There are two extreme marketing management styles. One is extremely loose, so loose that salespeople are treated as customers; the other is extremely strict, so strict that customers are treated as employees. Most companies fall in between. Every so often, I encounter companies that treat salespeople as customers, and at a certain stage, this management model is truly magical. However, after a while, such companies often disappear. Strong Chinese companies are not those with good brands but those with good channel management. An important sign is that channel management is an extension of internal management. **-01- Treating salespeople as customers generally leads to two outcomes: either collapse or disintegration. Treating salespeople as customers usually has two prerequisites: first, the boss is not strong enough; second, by chance, there are a few exceptionally good salespeople who serve as role models. Here, the demonstration effect is particularly important. Because with successful examples, others will imitate and follow. The essence of treating salespeople as customers is that salespeople become "second bosses." Since they are "second bosses," they have the characteristics of bosses. The manifestations are: 1. Bosses do not need management; 2. Without company investment, salespeople dare to invest on their own. Why do the outcomes end in either disintegration or collapse? If the business is truly well-managed, the "second boss" easily becomes the "big boss," and the original boss becomes one of the suppliers. If you treat him as a customer, he will really become a customer. If the business is not well-managed, the "second boss" cannot continue, salespeople do not dare to invest, and naturally, they disperse. I have seen an extreme case. The original regional manager grew too big and got out of control. The boss had no choice but to form joint ventures with employees in each region, with employees as major shareholders and the boss as a minor shareholder. Without doing this, the company would have completely fallen apart. **-02- However, I have also seen a counterexample. This company also treated salespeople as customers, giving them bare prices, and salespeople added their own markup. Even more extreme, salespeople invited the boss to attend customer meetings in the market, and the salespeople paid for the expenses. The boss attending the meeting naturally had good results, but he also had to weigh whether it was worth it. The salespeople of this company really became "second bosses." Some brought relatives and family members, even brought their children, to work on the market together. So why did this company not lose control? Its approach was similar to the "Order of Feudal Reduction." Even if salespeople did well in the market, the company continuously subdivided the market to prevent salespeople from "growing too big." Because the company had many products, many salespeople "cross-covered" the same market, and no salesperson dared to challenge the boss. Of course, this company also had problems. In similar markets, due to the demonstration effect, salespeople dared to invest on their own, but in other markets, because no one had broken through, salespeople did not dare to invest. Therefore, advantages in advantageous markets became more obvious, while disadvantageous markets remained disadvantageous. **-03- Now let's talk about treating customers as employees. Let me first give a personal experience case. A boss of a company with a scale of about 200 million met a customer, and the customer said: "Give me a certain market." The boss replied: "First, I'll give you a county. After you succeed in that county, I'll give you a second county." The distributor was very angry at this tone and left immediately. This company held customer meetings where distributors sat on small stools, just like salespeople. Distributors were checked in daily, and lateness was fined, with fines that were shocking. However, this company has now grown to several billion. The distributors have also grown with it, learned real skills, and made money. Some say that strong management is because the scale has grown, and they have the qualification to be strong. I think the opposite: It is precisely because they are strong enough that they can grow big. This is determined by the characteristics of the Chinese market. There were many brands that were once popular, but without channel management capabilities, they could only be popular for a while. **-04- Chinese marketing has two characteristics that cannot be ignored: one is strategic gambling; the other is management toughness. Strategic gambling means that when the window of opportunity opens, you must dare to bet all your resources. If you miss the opportunity, you cannot catch up. What is management toughness? Because China is in an era of transition from agricultural civilization to industrial civilization, the knowledge learned may be from industrial civilization, but deep down, traces of agricultural civilization remain. No matter your identity, these traces exist to varying degrees. What does this have to do with strict management? As long as there is no strict management, the traces of agricultural civilization in individual behavior will be more apparent. Under strict management, there will be more industrial civilization behavior. Moreover, once a marketing decision is made, individuals cannot judge right or wrong. Individuals in the organization have only two choices: either exit or execute. The Chinese market is very large, so large that when the market focus sinks, although it approaches the terminal, the internal marketing organization levels correspondingly increase. The result of external flattening is internal hierarchy. I once said that in Chinese marketing, there is a phenomenon: [layer-by-layer veto]. Whether it is internal veto or external veto, if any link vetoes, the matter cannot be accomplished. From the decision-making level to consumers, there are about 4-6 links in total, internal and external. There are too many links. Only with strong management can the leader's will penetrate so many links. Source: Teacher Liu's New Marketing Once the tip is adopted, a reward of 400-2000 yuan will be paid.