When you enter a moderately sized shopping mall or supermarket, you'll find many salespeople in each section surrounding you to recommend products, a common sight in any sizable retail outlet in any city. If you're in marketing or planning, you naturally know these promoters are sent by manufacturers. If your products are promoted this way, you might worry about the crowded, competitive environment with promoters stationed every few steps.
Some say this is the inevitable state of competition in the post-terminal era. But no matter what era terminal interception reaches, its competitive elements remain unchanged: terminal interception is far more than a few promoters arguing red-faced over a single customer in the store. That's just the most basic form, and also the most superficial manifestation. If you think terminal interception is only about promoter disputes, you're greatly mistaken.
In reality, terminal interception is a systematic marketing model. Its competitive vehicle is stationing promoters in large stores, and its competitive body consists of four major systems: "publicity strategy," "competitive intelligence strategy," "product strategy," and "promotion strategy." Publicity strategy includes in-store publicity, interpersonal publicity, material publicity, and even out-of-store or surrounding area publicity. Product strategy includes profit line, competitive line, customer relationship line, and customer service line strategies. For example, if your profit line product is a blood tonic, and there's a blood tonic in the store that also supplements calcium, with strong in-store competition, you can use a calcium supplement product to implement a competitive suppression strategy, using buy-give promotions or selling at cost to attack the competitor. Sacrificing the calcium product's profit to fight for blood tonic market share reduces a strong competitor. Promotion strategy includes "positioning interception," "policy interception," "momentum interception," "service interception," and "experience interception," and by form includes "low-price promotion," "gift promotion," "value-off promotion," "value-added promotion," "health check promotion," "experience promotion," "free clinic promotion," and "service promotion." We'll detail these specific competitive strategies in future articles. Today, we'll focus on "competitive intelligence strategy."
We often encounter situations where, during in-store competition, we have excellent promotional activities, but the store doesn't approve them, or requires high fees; or our excellent promoter is jointly reported by other manufacturers' promoters, leading to product and promoter removal from the store.
Competitive intelligence strategy directly affects your survival in in-store competition. Even if your promotions are great and your promoters are excellent, if you're not allowed to implement them or are forced to leave, everything is in vain. Competitive intelligence strategy is a fundamental competitive tool, with the primary role of "improving the product's position in the in-store competitive environment." It includes "store relationship," "customer relationship," and "enemy relationship" strategies. Let's introduce the construction and application of these three relationships.
First, let's look at the roles of the three relationships.
The role of store relationship is mainly to increase sales profit and reduce sales costs; customer relationship's role is to secure a favorable environment for improving sales performance; enemy relationship's role is to increase in-store survival and promotional capability.
- Store Relationship Building
Store relationship building is divided into "building" and "maintenance." Generally, daily maintenance of store relationships is done by sales personnel. The most common management method is "zoning" and "responsibility to person," commonly known as "store visits." But sales personnel lack strong store relationship building skills. So, we should establish new store relationships first, then hand them over to sales personnel for maintenance.
Many companies neglect store relationship building or don't understand its importance. When building store relationships, they rely on sales personnel, leading to higher sales costs and lower profit margins, creating insurmountable obstacles for future terminal interception tactics. In terminal competition, many tactics have costs. Sales profit not only relates to company development but also supports terminal tactics. Product entry price, display fees, POP promotion fees, and payment terms all involve cost and efficiency issues.
Let's look at an example:
Xiao Wang and Xiao Zhang are two sales representatives from a company. The company's new product launch requires two reps for distribution. Xiao Zhang is responsible for new product entry at Store A, and Xiao Wang for Store B. Stores A and B are of the same level. Let's calculate:
Assume Stores A and B sell 60 boxes of a new product priced at 100 yuan per month, with monthly sales of 6,000 yuan. Let's calculate the fee rates for Xiao Zhang and Xiao Wang:
Xiao Zhang: 6000×75%×1%+700=745 yuan Xiao Wang: 6000×70%×5%+1100=1310 yuan
Based on this, Xiao Wang pays 565 yuan more per month than Xiao Zhang, and over a year, 0.7 million yuan more. For ten or a hundred stores, the fee difference becomes enormous.
Generally, new product launches, old product staffing, or building terminal interception models involve "store relationship building." Based on the practical experience of Niu Strategy Marketing Planning Consulting Company, we provide three methods for store relationship building:
A. Dedicated Specialist Method: For most sales reps, negotiating store relationships is difficult. The difficulty isn't "whether to enter the store," but "whether to secure more favorable sales conditions." However, often even stationing promoters in stores is difficult because large stores are already overcrowded with promoters.
Practical experience shows that imposing harsh task conditions on sales reps affects product launch progress and store coverage. So, we need to send pre-trained negotiation specialists to assist reps in negotiating key stores, demonstrating during negotiations to teach reps, which helps them negotiate with non-key stores.
B. Problem-Solving Method: Often, we encounter difficulties or rejections when entering stores. But we must understand that our job is to deal with store rejections. We must face difficulties head-on, not avoid rejections. More importantly, we need to find out the reasons for store rejections; solving these reasons turns rejection into acceptance.
During store entry, we should learn more about the store's reasons for rejection, not avoid them, but further identify the true background of those reasons and resolve them. Solving the store's avoidance reasons completely removes store relationship obstacles. If we can't solve them on the spot, we should go back and think clearly before answering. If the supervisor can't solve it, let the manager decide; if the manager can't, ask headquarters for a decision.
In store relationship building, practice has proven the feasibility and effectiveness of the "problem-solving method." While collecting store rejection factors, we should also use other negotiation techniques, because stores often have a habit of "cutting demands by three-tenths" for any entry request or application, regardless of whether your request is reasonable. So, if you're the main negotiator, it's best to send someone ahead to "test the waters" and bring back the "cut by three-tenths" rejection reasons. When you go to negotiate next time, you'll have solutions or reasons prepared, and only then will you succeed.
Let's look at a real case: Tangxia Office Director Han Linfeng's store entry negotiation
A new product from a Shenzhen company was launching, and Xiao Han was responsible for store entry in the region. Since he was the only salesperson in the office, Xiao Han found a promoter with strong negotiation skills to go ahead, and instructed her with several requirements:
"Ask more and dig deeper": While understanding the store's rejection reasons, ask more in-depth questions. For example, if the store says, "We don't want to add more beauty and weight-loss products," that doesn't represent the real reason. We should ask deeper: "Why?" "What happened?" "Is refusing entry the only way to solve this problem?" "What other issues lead you to not want to carry beauty and weight-loss products?"
"Ask and note": While asking, take serious notes on the spot. This helps create an impression of focused problem-solving and shows attention to the store's opinions, encouraging them to talk more deeply.
When Xiao Han sent the promoter to gather information, he waited downstairs. If the promoter came out with some rejection reasons not fully clarified, Xiao Han could immediately list a few deeper questions for the promoter to go back and ask. Store staff are often willing to answer questions the advance person missed, leaving a responsible impression.
Through the promoter, Xiao Han thoroughly understood the store's rejection reasons and prepared solutions in advance. The next day, he had the promoter lead him to negotiate with the store. The promoter introduced him: "This is our Manager Han, who has come specifically to solve the problems you mentioned last time." At this point, Director Han had a higher stance, and the store felt that the company sending another manager to solve problems showed respect, making them more restrained in emotion, tone, and attitude, creating a stronger negotiation atmosphere. Combined with Han's prepared solutions, the negotiation succeeded smoothly, changing the store's rejection attitude.
If the negotiation hadn't involved sending someone ahead, and it was just Xiao Han negotiating repeatedly—today not agreeing to a condition, tomorrow considering and agreeing; today unable to solve a requirement, tomorrow proposing new ideas on the same requirement—the store would perceive dragging, entanglement, and unreliability, leading to impatience and aversion. The longer the negotiation, the harsher the conditions, which is detrimental to problem-solving and creates new problems.
C. Policy Substitution Method: If a product launches nationwide, large-scale "store relationship building" would be slowed by the above two methods, requiring a more effective approach. In such cases, Niu Strategy Marketing Planning Consulting Company has often used "entry policies" or "reciprocal conditions" to replace "entry negotiations."
We once implemented the "Key Customer Service Project" in the Guangdong market, mainly for store relationship building during a company's multiple new product launches. At that time, the company had few negotiators and weak negotiation skills among branch sales staff, severely hindering local market customer relationship building. We proposed the "Key Customer Service Project," focusing on service projects or mutual benefit policies for large terminal pharmacies and malls. For example, we sourced some daily necessities costing a few yuan, but they looked like they were worth dozens of yuan. For stores with harsh entry conditions, we conducted free lucky draws in-store, where customers spending above a certain amount could participate for free. We controlled the number of prizes distributed, converting them at market retail price to cover store miscellaneous fees. This way, the store didn't charge us any entry or promotion fees, and we provided prizes for free. The store thought they got a bargain, but in reality, our actual purchase cost was less than half of normal entry fees, so both parties were willing to accept.
We also designed and printed an exquisite "store talk version" specifically for the "Key Customer Service Project," detailing the service items and content for key terminal stores in an easy-to-understand manner. This replaced the sales staff's explanation and discussion work; as long as the salesperson "delivered it," the "store talk version" would convince the store.
Since launching the "Key Customer Service Project," the company's new product launches went smoothly. We calculated the first round of launch costs, saving approximately 700,000 yuan per month in the Guangdong market alone, and shortened the rollout time by over 20 days. More importantly, the new products achieved the best display positions and areas, and the most promotional events in stores, contributing significantly to in-store sales performance.
- Customer Relationship Building: Customer relationship building mainly targets store managers, team leaders, clerks, and promoters of non-competing products. We all know that the larger the sales volume, the easier customer relationship maintenance. Conversely, the smaller the sales, the harder the customer relationships. Many people think that as sales grow, customer relationships naturally improve, but this misses the point of maintaining relationships.
Our goal is to use customer relationships to increase sales. A good customer relationship is meant to increase store support and reduce competitive pressure. So, we cannot let sales volume alone determine customer relationships. Even when sales are poor, we must build customer relationships and rely on them to boost sales.
Niu Strategy Marketing Planning Consulting Company found in practice that in the same pharmacy, many promoters help sell for promoters of other products who are off duty. They help each other when one is absent. The main driver for mutual help among non-competing product promoters is interpersonal factors. Mutual help among promoters is the lowest level of customer relationship, but it's easy to establish and has the greatest impact on product promotion.
Therefore, in the early stages of sales growth, during customer relationship building, promoter relationship building is the first step.
Similar to relationships with non-competing product promoters, clerk relationships work the same way. But in most stores, clerk promotion requires providing a certain amount of sales commission, which we call "with gold" or "hanging gold." In the early stages of sales growth, during customer relationship building, clerk relationship building is the second step.
Store management of promoters is usually directly handled by the store manager (or director), while large terminal stores are managed by team leaders, squad leaders, or promotion supervisors.
In customer relationship building, manager (store director) relationships and team leader (counter chief) relationships are the highest level, and they have the greatest impact on in-store competition. Most terminal stores base their management of promoters on unwritten verbal rules or industry practices, known as "store rules" or "promoter management measures." Many large terminal stores use their own "store rules" or "promoter management measures" for pre-job training and assessment of new manufacturer promoters. Below are a few of the most common and important store rules:
Customer abandonment: When a manufacturer's promoter is attending to a non-target customer, even if a target customer arrives, the promoter is not allowed to abandon the non-target customer to attend to the target customer.
Customer snatching: When a competitor's promoter is attending to a customer, even if the customer doesn't choose the promoted product, promoters of similar products are not allowed to approach and promote; instead, the original promoter should handle the entire sales pitch.
Rule by people: Complaints and violations among promoters are arbitrated and penalized by the store manager or team leader.
For a stationed promoter, the difference between attending to 100 target customers a day versus 10 is obvious. So, to promote flexibly in the store and have greater leeway to contact customers and counter competitor momentum, you must first build good relationships with the store manager or team leader. Additionally, increasing product display area and placing advertising boards require good relationships with supervisors. These all have a multiplier effect on promotional work.
Building customer relationships with important figures like store managers or team leaders requires two key elements: "interpersonal relationships" and "in-store sales volume." These two elements are mutually reinforcing: "better interpersonal relationships make it easier to increase sales" or "higher sales make it easier to build better interpersonal relationships." Below is the "Customer Relationship Building Difficulty Comparison Table" summarized by Niu Strategy Marketing Planning Consulting Company: ☆ indicates difficulty index; ★ indicates ease index.
When sales are zero or low, building relationships with managers or team leaders is harder than with promoters or clerks. So, when your product has low sales in a store, we recommend building customer relationships in layers. We'll explain the layers through three progressive stages: "zero → low sales → sales growth." The order is: Step 1: promoter relationships, Step 2: clerk relationships, Step 3: team leader relationships, Step 4: manager relationships. Case: Easy first, hard later, saving costs.
Generally, when building high-level customer relationships, well-known and best-selling brands are much easier than small manufacturers or unknown products. But for promoters and clerks, there's no difference. So, when building high-level relationships, "do sales first, then build relationships." This way, during a relatively growing sales trend, the costs and expenses of building high-level relationships are much lower.
Suppose a product sells only one box in a few months in a store. If you ask the manager to place a few advertising boards or station a promoter, the manager will first consider manufacturers with higher sales. Under equal conditions, the manager will satisfy higher-volume products or quote you an exorbitant price.
In this case, it's better to first focus on non-competing product promoters and clerks in the store, build relationships with them, which helps create an upward sales trend for your product. Then, building higher-level relationships becomes easier.
When building high-level relationships, you can emphasize the product's sales momentum and future promotional plans to gain support. Let's look at a practical case from Niu Strategy Marketing Planning Consulting Company:
Shenzhen Century Niu Company is a long-time client of Niu Strategy. The following case is a "Single Store Sales Improvement" project we did in 2000.
The new product launch in the Zhuhai office had been unsatisfactory for several months. So, we went to the Zhuhai office to observe. At that time, we needed to do an important task: store packaging.
Soon, Manager Huang of that office brought a price list for packaging several chain stores, listing items like window displays, door signs, and promoter management fees. This was a huge expense.
Without promotions, there were no sales; but launching promotions and packaging stores all at once was too costly. Helpless, we decided to reduce costs through fee negotiation. But after several rounds, the store insisted on the fee standards and wouldn't lower anything. We investigated and learned that all A-class stores under this chain pharmacy company occupied most of the Zhuhai market. And each store's space was at a premium. Every manager wanted to give support that boosts sales to products with good sales. So, we decided to do sales first, then build relationships.
We targeted non-competing product promoters and clerks as our sales focus. We formed a "sales alliance" with them, strengthening relationships through gatherings, parties, and video screenings, followed by simple product and promotion training.
During the process of building relationships with promoters and clerks, sales began to grow from nothing. Throughout, we held weekly "sales summaries" and reported to the store. This allowed headquarters leaders and store managers to see the upward sales trend, increasing our contact frequency with high-level relationship figures.
In the second month, we approached the store with our staffing application and promotion plan. Since the store manager had heard headquarters leaders praise us and saw the sales growth and our relationships with clerks, we finally gained the store's trust in our promotion plan and secured corresponding support.
After a month, we reported sales to company leaders and the store manager nearly six times, accumulated 25 days of sales trend statistics, provided 12 rationalization suggestions, of which 3 were adopted, and senior strategists from Niu Strategy attended the group's marketing report meetings twice. The support we eventually obtained far exceeded the first negotiation result. The store waived fees for items they could, like window displays, advertising boards, and display space, all obtained for free, and promoter management fees were reduced by an average of 100 yuan. In total, the project saved over 160,000 yuan in annual costs.
- Enemy Relationship: Competing in the same store, the relationship with competitors is also crucial. We often ask during promoter training: "Can a tiger and a goat become good friends?"
Because competitor promoters and our promoters are always in opposition, like a balance scale, leaning toward whichever side is heavier.
So, we advise you to warn your promoters that "there's no true friendship" while seriously managing the enemy relationship with competitors.
Some say "market competition is cruel," but we believe in-store competition is a microcosm of market competition. Competition among terminal promoters is even crueler, condensing the invisible cruelty of market competition into face-to-face confrontation and struggle. Therefore, Niu Strategy believes that achieving good promotional performance in terminal stores is, from another angle, about winning in-store promotional confrontations.
Based on Niu Strategy Marketing Planning Consulting Company's practical experience, we've summarized six strategies for in-store enemy competition.
A. Cold Treatment: In competition with competitor promoters, disputes and conflicts are inevitable. Some say "a promoter who never conflicts with competitor promoters isn't a good promoter." Practical experience also tells us that in terminal interception promotion, conflicts are unavoidable, so you must teach promoters to face them correctly.
When conflict occurs, the first thought should be "strive for a favorable arbitration result." This is the core of cold treatment. Beating or outshouting the opponent is only "momentary pleasure"; the subsequent arbitration may be extremely unfavorable, even leading to product removal or promoter dismissal. So, you must instruct promoters to stay calm during disputes. Don't say inflammatory or abusive words, and never threaten or physically fight.
Instead, during disputes, pay attention to the opponent's aggressive behavior, such as threats or abuse. These are valuable materials for your promoter to secure a favorable arbitration result.
B. Hard Confrontation: Whether in daily promotional work or during competition, promoters must always maintain a spirit of "daring to confront and compete."
In practice, we find many promoters avoid competition or conflict by giving up customers, never proactively attacking or actively responding. This cowardly behavior goes against the competitive spirit and loses the meaning of promotional competition.
You should support your promoters' confrontational spirit, even cultivate it. In promotional competition, it's always "if you're tough, they're soft; if you're soft, they're tough."
C. Quick Complaint: Conflicts in terminal competition ultimately require store arbitration and penalties, but often "first come, first served," meaning "whoever reports first is in the right."
Store supervisors in charge of promotions don't have spare time to investigate trivial matters, nor do they have time to hear multiple reports on one issue. So, "quick complaint" is a good way to secure the most favorable arbitration.
D. Neutral Ground: For final arbitration of promotional disputes, regardless of the outcome, a neutral intermediary is needed to mediate or affirm the arbitration result.
For example, if the arbitration result is unfavorable, you can immediately tell your sales rep to mediate. The rep should, while respecting and affirming the arbitration result, provide some personal thoughts to the arbitrator, offering views on your promoter, to convey the message that "my promoter is wronged," which also helps secure a favorable result next time.
If the arbitration result is favorable, you can have your rep, while affirming the fairness of the result, express gratitude to the arbitrator and promise to work harder to repay the store. This is like thanking someone who helped you, making them believe their arbitration was not only correct but also beneficial to the store's interests. If you help someone and they're smug but don't even say "thank you," how would you feel?
Conveying these messages to the arbitrator is crucial, as it benefits future in-store competition and helps cultivate an atmosphere of "superiority over competitors." Because in-store competition among promoters currently stays at the individual confrontation level, your support actually forms an organizational confrontation against individual competitor promoters, effectively cultivating promoters' organizational superiority and competitive confidence, and dampening competitor promoters' fighting spirit.
When conveying these messages to the arbitrator, it must be a third party, preferably a higher-level manager. Because senior people carry more weight and have better effect, showing we value the arbitrator, and also appearing objective and neutral. If the winning promoter thanks the arbitrator, it might make them feel the arbitration was unfair or collusive, even appearing as bribery to outsiders. A good thing can turn bad, and the next arbitration result becomes unpredictable.
E. Pulling Helpers: We often educate our promoters that they have organizational backing, not fighting alone in the store.
Based on "quick complaint," if conditions allow, it's best to have the sales rep first coordinate with the conflicting party, lowering posture to appease them, then approach the supervisor for coordination. This helps avoid direct conflict between the parties and creates more "organization vs. individual competitor promoter" situations.
F. Relatives vs. Regulars: Sometimes there's a very special competitive relationship in stores: competition with regular store clerks.
Many competitor manufacturers implement "commission" or "part-time promoter" methods, mainly working on store clerks. Your promoter's competition with these store regulars is very fragile. So, we must counter this special situation.
How to defeat these regulars without damaging store or customer relationships?
This is important work. Our experience is to use "relatives" against "regulars." It's best to find relatives of store managers, directors, or supervisors to be our promoters. This way, we still get good customer and store relationships, while also ensuring in-store sales don't leak.
"Relatives vs. regulars" can also be used in building the promoter team, especially in highly competitive or harsh environments. It includes three strategies: "manager referral method," "supervisor referral method," and "specialist promoter referral method." Through these referrals, we not only solve promoter issues but also merge the referrer's resources, which is very beneficial for in-store promotion.
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