---
title: "Dealers, Do You Dare to Say 'No'?"
description: "Manufacturers seek market share, but dealers need profitability and their own brand; you must take charge of your marketing. For demands that clearly disregard your survival, you must boldly say 'no'."
author: "李红明"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-06-07"
language: "en"
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---

# Dealers, Do You Dare to Say 'No'?

> Manufacturers seek market share, but dealers need profitability and their own brand; you must take charge of your marketing. For demands that clearly disregard your survival, you must boldly say 'no'.

**Manufacturers seek market share, but dealers need profitability and their own brand; you must take charge of your marketing. For demands that clearly disregard your survival, you must boldly say 'no'.**
Almost every manufacturer requires dealers to have "monthly themes and weekly activities." The first half is correct, but the second half is gangster logic. Requiring all activities to generate orders is a direct interference in the dealer's market operations.
Look at a set of data.
On average, a dealer conducts 59 activities a year, 100% of which have order targets, and 86.4% are promotion-focused. Three-quarters of marketing expenses go to promotions, while brand communication, potential customer development, and customer care together account for less than one-quarter. Dealers must run activities weekly, during holidays, participate in regional and manufacturer-initiated events, and handle new product launches (Data source: statistics from market plans of four mid-to-high-end brands over more than a year).
**In such a survival state, employees are fatigued and customers are numb. It is almost impossible for dealer marketing to return to normal logic.**
But something gratifying has happened. Here are marketing operation methods from dealers or dealer groups that I greatly appreciate:
1. One monthly theme leads several sub-themes, using the showroom as the activity stage, without special activities.
2. Two activities per month: the first half focuses on gathering customers and attracting traffic to close deals, the second half on customer conversion.
The above can be summarized in two words: **Rhythm + Layout.**
**Rhythm: Variation in speed, intermittent coordination, tension and release.**
In music, beats and rests control rhythm. The two operations above effectively grasp marketing rhythm, mastering the "priority, sequence, urgency, and importance" of monthly marketing resources in terms of time, models, and activity purposes.
**Layout: Emphasize planning and advancement, step by step.**
Marketing is about attracting fish and raising fish, while sales is about catching fish. Attracting and raising fish requires positioning: where to set nets, where to bait, how to lure fish into the net, and what bait to use for different fish—this is layout.
**To achieve these two points, dealers must devote 60% of their market work to marketing planning, layout, and strategy; 30% to marketing communication design, activity experience design, and execution; and 10% to evaluation. At the same time, they must study the local customer group characteristics for each model. This is the basic path for marketing to return to normal.**
Once you've figured this out, you still have to pass the manufacturer and regional office. There are two methods: **one overt, one covert.**
Overt: Directly persuade them. Tell the manufacturer and regional office, "Don't dictate how many activities I do. One or two activities a month is more effective than the four or five you require. Do you agree?" (Don't tell me it's impossible.)
Covert: On the surface, do as the manufacturer says. But how you actually do it, you know. Just make sure to keep documents and evidence. I always believe that the regional office is often on the same side as the dealer.
**That said, the marketing capabilities that auto dealers lack most are "marketing planning, communication strategy design, activity experience design, and activity execution content design." If we continue to frantically run activities, these capabilities will never develop.**
**Fishermen understand that to harvest continuously, they must rest the fish. Traditional fishing rhythm involves resting most of the time and concentrating harvest in a few seasons. Our marketing managers should at least match the level of fishermen.**
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