I really like Master Zhu Xi's saying, "How can the canal be so clear? Because there is a source of living water from the head." When we encounter setbacks in our sales work, we must calm down and think about what is the "source of living water" for our sales... What is sales? Sales is the process of analyzing, exploring, and discovering the actual or potential needs of a target sales group, and providing a solution for those needs. This solution may be a product or a service. Is sales simple? Simple, it only requires a paragraph of explanation. Is sales difficult? Difficult, because sales requires complex and detailed channel design. The daily operations of building materials dealers can be divided into six major areas, and all operational problems can find answers within these six areas. These six areas are: product, terminal, channel, promotion, service, and management. Next, I will share my understanding and insights on the first three of these six areas. Product 1. Establish your own product portfolio based on your development stage Whether you are a dealer of FMCG or durable goods, product selection is the first step in our sales and operations. Product selection not only affects our profits but also the survival of the company. Dealers should be demanding in their product selection, just like marriage; representing and operating a product or brand should be done with great caution. Products from different brands are at different stages of the product life cycle: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. How to manage products at different stages to ensure reasonable profits is the relentless pursuit of every sales professional. The product life cycle is closely related to the dealer's development stage. Dealers in the startup stage tend to choose products in the maturity stage to enhance their brand awareness, channel power, and bargaining power; Dealers in the growth stage tend to try products in the growth stage with some growth potential to achieve a balance between profit and their own development; Dealers in the maturity stage pursue high-profit new products, hoping to leverage their influence and channel power for high returns. Of course, each customer will choose different product brands based on their own time, space, and perspective. Many dealers now represent multiple brands, and creating a suitable product portfolio based on their development stage is a very stable business strategy, but the issues of product life cycle and relevance selection become more prominent. Mature salespeople also know how to recommend products at the right time, place, and from the customer's perspective, which is a prerequisite for many experts in customer development. The manufacturer's support intensity, regional business direction, and new product development plans at different product life cycle stages will affect the daily operations of downstream dealers. Therefore, when selecting products and establishing your product portfolio, you must also consider your own development stage. 2. Product selling point extraction and channel division After determining the product, you need to extract the selling points to facilitate subsequent promotion work. Building materials dealers generally need to conduct FABE extraction (usually provided by the manufacturer), which includes: product features, product advantages, benefits, and evidence. In addition, detailed channel division based on product packaging, specifications, and series should be carried out to ensure the rationality of price space settings. Of course, this step should be completed after channel division. Terminal After choosing products that suit your development needs, you must mention the terminal where products are sold, which is the second major area we will discuss. FMCG dealers often classify terminals as the retail stores (modern channels) they operate in. In the building materials dealer field, I categorize terminals into specialty store terminals and residential community terminals. Compared to FMCG, building materials terminal construction places more emphasis on the experience aspect. For example, in the paint category, there is the "look, touch, smell" experience, and tile, sanitary ware, and cabinet dealers invest heavily in creating model rooms. FMCG terminal operations are highly detailed, including 7 terminal management elements: "distribution, location, display, price, inventory, sales aids, and promotion." Distribution refers to the product series planned for sale at the terminal; location refers to the position of the main promoted products determined by the customer flow direction in the store; due to space limitations, other relatively simple concepts will not be elaborated here, and I hope to have the opportunity to discuss them in depth with you later. 1. Personnel In addition to learning from the above management experience, the most important point for building materials dealers is personnel, which is determined by the professionalism of the products and the terminal operation mode. Since it is direct operation, specialty stores place higher demands on the quality and professionalism of personnel. A standard SOP process is crucial, including: greeting customers, needs diagnosis, guidance, supporting system recommendation, cost (usage) calculation, objection handling, transaction follow-up, and other major steps; In addition, the daily, weekly, and monthly meeting system and training improvement plans are also top priorities in personnel management. SPIN selling method training is widely used in the building materials sales field. I suggest FMCG colleagues can learn from it, as it is helpful for customer negotiations. 2. Competition Competition in residential community terminals in the building materials field is intensifying, with various forms such as group buying events, home decoration salons, and owner meetings. These have invisibly increased the cost of sales and promotion in communities, and consumer owners are also annoyed: "If you haven't received 30+ phone calls during the decoration phase, you can't say you're a homeowner..." Large and small brand alliances aim to achieve win-win by integrating customer information, and whether they can truly achieve win-win or multi-win is currently uncertain. I have previously been responsible for community promotion projects. Personally, I believe that integrating into community public welfare activities for embedded promotion, increasing interaction, participation, and communication among owners, is low-cost, has good reputation, and can also achieve long-term promotional effects. With the intense competition at the terminal, establishing a three-level sales experience has become inevitable. The three-level sales experience is not a single terminal promotion; details will be explained in the service section later. Channel Who determines the distribution channel of products? Is it us? No! It is the users and buyers. The "source of living water" for channel management is:

  1. Who buys our products where;
  2. Who buys through what methods. As mentioned in "Marketing Warfare," marketing should be "bottom-up." The first step in channel management for FMCG and building materials durable goods is basically the same: inventory of the business district capacity, including "number of stores, store types, main competitors, competitor sales, brand share, etc." The second is to understand the market. In previous years, we often discussed finding our own blue ocean, being a big fish in a small pond. It seems like positioning our market entry, but in essence, it stems from a thorough understanding and analysis of the market status. Building materials paint dealers generally divide channels into: retail, single package, double package, engineering, distribution, etc. Channel products and prices also vary depending on the channel, and channel design is also affected by factors such as product type and regional differences. 1. Weighted distribution and numerical distribution Here, I want to emphasize the concepts of weighted distribution and numerical distribution. Previously, dealers and salespeople tended to focus mainly on high-volume single-point customers, but as competition intensifies, resources are disproportionately allocated to these weight customers, leading to an imbalance in input-output ratio, which is extremely obvious in the FMCG field. A friend said his friend is a room-temperature milk dealer. The manufacturer sets the expense ratio based on sales growth. Now business is difficult, and he asked if there is any good solution... I asked some simple questions and found the following problems:
  3. Single operating channel, over-reliance on hypermarkets. As we all know, hypermarkets are highly competitive, and some high-sales stores have exorbitant channel fees;
  4. Lack of communication and market planning. Instead of fighting with manufacturers and retailers over expenses, it's better to settle down and create a win-win marketing plan to expand the business scale of both parties. "The crying child gets milk...";
  5. Vicious cycle: dealers and salespeople lack tactical and strategic planning. When the boss comes to inspect, they put on a show and do some displays, giving the upper management a peaceful impression. But when it comes to sales growth, they all say "market is weak, sales are hard..." Eventually, the manufacturer can only "roughly" start a cost-effectiveness model. In fact, focusing on weight stores and using weighted distribution is not wrong. The mistake is that with the intensification of market competition, the role of numerical distribution is ignored. A balance should be struck between the two. You must know that the more points you cover, the higher your visibility, and the stronger your position in key weight stores. Building materials dealers may be constrained by product, logistics, and other issues, and few can distribute like FMCG, but I hope building materials durable goods colleagues can learn from this experience, "walk on multiple legs" in channel operations, and avoid risks from channel dependence. Seeking balance in channel development and finding balance in key store operations is the long-term way. 2. Channel price and price system setting I find that many dealers and sales friends use a simple and rough pricing model, adding a certain profit margin and selling. This is extremely inadvisable. Pricing relies entirely on the company's guidance price without any adjustment, completely ignoring local consumption levels, consumer awareness, competitive environment, and other factors. A good pricing policy must be formulated from the bottom up, fully considering the profits of customers at all levels. If competitors are strong locally, you must also ensure the attractiveness of the price space. I really like Mr. Fan Yunfeng's interpretation of the four characters "deep distribution." "Deep is management, degree is ability, distribution is means, and sales is purpose." Channel management is profound and cannot be explained in a few words. It is fundamental to formulate channel tactics and strategies suitable for your own development stage and management ability according to time and place. Some friends may ask why the article does not mention the internet. In the era of e-commerce and WeChat business, it seems somewhat out of place. Because the building materials paint industry I am in sells semi-finished products, and there are many links that affect the final effect of the product. The internet is more for publicity and sales, and there are many counterfeit products among the sold items. Therefore, e-commerce platforms are currently more used for publicity. Of course, I believe the development of building materials e-commerce will get better and better, but it will take a process to go from a trend to an industry norm. Just as FMCG colleagues complain that hypermarket sales are not as good as before, e-commerce is far from being able to replace the functions of hypermarkets. Even if hypermarkets really die out one day, it will herald the emergence of a new business model and also herald a new round of supplier-retailer games. FMCG dealers, due to their large traffic and business scale, have developed rapidly and set an example for us, providing many reference models. Whether this "stone from another mountain" can polish jade, I don't know. But from another perspective, will FMCG customers, through their own corporatization, standardization, and professionalization, integrate upstream and downstream resources and horizontally enter the building materials industry to become competitors of existing building materials dealers? It's hard to say, because "I destroy you, it has nothing to do with you..." This is the essence of capital operation. Without focus and professionalism, you are destined to be replaced. Promotion If the channel is the "powder keg" that detonates product popularity, then promotion tactics are the "fuse" connecting this "powder keg." How to effectively promote in the regional market is a threshold for every dealer and sales manager. When mentioning promotion, people often think of promotional sales, but this understanding is one-sided. Promotion should be a modular, systematic, and process-oriented project. How to promote products to the corresponding channels and target customer groups, achieving "smooth flow of goods and full use of goods," is the "eternal topic" in the marketing world. Good tactical promotion can even affect the development strategy of the entire enterprise. For example: In the "Cola Wars" (Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi), the classic promotion cases "New Generation's Choice" and "Pepsi Challenge" almost pushed Coca-Cola's top management into a corner and into a misunderstanding. There are countless cases where promotion tactics derived corporate strategies. I classify the common promotion forms in building materials retail operations into 5 categories: "conference promotion, store promotion, community promotion, online promotion, and channel promotion." The differences between various promotion forms: Conference promotion: new product launches, consumer group buying events, etc.; Store promotion: new store openings, store anniversaries, in-store promotions, etc.; Community promotion: community special sales, owner salons, home decoration classes, etc.; Media and online promotion: owner group direct sales, online store specials, event publicity, etc.; Channel promotion: channel ordering meetings, installation and usage training sessions, etc. Each promotion form has its own characteristics and limitations. We can combine several promotion forms to maximize the effect of project tactical promotion. For example: Nippon Paint's refresh service project promotion. First, it targeted the mid-to-high-end second-hand housing repaint market, with promotion methods ranging from media and online to store terminals and communities with repaint potential. Through the effective combination of multiple promotion forms, comprehensive and effective contact and coverage of the target group is achieved. Here, I would like to share my understanding and insights on community project promotion. First, I personally divide project promotion into 8 items for implementation. 1. Determine the feasibility of regional market promotion tactics Each regional market differs due to consumption orientation, awareness, and habits. We must first combine our industry characteristics and product features to decide whether our region is suitable for community promotion. The time, scope, and intensity of community promotion should also be determined based on our own capabilities and the support of the manufacturer (supplier); 2. Team organization, personnel division, and training Just like participating in alliance group buying activities, before community promotion activities, team organization, personnel division, and related personnel training are essential. For example: standard scripts for community building sweepers, form production and explanation, home decoration class lecturer courseware design, etc., all need detailed preparation. I suggest setting up a dedicated community (residential area) development specialist based on actual conditions to carry out systematic community development project management; 3. Collection of promotion project information and data Establish a comprehensive regional community (residential area) database, and compile statistics on all existing, new, under-construction, delivered, and undelivered community information in the region. The statistics include delivery time, property nature, average price, main unit types, number of households, property management company information, property management company person in charge, etc. This information must be collected, managed, and regularly updated by dedicated personnel to lay a good foundation for subsequent community promotion projects. Use the collected information to filter and find the most suitable communities for community promotion projects; 4. Product selection, policy formulation, and promotion form design Based on the collected community information, combine products of different functions and grades to meet the different needs of the target group. The policy formulation process must combine the consumption needs and habits of local owners. Try not to use price promotions. In my opinion, each product and brand is unique. Unless homogenization is particularly serious, there is no need to adjust prices. Distributing accessories and auxiliary materials (gifts), free on-site measurement (budget service), installation services, etc., are very good ways to reduce price sensitivity, which is the focus of the policy, that is, giving products more added value. In terms of promotion forms, we can choose community special sales, home decoration classes, or owner group buying events, and combine them to advance the project; 5. Determination and execution of advertising forms Advertising can also be seen as a warm-up for community project promotion. As mentioned earlier, try to participate in community public welfare publicity as much as possible. Using embedded advertising can reduce costs and enhance brand image, and the cost and duration are longer. Most public welfare advertising is controlled by property management companies, and compared with advertising agency positions, the cost-effectiveness is higher. Of course, the public relations difficulty with property management companies is also relatively high; 6. Determination of promotion theme and process The promotion theme must be realistic and reasonable. Our East Asian cultural circle has a very important tradition: to "justify" what we are about to do and prepare to do, that is, to have a legitimate reason. As the saying goes, "If the name is not correct, the words will not be smooth; if the words are not smooth, the matter will not be accomplished." For example: "XX Brand Builds Your Ideal Home with You," "XX Brand Anniversary Customer Appreciation," etc. The promotion theme can also be determined before items 4 and 5. After selecting the community promotion theme, start designing the process. If you choose to include conference sales or on-site direct sales promotion forms, the process design should include: time selection, location selection, conference process design, background music, performance design, stage and exhibition area construction, on-site promotion script design, etc. Due to space limitations, I will discuss the details with you in a more detailed communication later; 7. Execution of promotion activities With the groundwork of the previous items, we can enter the execution level of community promotion. The execution of community promotion varies depending on the chosen activity promotion method. Taking group buying events as an example, generally, group buying events are held during the time when owners of newly opened residential areas receive their keys. Personnel will concentrate on sweeping buildings, distributing flyers, providing information bags to owners, and making phone calls to inform them of the meeting content, time, and location, inviting owners to participate. On-site, a large number of gifts and special-priced products will also be prepared for promotion. Regarding personnel, process, and cost management during execution, many articles have covered this, so I won't elaborate here; 8. Summarize and evaluate the effect of promotion activities Before this step, prepare an evaluation form as the basis for promotion project evaluation. The evaluation items include sales performance evaluation, cost evaluation, activity process evaluation, customer evaluation, competitor reaction, etc. The collection and tracking of these data accompany the entire promotion project implementation. "A good tactical promotion can achieve two effects: 1. Customer satisfaction and recognition; 2. Competitors in a flurry." Community promotion as a regional tactic requires large investment and a lot of effort in team management and collaboration. Therefore, you must not hold a "whim, impulse" attitude. If after weighing, you determine community promotion as the main tactic for the region, you must gradually improve it into a regional strategy. Promotion capability is the core of measuring the value of dealers and sales teams. Good tactical promotion can be upgraded to a corporate business strategy through improvement and supplementation. "Tactics are a competitive advantage, while strategy is used to maintain this competitive advantage. Tactics are communication-oriented. Strategy is product, service, or company-oriented. The victory or defeat of marketing warfare occurs at the tactical level, not the strategic level. Tactics determine strategy, strategy drives tactics, and the close relationship between the two is the key to marketing. — Al Ries, Jack Trout, "Marketing Warfare" It is precisely because of the above words of these two masters that I feel promotion is the real "close combat" in our daily operations. No matter where you are in the market today, whether you plan to launch a flanking attack, guerrilla warfare, defensive warfare, or offensive warfare against competitors, good promotion tactics need to be well connected with your market, and your promotion tactics should be difficult for competitors to replicate. Due to the vigorous development of e-commerce and WeChat business, the original channel structure can no longer meet our development needs today. Mixed channel management has many problems, and these factors also bring certain difficulties to our formulation and execution of promotion tactics. I hope that sharing my insights on building materials community promotion projects can serve as a catalyst, and also bring some thoughts to FMCG colleagues. Service Many books and trainings emphasize the importance of service, but how to carry out service is a realistic problem. Each industry has different interpretations of service. Building materials products have a long usage cycle and involve many links, so consumers' service guarantee needs are more prominent. As a building materials dealer, how to connect with manufacturer support and transform it into the channel's service capability to consumers is a key parameter that tests the dealer's ability. Establishing a "pre-sale, in-sale, after-sale" three-level service system architecture for consumers is the foundation for building a customer service platform. Pre-sale service refers to the service work that guides consumers to the sales store through advertising, recommendations, and other links; FMCG retail terminals often use flyers to promote promotional information to old customers and members, achieving the purpose of guiding consumers to the store. But it is difficult for building materials. First, the target customer group for building materials is relatively concentrated, mainly decoration groups. Therefore, most pre-sale work in building materials relies on recommendations from professionals or acquaintances (opinion leaders) of consumers, making it possible to make planned choices. Second, most owners mainly collect information through the internet or visiting physical stores, and then make decisions. It is precisely because of the many links and huge time costs between buyers and sellers that several new service forms have emerged in the market, such as Nippon Paint's refresh service, Dulux's Easy Coat renovation service, and third-party decoration supervision services. At the same time, this is also the reason for the further advancement of terminal front-loading and deeper community promotion in building materials. "Off-topic: Terminal front-loading and channel flattening are not necessarily ideal choices for all enterprises or dealers, especially the service requirements of indirect high-contact products. Many times, they need to be completed by distributors and middlemen, and even the company's direct operation intention is sometimes wrong from some angles." In-sale service refers to the service process of reaching a product transaction between the seller and the consumer. This link is generally completed at the building materials store. Unlike FMCG, building materials products tend to be more experiential and consultative service processes. During the in-sale process, the quality of the salesperson, the store image, and the product display all affect consumer purchase decisions. Retail giant Walmart's "three-meter" principle and IKEA's experiential store style are widely referable for building materials terminal stores based on their own conditions. Through the standard SOP service process during the sale, letting consumers understand the product, master usage points, eliminate doubts, and finally smoothly complete the transaction is the ideal of our sales team, but the in-sale is just the beginning. After-sale service refers to the service process provided by the seller to consumers for construction installation and problem handling. A good after-sale means the beginning of a new pre-sale. The word-of-mouth effect of consumers is increasingly important in today's internet era. Taking paint as an example, because it is a semi-finished product with high construction requirements, there is a saying in the industry: "Three parts paint, seven parts work." In actual operation, more emphasis is placed on the mutual cooperation of "people, machines, materials, methods, and environment." Personally, I think it is necessary to provide targeted product knowledge training services to sales personnel, construction personnel, consumers, and other relevant people. It doesn't have to be profound, but it must be well-paced. In addition to targeting consumers, the service area also needs to pay attention to internal collaboration and coordination issues. The day before yesterday, I heard a short story about the execution of a promotion project. The advertising alone cost three to five million, and if channel promotion costs are added, it would be nearly ten million. Someone asked the boss, "Boss, the advertising ratings are so poor now. Even if the channel sells well, is it worth investing so much money?" "If through this promotion project, the company's various departments can achieve effective collaboration, improve collaboration efficiency, and establish service awareness, in my opinion, it is still worth it..." Collaboration and service between departments are the core of the company's future competitiveness. Only efficient collaboration can ensure the effective execution of the company's strategy and tactics. Therefore, building a company-wide service awareness is not only for external purposes. Only by continuously improving their service level to the channel can dealers maintain and improve their value in the entire supply chain, and avoid being replaced or revoked. In the FMCG field, strong dealers who have a say in certain regions and can even make demands on manufacturers are all suppliers with strong channel management and service capabilities. Service runs through the entire six-force area. No matter where you look, you can see the shadow of service, but we don't often mention it. Many books have detailed explanations of management. Here, I will only talk about my understanding of management. If there are shortcomings, I hope everyone can correct me. First, I think management should be institutionalized, modularized, process-oriented, and professionalized. Efficient internal collaboration is the essence of company management. Personally, I think dealer management can be divided into 5 parts: 1. Personnel and organization management; **2. Administrative management;****3. Channel health management;****4. Financial management;**5. Data management. Personnel and organization management Personnel and organization management is divided into 2 items: (1) Employee needs management; (2) Team performance management. Regarding employee needs management, I personally like the interpretation of the relationship between companies and employees in the internet age in the book "The Alliance." Employees and enterprises, as independent individuals, have their own development needs. Only by effectively combining employee development with company development goals can value be maximized. Previously, we were used to comparing the company to a family and employees to family members, trying to influence employees with the concept of family. But people are lazy, and everyone makes mistakes. Company management cannot have the tolerance of family relationships, and employees cannot recognize employment relationships like family. In fact, we can use the relationship between a football club and players to explain the relationship between the company and employees. The club provides players with salary, training, medical insurance, game opportunities, and other platform benefits, allowing players to show themselves on the field. Both parties benefit mutually. Players get training and increase their value in the club, and can get better development, while the club can gain fan support and honors through players. Discovering employee needs, especially personal career development needs, helping them improve, benefiting both parties, and forming an alliance rather than a simple employment relationship is actually done by many companies, but the purpose is not clear. The employment relationship in the internet age has bid farewell to the traditional lifelong employment system. Both parties will choose based on their own needs. Understanding your employees is important. The alliance form will make employee development more professional, and the company will benefit more. In terms of team performance management, many FMCG companies have very detailed CRC management, allowing team members to make very detailed horizontal comparisons. The management content is roughly divided into 2 categories: A-type sales goals, B-type management goals. A-type sales goals will not be elaborated here. B-type management goals are broken down in detail by FMCG companies: number of new customers, number of visited customers, number of ordering customers, number of ordered items, number of distributed items, etc. The CRC card of FMCG is a very good process management tool, but if it is too complicated, it is not conducive to the actual use of channel personnel. I hope building materials colleagues can learn from each other's strengths. Administrative management I have not personally been involved in administrative management. But this management area is very important. A company's development generally goes through three stages: 1. Startup stage, which can be explained as the opportunity-winning stage. Entrepreneurs accumulate original capital through opportunities and create the company's prototype; 2. Growth stage, where company leaders achieve corporate goals by stimulating team potential and improving team performance, relying on the team to win in market competition, that is, the team-winning stage; 3. Maturity stage, when the company reaches a certain scale, the original small team humanized management can no longer meet the needs of company development. The company needs corporate culture and systems that match its development. At this time, the company enters the third stage, the system-winning stage. The creation and dissemination of good management systems and corporate culture are closely related to the company's administrative management. Avoiding bureaucratization and formalization of administrative management and ensuring efficient collaboration are the relentless pursuits of corporate administrative management. Channel health management With the increasing homogenization of competition and the over-segmentation of the market, channel health issues have been put on the table. The market is divided into several niche markets, which seriously weakens the company's profitability. The healthy development of the channel is related to the healthy development of the enterprise. Whether it is FMCG or the building materials we operate, managers need to pay more attention to the operation of all upstream and downstream related points in daily operations, not just the immediate business. Channel health management, in my understanding, is what people often call supply chain management. From the enterprise's perspective, a simple sentence to describe supply chain management is "Pay attention to the supplier's supplier and the customer's customer." Decompose all related points on the channel into segments, and by optimizing the efficiency and cost of each segment, ultimately achieve value addition and enhance the competitive advantage of the supply chain. This is also a form of innovation. A similar case is JD.com, which I feel is more appropriate. As a regional dealer, let's not talk about upstream suppliers first. Have we paid attention to our downstream partners? Is their inventory reasonable, is their turnover smooth, can our delivery and visit frequency meet their needs, and do they need training to deepen their understanding of the product? Similarly, have our upstream suppliers done these things, and do we cooperate when they carry out these tasks? Some people say that inventory data is the company's core information and is not convenient to share. But if we cannot obtain and provide valuable information to our partners, how can we improve the value of our supply chain management and minimize market risks? The inventory, sales, logistics, and capital situation of partners in the supply chain are the key to judging whether the channel is healthy. Financial management Healthy channel management can avoid certain financial risks for us, but a standardized financial management system is fundamental. I am not from a financial background, and I just want to talk about my understanding of credit sales in financial management from my own perspective. With the intensification of market competition, dealers often use consignment, batch settlement, and other forms in the distribution channel, which brings certain financial risks. FMCG companies have many methods worth learning from in their financial systems. FMCG companies generally sign supply and marketing contracts with terminal retail customers, which include very detailed payment methods, involving credit limits, settlement cycles, settlement basis, return and exchange deduction instructions, etc. This is only what we can see and touch on the surface. In fact, within FMCG companies, there will be a series of evaluations for credit customers, such as customer qualifications, cooperation time, sales estimates, fixed asset situation, and competitor cooperation. There will be detailed records and approval processes. Financial personnel will check the authenticity of the information provided by sales personnel to reduce bad debts. In contrast, many building materials dealers don't even have a simple agreement, often just an IOU, and it's unclear whether the person writing the IOU is the person in charge. Lack of self-protection awareness is also one aspect of the high bad debt rate in the building materials industry. Data management As we all know, the era of big data has arrived, but many of us are still wandering at the door, at a loss. Even though e-commerce has taken away our business through informatization, dataization, and efficient logistics, many traditional dealers still do not realize the necessity of data management. FMCG dealers and retailers have been using category management to optimize product, display, and inventory structures for several years. In contrast, many building materials dealers are still in the era of not knowing what inventory management is, especially in third- and fourth-tier cities. Many customers' computers in stores are just decorations for chatting and surfing the internet, and it is difficult for them to play their due role. Data management lies in accumulation, refinement, and analysis... Imagine if we had a basic inventory management software, we could understand and analyze which products have turnover problems, which products have entered the decline stage, which products need increased channel push, and these data can also be accumulated for comparison in the coming year to discover demand changes at different time points. If we can find the product entry point one step ahead of competitors through data analysis, I believe we will also gain a competitive advantage in the market. Data comes from various sources. I'm not asking everyone to immediately buy expensive management systems, but to try to accumulate, analyze, and use data. Data provides a basis for our rational thinking, but it does not mean that with rational thinking we can be invincible, because people are both rational and emotional, and many decisions are the result of emotional choices. Previously, a customer asked his internal staff to compile and retain information on all served customers. The internal staff asked him what the significance of storing this information was. His explanation was: "This information is a valuable resource. We send a greeting message during holidays, publish promotional information from time to time, and when the customer decorates next time, they will definitely think of us first..." Many bosses go to the grassroots to inspect work and tour the market, often with a mentality of proving something. What are they proving? Proving how prescient their planned strategy is. In fact, this has deviated from the essence of management. How to improve efficient collaboration between departments and keep it consistent with the company's goals is our pursuit. We should participate in the management process, not verify the management results. FMCG, with its mature and rapid development model, brings us many thoughts. Of course, there are also problems that are incompatible with the building materials industry. "Choose the good and follow it," I hope building materials colleagues can learn from it. I also hope FMCG colleagues can get some inspiration from the article. "Stones from other mountains can polish jade." I believe that only through continuous communication can we improve our marketing level and promote the development of the industry. Forget the empty cup mentality. Everyone has different experiences and valuable experience. If possible, please share your thoughts! Written at the end Thank you for your support, which allowed me to finally finish writing this article. I suddenly feel relieved, and I also found many shortcomings in myself. I need to settle down and enrich myself. Through reading the books of teachers Yu Xiang, Jiang Yunfei, Fan Yunfeng, and others, I gained many inspirations, and also received encouragement and help from Teacher Zhu Danpeng during my FMCG career. Here, I thank these predecessors for their help, and I hope to contribute my own strength to the development of building materials marketing. -END- The best FMCG dealer learning platform in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and applicable tutorials for enterprises and dealers Committed to helping Chinese FMCG dealers grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get the corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent article selection | 002 Dealer market operation | 003 Terminal visit management | 004 Sales supervisor skills | 005 Sales improvement techniques | 006 Channel expansion | 007 Managing dealers | 008 Dealer development | 009 Dealer internal operation management | 010 Team management | 011 Efficient distribution techniques | 012 Sales manager's eighteen skills | 013 KA operation methods and strategies | 014 First lesson for new salespeople | 015 Internet, brand | 016 Dealer B2B transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]