---
title: "Beware of the \"Street-Loitering Salesperson\"!"
description: "Salespeople, once the vanguard of market expansion, are now becoming a burden for many liquor companies and distributors amid industry adjustments and channel fragmentation. The root cause is not the sales role itself but the \"street-loitering\" work style that prioritizes superficial visits over value creation, leading to poor performance. The solution lies in bC integration, which redefines the salesperson's role as a terminal sales booster, and in shifting management from result-oriented to process-empowering approaches."
author: "朱朝阳"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-11-14"
categories: "Distribution & Channels"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/beware-of-the-street-loitering-salesperson-f64756ad/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/beware-of-the-street-loitering-salesperson-f64756ad.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PjIkwwV1dT9_FToQdbgJEw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E8%AD%A6%E6%83%95-%E8%A1%97%E6%BA%9C%E5%AD%90%E4%B8%9A%E5%8A%A1%E5%91%98-f64756ad.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/beware-of-the-street-loitering-salesperson-f64756ad/"
citation: "朱朝阳. “Beware of the \"Street-Loitering Salesperson\"!.” New Distribution, 2025-11-14. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/beware-of-the-street-loitering-salesperson-f64756ad/"
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---

# Beware of the "Street-Loitering Salesperson"!

> Salespeople, once the vanguard of market expansion, are now becoming a burden for many liquor companies and distributors amid industry adjustments and channel fragmentation. The root cause is not the sales role itself but the "street-loitering" work style that prioritizes superficial visits over value creation, leading to poor performance. The solution lies in bC integration, which redefines the salesperson's role as a terminal sales booster, and in shifting management from result-oriented to process-empowering approaches.

**The Salesperson's Predicament:**
**The Trajectory from "Vanguard" to "White Elephant"**
Once upon a time, salespeople were the valuable assets for enterprises to expand their territories. Now, amid deep adjustments across industries and intensified channel fragmentation, this former "market vanguard" team is transforming into a "hot potato" for many liquor companies and distributors.
The lament of "no team won't do, but a team doesn't make money," the dilemma of "can't recruit, can't utilize well, can't retain," and escape strategies like "husband-and-wife shops going solo" or "transitioning to pure e-commerce" all reflect the deep-seated management predicament of sales teams.
However, the foundation of offline channels ultimately relies on the expansion, maintenance, and deep cultivation of terminal outlets—these core tasks must be carried out by a capable sales team. Talking about market development without a professional sales team is nothing but armchair strategy.
To gauge a market's growth potential, I habitually start by observing a sales morning meeting. The quantity and quality of the sales team often mirror the market's true potential. Having many people is important, but only an efficient organization can truly develop the market.
During the industry's high-growth period, the dividends of deep distribution gave rise to a human-wave tactic, where the size of the sales force directly determined market influence. However, as the industry enters an era of shrinking volume, sales team management has fallen into unprecedented awkwardness: the sales force is indispensable, yet faces a severe imbalance in input-output ratio.
At the root, it's not the "salesperson" position that drags down performance, but the "street-loitering style" of work that permeates the team—using superficial diligence to mask the lack of value creation, replacing the goal of "achieving results" with the mindset of "completing tasks," ultimately becoming the invisible killer of terminal sales.

**The Invisible Killer of Performance:**
**An In-depth Analysis of the "Street-Loitering" Phenomenon**
During terminal market visits, we often find some sales personnel trapped in a typical "street-loitering" work state. The core issue is that they merely satisfy the superficial "visit action" to the B-end (retailers) without effectively driving actual sales conversion or advancing terminal quality.
Specifically, when a salesperson arrives at a store, they can neither solve the practical problems the B-end faces in sales promotion nor help the terminal find effective paths for products to reach C-end consumers. Under the dual pressure of "can't return empty-handed but no actual results," they can only set "completing store visit counts" as the core goal, wandering aimlessly in the market.
This work model ultimately leads to the "three-no" dilemma: no per-store output, no sales promotion progress, and no value accumulation—we precisely define this state of "visiting for the sake of visiting" as the **"street-loitering phenomenon" on the sales side.**

**Poor Performance? Don't Let "Excuses" Become a "Protective Armor"**
Salespeople often exceed expectations in adaptability and eloquence. When performance is poor, they always find excuses that make managers "empathize." These justifications often sound reasonable, especially when experienced salespeople face inexperienced managers.
Internal attributions often focus on three classic excuses:
  * Packaging not up to par—"low-grade appearance, outdated"
  * Insufficient promotional policies—"not enough profit margin"
  * Product quality issues—"consumers say competitors are better"
Externally, they refine five typical scripts. These seemingly B-end "reasons for rejection" actually expose the salesperson's **lack of ability in deepening customer relationships, uncovering needs, and driving the essence of cooperation:**
**1. Decision-Avoidance Type:** "The boss is busy/not in/let me think it over" reflects that the salesperson didn't make an appointment or clearly communicate value, lacking the ability to grasp the store owner's dynamics and address their concerns.
**2. Inventory-Deflection Type:** "Sales are slow/have stock/wait until sold out" indicates the salesperson didn't provide an effective sales promotion plan, or even seriously check inventory or analyze inventory structure, merely blaming the terminal's sales capability.
**3. Resource-Scarcity Type:** "No connections/can't arrange meetings/don't drink" reflects that the salesperson failed to dispel the store owner's concerns about resource poaching, didn't help activate the terminal's C-end circle resources, and didn't alleviate the boss's fears of "customers being taken away" or "trouble."
**4. Procrastination-Deflection Type:** "Pause for a few days/wait for notice" indicates the salesperson didn't provide clear cooperation milestones or benefits, leaving the store owner without motivation to act.
**5. Environment-Empathy Type:** "This year's environment is bad/no customers in the store/nobody is making money" reflects the salesperson's failure to provide empowering solutions in adversity.
In the era of shrinking volume and overcapacity, one of the core tasks for tobacco and liquor store owners is "dealing with salespeople"—especially core TOP stores, which receive dozens of sales personnel from liquor companies daily. The passive coping of "street-loitering salespeople" only leads terminals to categorize them as "not worth attention," further compressing cooperation space.
Excellent salespeople can guide terminal owners to find incremental paths, while "street-loitering salespeople" are always led by the terminal, using "the boss's rejection" as a shield for poor performance, never thinking about how to break the deadlock.

**The Business Content of "Street-Loitering":**
**Only Doing "Routine Actions," Not "Incremental Actions"**
The core logic of performance growth is "existing volume doesn't decline, incremental volume has breakthroughs," but the daily operations of "street-loitering salespeople" are all "routine operations" that cannot bring increments, specifically categorized into three types:
1. Basic Execution: Delivery and unloading, display and shelf management, inventory counting, report filling—only completing "physical" work, lacking deep thinking on display optimization and inventory analysis;
2. Information Transmission: Policy communication is just "repeating like a recorder," not helping terminals unpack policy benefits; information collection only records surface data, not digging into underlying C-end needs;
3. Surface Maintenance: Daily visits are for photo check-ins, customer relationship maintenance stays at "boss, have you eaten?" small talk, neither deeply understanding terminal pain points nor promoting substantive cooperation.
These actions seem "not idle," but they cannot bring core value such as per-store output improvement, accelerated sales, or user accumulation, ultimately falling into a vicious cycle of "busy but ineffective."

**The Root of the "Street-Loitering" Problem:**
**A Systemic Management Predicament, Not Individual Laziness**
There are no salespeople who don't want to do well, only those who don't know how. Behind the street-loitering phenomenon lies a deeper systemic issue:
1. Role Perception Bias:
  * Empirical obstacles, clinging to outdated notions like "distribution and stocking are the end goal";
  * Cognitive breakthroughs but lack of implementation methods and execution skills;
  * Insufficient acceptance of new models like bC integration, making transformation difficult.
2. Capability Model Deficiency:
  * Only traditional to-B sales skills, lacking to-C empowerment capabilities;
  * Lack of core skills for differentiated interactions with various stakeholders.
3. Assessment Orientation Bias:
  * Over-assessing visit counts, neglecting sales promotion rates and user cultivation quality;
  * The "baton" fails, causing teams to forget goals for indicators.
4. Methodology Deficiency:
  * Lack of a complete playbook from development to sales promotion;
  * Enterprises fail to provide effective systematic empowerment support.

**The Path to Breakthrough:**
**bC Integration Reconstructs the Salesperson's Role and Value**
bC integration is a marketing strategy that treats terminal stores (small b) and consumers (C) as an integrated operation. It is not a subversion of the traditional F-B-b-C value chain but an upgrade, with the core being through manufacturer-dealer collaboration to achieve a virtuous cycle of "small b first recommendation, C-end first choice."
This is not a simple "2b+2C" but a model revolution that creates chemical reactions between the B-end and C-end: by empowering the B-end to serve the C-end, and activating the B-end through the C-end, forming a mutually reinforcing marketing closed loop.
The power of bC integration lies in building a virtuous cycle of "empowering the B-end, serving the C-end": without the B-end, stability is lacking; without the C-end, vitality is lacking.
Specific implementation paths:
  * Reconstruct the salesperson's role: from "salesperson" to "terminal sales promotion enabler";
  * Upgrade the capability model: cultivate dual capabilities for both to-B and to-C, focusing on user operations and circle marketing skills;
  * Optimize assessment mechanisms: reduce the weight of visit counts, increase indicators like sales promotion rate, user cultivation, and terminal quality improvement;
  * Provide methodological support: create a complete playbook from terminal development to sales promotion.

**Management Cognition Upgrade:**
**From Result Management to Process Empowerment**
Changing management cognition is key to breaking the deadlock:
1. Peter Drucker: Management is about stimulating and releasing people's inherent potential, creating value, and doing good for others. No organization can find a large number of excellent talents; the goal of an organization should be to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things;
2. Managers achieve results by developing subordinates, allowing them to grow. Through the process of developing subordinates, managers themselves grow;
3. Management is managing causes and effects; result management equals consequence management equals too late. Results are the natural chemical reaction of a series of effective sales actions; visualization management is essential. The sales process is a black box that needs a hole to watch at all times. The purpose of visualization is not supervision but timely problem detection, timely action, and intervention for correction;
4. Management actions should go from nothing to something to excellence, not expecting to achieve perfection in one step. The best way to guide actions to the right place is to win battles, use incentives to train, and set benchmarks;
5. Management is about close monitoring: break down the goal-achieving process into N key nodes and closely monitor each node.
Take a tasting event as an example: from type definition, personnel invitation, on-site arrangement, interaction design to follow-up tracking, every step must be visualized to ensure the final effect.
However, most managers only focus on results, which are already a fait accompli with no room for redemption. If the process is done well, the results will naturally be good—but the premise is to have a mechanism that ensures process quality: provide more guidance before the event, check in more during the event, and review more after the event.
In the process of introducing new models to enterprises, I always focus on the process—the advancement of effective incremental actions. As long as incremental actions are pushed forward properly, results will naturally follow. Performance not supported by incremental actions is likely a false market prosperity.
Specific implementation measures:
1. Optimize assessment indicators: upgrade basic indicators like "visit count" and "distribution rate" to value indicators such as "sales promotion rate," "new C-end user additions," "tasting event conversion rate," "banquet lead acquisition/conversion," and "corporate and institutional group purchase development," focusing salespeople's actions on "increments";
2. Promote process visualization: use digital tools (such as sales management systems) or dashboards to record salespeople's "key actions"—whether they helped terminals with inventory analysis, whether they implemented tasting events, whether they followed up with C-end customers—to promptly identify "action gaps" and provide timely guidance and adjustment, avoiding "black-box management";
3. Strengthen empowerment training: for the implementation needs of "bC integration," train salespeople in "To C empowerment capabilities," including planning tasting events, developing and maintaining circle customers, designing terminal sales promotion plans, and developing circle-themed activities, so that salespeople "have methods to rely on."

**In the Era of Shrinking Volume,**
**"Value" Is the Only "Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card" for Salespeople**
The deep adjustment of the liquor industry is essentially a process of "value regression"—those "street-loitering salespeople" who rely only on stocking and going through the motions will inevitably be eliminated by the market; while salespeople who can create increments for terminals and value for consumers will become the core assets of enterprises.
For liquor companies, instead of agonizing over "whether to have salespeople," it's better to focus on "how to make salespeople create value": reconstruct the work system through the bC integration model, stimulate potential through process visualization management, and transform salespeople from "hot potatoes" into "growth engines."
After all, old maps won't find new continents; only by proactive evolution can we find new growth paths in the era of shrinking volume.


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 朱朝阳
- Published: 2025-11-14
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/beware-of-the-street-loitering-salesperson-f64756ad/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PjIkwwV1dT9_FToQdbgJEw

## Copyright and AI use

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Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671