Review of Previous Main Content Through the previous two sections, we have learned the thinking, standards, and actions for dealer selection. The main contents are as follows: Dealer Selection Criterion 1: Strength Certification (subdivided into actions such as inspecting the dealer's store size, warehouse scale, transportation capacity, network visibility, etc.) Dealer Selection Criterion 2: Marketing Awareness Certification (subdivided into actions such as "three questions and two-hour observation" for the dealer) Dealer Selection Criterion 3: Market Capability Certification (subdivided into actions such as understanding the dealer's current brand performance, KA business, wholesale tiers, etc.) Dealer Selection Criterion 4: Reputation Investigation (subdivided into actions such as understanding peer and industry reputation, and the reputation of the dealer and their partners) Dealer Selection Criterion 5: Management Capability (subdivided into actions such as understanding the dealer's management of personnel flow, logistics, and capital flow, and requiring the dealer to establish basic management procedures) Dealer Selection Criterion 6: Cooperation Willingness (subdivided into actions such as observing whether the dealer is enthusiastic and whether they bargain over contract details) This section will discuss other considerations in dealer selection and determination. Practical Action Training: Precautions for Dealer Selection

  1. How should the six major criteria for dealer selection be prioritized? If you must prioritize the six criteria, it is recommended to follow the following thinking. Cooperation willingness is the most important! No matter how excellent the dealer's strength, marketing awareness, and other conditions are, if they do not show confidence and interest in this brand, they will not invest too much energy and resources in promoting this brand. All the dealer's advantages cannot be used by the manufacturer. It should be noted that the dealer's cooperation willingness is controllable; the manufacturer can completely stimulate the dealer's cooperation willingness through certain methods (specific methods will be discussed in the next issue). For dealer candidates with cooperation willingness, pay attention to investigating their reputation. Those with a bad reputation for price cutting, channel stuffing, and intercepting payments should not be hired. Rather than cooperating with a "notorious" dealer and then strictly monitoring them and engaging in a battle of wits, it is better not to use them at all. Do not fantasize that this customer's business philosophy and practices will automatically improve after cooperating with you. Under the premise that the above two criteria are met, the stronger the dealer's marketing awareness, management capability, and market capability, the better. Strength is not the bigger the better; on the contrary, under the premise that the dealer's strength can cover the channels, network, and regional market goals planned by the manufacturer, the smaller the dealer's strength, the better (especially for small and medium-sized enterprises)! Strength beyond the manufacturer's target market cannot be used by the manufacturer. On the contrary, too large dealers often have strong market control, high "potential" for price cutting and channel stuffing, and high "potential" for "big customers bullying manufacturers."
  2. Pay attention to the quality of dealer selection When developing a market, enterprises must be willing to spend time and energy to select a suitable dealer. It should be known that what kind of dealer you have determines what kind of market you have. Being hasty and compromising on dealer selection will bring endless troubles and heavy costs. If after screening in a certain regional market, no suitable dealer can be found (in most cases, dealers with cooperation willingness cannot meet the requirements, while those who can meet the requirements lack cooperation willingness), the enterprise must not settle for the second best. "Find a dealer for temporary emergency, make do with it, and change if it doesn't work!" With this mentality, often when you want to change the dealer, you find that the market has been messed up, prices have bottomed out, there is a large backlog of near-expiry/defective products in the channel, and some supermarkets have already started to clear the product... At this time, the enterprise will find that saving a market that has been messed up is more difficult than starting ten new markets. For the above situation, the following two countermeasures are recommended: Different paths, no common plans: If you really cannot find a dealer who meets all the enterprise's requirements and has strong cooperation willingness, it means the timing is not yet mature. It is advisable to temporarily shelve this market. Better to develop later than to lower standards and choose an unsuitable dealer, planting a "root of disaster." Reverse channel building: The low cooperation willingness of dealers is nothing more than doubting whether your product can sell well and make money. If the manufacturer really has the determination to develop this market, it is advisable to first send factory vehicles and sales representatives to directly do terminal work in this market, select key areas for zero-store distribution, supermarket promotions, residential area promotional activities, etc. Of course, the purpose of these actions is by no means to do direct operation, but to create momentum—let these prospective dealers see that "this manufacturer has strong market operation capability" and "this product can increase sales with a little promotion." Reverse channel building can pull the dealer's cooperation willingness, turning passivity into initiative.
  3. Especially for new dealers, adjustments should be made decisively; the market waits for no one In the dealer selection thinking, it is mentioned that treat dealers like employees: strict entry, lenient exit—be cautious when selecting, once selected, strive to motivate and support, and do not easily "fire." This thinking has exceptions—employees generally have a three-month probation period, and if they fail the probation, the contract is not renewed. The same applies to dealers. When a new dealer has just started cooperating and has not yet deeply influenced the market, once it is found that they are indeed incompetent in terms of cooperation willingness, basic strength (capital, network, etc.), marketing awareness, etc., it is necessary to make a decisive decision and consider immediate replacement. Procrastination, delay, and hoping for the dealer's self-improvement mostly lead to tragedy. For example: When a dealer lacks capital strength, they often say, "Give me time, I can raise funds within a few months," but the actual implementation is extremely unlikely. The dealer's marketing awareness is incompatible with the enterprise's market requirements. The enterprise wants to educate the dealer to change their concepts, but in the end, it will find that the cost of educating a dealer to fundamentally change and improve is much greater than developing new customers. The dealer currently owes the company more than 100,000 yuan in payment, so temporarily "dare not change," but a few months later, the debt will be even more...
  4. Should a dealer's product line be long or short? Product line refers to the number of products the dealer represents. A dealer with a long product line must have strong network and capital strength, but attention is dispersed, making it difficult to invest too much attention in a single brand. On the contrary, a dealer with a short product line (even exclusively selling one product) has sufficient attention, but inevitably has smaller strength and incomplete network. Normally, it is best for a dealer to represent 2-4 brands. Another situation is to choose a dealer whose product line is "compatible but not conflicting" with this product. "Compatible" means that the products currently represented by the dealer are consistent with the sales channels of this product, and the network can be mutually borrowed. "Not conflicting" means that among the products currently represented by the dealer, it is best not to have competitors of this product, especially advantageous competitors (brands and channel profits that are superior to this product). For example: A dairy company can find a dealer who does carbonated beverages. Such customers have comprehensive networks in zero stores, supermarkets, residential areas, and catering channels, and most of them are optimistic about the development prospects of the dairy market, intending to make a mark here. Generally, they will invest more attention in newly represented dairy brands.
  5. Utilize the desires of second-tier customers Among the large second-tier distributors of strong competitors, many are unwilling to remain as lower-tier customers of first-level dealers forever, and are eager to become dealers themselves. Among wholesalers, some customers specialize in selling miscellaneous brands. Although they have made money, they are also unwilling to always be the "king of miscellaneous brands" and also hope to improve their business level through formal operation of represented products. Some professional managers have worked in enterprises for more than ten years in sales, then resigned to become dealers. They have rich sales experience, strong management capability, and relatively advanced marketing concepts. At the same time, their capital for doing business is the savings from more than ten years of work, which is hard-earned, so they are more savvy and work harder in business. The above three types of customers have a common characteristic: once they fancy a certain product, they will go all out, not caring about short-term gains and losses, and can score 120 points in cooperation willingness! Making good use of these customers' enthusiasm can often create better performance and manufacturer-dealer cooperation situations than regular dealers.
  6. Manufacturers with sufficient manpower investment may consider inducing dealers from other industries with sufficient capital to enter new industries For example: A certain automobile dealer, not satisfied with the status quo, decided to enter the consumer goods industry. Induced by business personnel, they represented fruit juice products and became a supermarket channel dealer. The manufacturer invested manpower support to make up for their lack of experience in the consumer goods industry. The cooperation between the two parties was very pleasant and performance was also good. On the one hand, the large capital occupation caused by supermarket channel payment delays makes many consumer goods dealers shy away, but for automobile dealers, it is a small amount. On the other hand, precisely because they know nothing about the consumer goods industry and really want to enter this industry, they follow the manufacturer's "strategy" obediently and fully cooperate, truly achieving a unified heart between manufacturer and dealer and jointly expanding the market. The profits of large appliance (TV, refrigerator) dealers are getting thinner, and some shrewd small appliance enterprises (stoves, gas appliances, etc.) have begun to use the profit advantages of the small appliance industry to poach large appliance dealers. Similarly, for large appliance dealers, in the past, they paid millions or even tens of millions to manufacturers. Now representing small appliances only requires an investment of over a hundred thousand, and there may be a return rate of ten to twenty points. Why not?
  7. Beware of the phenomenon of state-owned dealers Most dealers under the state-owned system have strong strength and good credit reputation, but at the same time, due to mechanism issues, some may have the following drawbacks that hinder market development. It is recommended not to use them unless absolutely necessary: Overstaffed and inefficient, difficult to do things. When there are benefits, all departments (sales, finance, storage and transportation) reach out; when there is responsibility (such as extending credit to lower-tier customers), they all shirk responsibility. Everything is interfered with, but nothing is managed. Due to the lagging reward and punishment mechanism for personnel allocation, employees become lazy. Example: At 5:30 PM, if an order is taken at 5:00 PM, the dealer's employees will not deliver. When asked why, they say confidently: Although it is not yet off duty, by the time I return from delivery, it will be off duty. Who will pay overtime for the rest of the time?! The financial system is very formal, and it is almost impossible for dealers to temporarily advance funds for promotions and promotional expenses in response to market changes.
  8. Application of the dealer evaluation form So far, we have learned the manufacturer-dealer relationship, the thinking, standards, actions, and 7 precautions for dealer selection. However, after understanding these contents, most business personnel still unconsciously find a big customer according to their mindset when they go to the market. Human thinking has inertia; "knowing is not equal to doing." It is necessary to give business personnel further guidance, guide and constrain their attention, so that they unconsciously choose dealers according to the methods taught by the enterprise—recommended solution: use the dealer evaluation form. The specific steps are as follows: The sales manager designs the dealer evaluation form based on the enterprise's market investment intensity, the market characteristics of the region, and the characteristics of the product to be promoted. In the leftmost box of the form, write "the conditions that a suitable dealer in this region should have," and then for each condition, write the best state description, the second-best state description, and the worst state description (different states correspond to different scores). During the dealer selection process, sales personnel should match the above content, fill in truthfully, and score (thereby guiding and constraining the sales personnel's attention and work direction, avoiding them acting on personal experience inertia). Example of a dealer evaluation form for a certain enterprise in a certain region: Note:
  9. This form cannot be uniformly customized by the enterprise. Not only will different enterprises have differences, but the same enterprise with different products, and the same enterprise with the same product in different regions, will have different detailed content for dealer selection scoring standards (for example, the same enterprise with the same product has different requirements for dealer strength in developing markets and mature markets).
  10. It is necessary to warn business personnel not to make any promises during the dealer screening process to avoid causing resentment among those who are not selected. When mentioning "if cooperation succeeds, how will payment be settled," it should be clearly stated—cash on delivery.
  11. This form can only be used as a training tool, not as a management tool. Some columns in the form are difficult to collect information (such as dealer capital strength, dealer's product category share), so do not force business personnel to fill in every item (otherwise it will only create false reports). The intention is to indicate the direction of thinking and tell sales representatives that this form can help them evaluate dealers more quickly and accurately. Form filling is only a training and business auxiliary means, not a hard requirement. Preview of Next Section: The skills for dealer selection have been fully elaborated so far. So how should sales personnel flexibly apply these skills when facing an unfamiliar city? How to solve the situation where you find a suitable dealer, but "you love him, but he doesn't love you"? The next section will elaborate! Editor's PS: The editor has selected 1,067 articles from nearly 1,900 articles published on this official account, divided them into 14 major categories and 57 knowledge points, and systematically made the first-line marketing management content into a library for everyone to learn. From market to customers, talking about actual combat and management, all are dry goods. After following the official account, reply with the number "1" to browse and view related content.