side, and even have the opportunity to recruit them to become comrades in the same camp.

-03- Analyze internal own stores, find problems, and think of measures

Every day at 2 PM, the department general manager leads each salesperson to do customer inventory, clearly grasp the situation of own stores through data analysis: sales ranking/profit ranking/input-output ratio ranking/activity ranking.

For example, a terminal store sold 560,000 yuan of our product in a year. Overall sales are good, but gross profit is only 6.8% (overall average gross profit is 10%). Analyze the reason for low profit, basically can judge it's a product structure problem. Further analyze how to adjust product structure to increase profit margin while ensuring sales do not decline.

A salesperson has 150 stores, of which 30 stores have not purchased for 3 months, and activity is very low. Analyze the reason. The salesperson might say that this customer has a small area, mainly selling cigarettes, alcohol, beverages, and snacks, not grain and oil, only noodles. Find the problem, come up with a plan: since they only sell noodles, think about how to increase noodle sales.

Hongye Hengda holds a regular input-output ratio business analysis meeting on the 15th of each month. What effects did the resources invested last month bring? Combine manufacturer resources and own resources to lock in the direction of next month's expense investment and specific measures, especially for store customers with sales but no profit contribution.

No data, no decision. Distributors must clearly know every data they deal with, not only to the level of sales, gross profit, and expenses, but also need to understand all detailed data clearly.

Data transparency and accuracy are the first step. Then through cross-comparison analysis of data, more than 80% of problems can be found from data analysis. The next step is to set specific solutions for the problems.

During the special period, it is fair for all industries and all distributors. Distributors are agents for certain brands in certain regions. If you can persist and others fall, your opportunity comes. Only by overcoming difficulties in the crisis can opportunities become yours. There are two opportunities here: the first is the opportunity to take over brands, and the second is the opportunity to seize competitors' markets.

Future distributors will be intensive. In 5-10 years, 50% of local distributors will be eliminated. It depends on whether you can make yourself stronger! Opportunities are reserved for those who are prepared. You must practice internal skills and be ready at all times. After the epidemic, spring will come!