Execution is the final battle, but planning is the guarantee of execution.

2015 was the most dangerous year for JDB, but also the year of greatest opportunity. The danger came from competitors' repeated legal victories, forcing JDB to make changes; the opportunity came from the transformation that allowed consumers to completely distinguish the differences between the two brands and thoroughly break away from competitors. From Celebrating an Auspicious Year to Attracting Wealth and Treasures In JDB's development, there were three major battles: the "Wenzhou Battle" - focusing on food and beverage consumption, which pushed herbal tea sales past 100 million; the "Jiangxi Battle" - establishing a mature system and creating the famous slogan "Fear of Getting Heated"; and the "Beijing Battle" - opening up the northern market and shifting strategic focus. However, within JDB, one province's battle was the most disruptive: it created the peak of JDB's whole-box sales, transforming JDB from a mere "drink to prevent heatiness" into a symbol of gift-giving and auspiciousness. This was JDB's "Henan Battle". 2008 was the most critical year for the Henan market. At that time, Henan, along with Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei, was part of the Central China region. Compared to the other three provinces, Henan's sales were pitifully low. Henan was closer to the north, and its consumers were more northern in nature; they preferred to solve "heatiness" by drinking water rather than by consuming a "herbal tea" they had never heard of and that was priced exorbitantly high. "Poverty gives rise to the desire for change" perfectly describes the Henan market. In surveys, consumers complained that carrying whole boxes of JDB was inconvenient—a problem JDB had never considered before, because in mature markets, JDB was sold by the can. Even in Fujian, where gift-giving was common, they sold 12-can packs (JDB's 12-can pack was a gift pack). No region had ever sold whole boxes. Under these circumstances, in 2008, the Henan market created its own carrying bags for the first time, in blue. After three full years of market exploration, Henan finally found its unique path—gift consumption, positioning whole boxes of JDB (then still called Wanglaoji) as ideal gifts. In 2011, JDB launched its first advertisement featuring gift-giving: "Celebrate an Auspicious Year, Drink Wanglaoji." Under this ad, Henan achieved sales of 5 million boxes during the Spring Festival. During the 2014 Spring Festival, JDB launched a 20-can gift pack, catching Guangyao off guard. A wave of leaked photos kept JDB in the consumer spotlight. On April 20, 2015, JDB officially entered the golden can era. The question facing the Henan market was: after seven years of gift consumption, had consumers developed a rebellious attitude? Would they accept golden gifts? The slogan "Celebrate an Auspicious Year"—although Guangyao couldn't understand the four scenarios of "returning home, shopping, gift-giving, and reunion"—didn't stop them from copying the slogan and imagery. Both sides had used "Celebrate an Auspicious Year" for three years; did consumers know the truth? All these were unavoidable issues for the Henan market. (The four scenarios of JDB's "Celebrate an Auspicious Year") Returning to the Original Aspiration Many people, under a system, gradually forget their original intention for doing this work. Everything becomes familiar; no one wants change; they just want to follow the routine. Because laziness and forgetfulness are human nature, and taking things for granted is our usual style of understanding the market. We are accustomed to using yesterday's experience to do today's work. Henan has a population of 100 million, 18 prefecture-level cities, 108 counties, 1,841 townships, and 47,140 villages. But what is the population of each town? Which towns are important markets for the business and need key investment? Which towns are potential markets that might see a big explosion during the Spring Festival? With these questions, in April 2015, before the launch of the golden can, the entire Henan promotion team conducted a large-scale market survey. First, a market census to understand the distribution rates of JDB and Guangyao. Second, data research: when consumers were not prompted, which herbal tea product did they mention? What were the gift-giving habits of Henan consumers? How many gifts did they give to relatives and friends, and in what price range? The survey found that JDB's distribution rate in Henan was only 7 percentage points higher than competitors. In the southern Henan market, the top four gift categories were milk, JDB, Six Walnut, and ham sausage; in the northern Henan market, they were milk, Six Walnut, JDB, and ham sausage. Building the System In Henan's distribution, the fourth and fifth-tier markets accounted for a much higher proportion than urban areas. Competitors' consumer activities were still mainly in urban areas, rarely going deep into counties. This was mainly because competitors' personnel systems were not as complete as JDB's; promotion and sales could not truly be integrated. More consumer activities were executed by promotion teams alone, which limited their activities to urban areas. Although JDB's activities could reach county towns, the broader township markets were still hard to grasp. This required building a more complete system. In early May 2015, the Henan promotion team established five basic principles:

  1. All consumer activities should focus on contributing to distribution. As a brand like JDB, with strong media publicity in the air and long-term consumer activities that have established a good image in consumers' minds, during competitive periods, everything should be sales-oriented. Consumer activities need to drive sales and turnover.
  2. Stabilize prices. In all terminal consumer activities, set specific prices to prevent consumer activities from causing price chaos at the terminal. After all, promotion is a department that needs to be responsible for the future; JDB's price must not fall out of the mainstream gift-giving range. All gifts should be single-option to reduce consumer choice, ensuring that before the sales peak, the time cost of consumer choice is reduced.
  3. Maintain your own style. With the popularity of WeChat, excellent cases from various markets are instantly transmitted to headquarters and then to all markets. This causes many markets to lose their own thinking ability, or when encountering difficulties, they doubt whether what they insist on is right, and blindly follow trends without considering whether other markets' excellent cases are suitable for their own market. Especially in a unique gift-giving market like Henan, once it falls into the rhythm of learning from other markets, it will lose its own characteristics. This requires the promotion leader to withstand company pressure and implement their own ideas.
  4. Build the system. Currently, Henan's promotion activities, with the cooperation of promotion and sales, can manage down to the county level. But to go deeper, more personnel are needed. Establish a structure: trainee promoters manage promotion team leaders, who manage promoters. Based on distribution performance, calculate the number of promoters, team leaders, and trainee promoters. Set a management cap for each level to prevent personnel from slacking off. Give trainee promoters ample learning time to understand every JDB process and become true promoters, not short-term "passersby." This decision proved extremely helpful in completing the Spring Festival task.
  5. Year-round market activities. One of the biggest characteristics of Henan's gift consumption is that as long as the terminal display is large enough, consumers will clear the shelves. To address this, starting in May, standardized market activities were launched across Henan, allowing terminal customers to use various gift-giving gatherings from the off-season to bring out the goods, turning terminal customers into our terminal salespeople. This way, they can contribute greater sales during the Spring Festival. (JDB's market activities) The Great Battle After half a year of practical drills, JDB built a good reputation among the promotion group and established a good image in the minds of terminal customers, just waiting for the Spring Festival to arrive. During the 2015 Spring Festival, JDB's advertisement changed from "Celebrate an Auspicious Year, Give JDB" to "Attract Wealth and Treasures, Give Golden Can JDB." This change was undoubtedly successful, shifting the focus from the gift-giver to the gift-receiver. "Attract Wealth and Treasures" is undoubtedly more attractive to consumers than simple auspiciousness, especially during economic downturns when good verbal omens are important. For the Spring Festival distribution target of 140 million yuan, the promotion team spent a full month and revised the plan five times to finalize the "Ten Thousand People Street Battle" strategy. Each promoter and salesperson visited distributors together, informing them of the plan and building their confidence; trainee promoters and team leaders visited every activity point to understand terminal customers' operating conditions and decide whether to execute activities, making the selection of activity outlets more targeted. In recruiting promoters, a high commission system was clearly defined. Thanks to the good reputation formed through earlier activities, promoter recruitment went smoothly, and each city ensured a certain number of reserve personnel. However, it was inevitable that many promoters doubted whether their wages would be paid. To address this, the Henan promotion leader personally funded the purchase of over a hundred jade bracelets from Myanmar, requiring each region to select an outstanding promoter every two days to receive a jade bracelet as a reward, motivating promoters to sell even harder. Before each activity, promoters signed a military pledge, clarifying goals; pressure creates motivation. (Moved promoters) And it turned out that good planning ensured accurate execution. In just 11 days of the sales peak, terminal sales reached 200 million yuan, far exceeding the initial target of 140 million yuan. Although the activity required promoters to work 8 hours a day, most worked more than 8 hours. Some promoters even brought their entire families to help sell. Terminal customers, to achieve higher sales, often provided free lunches for promoters and gave red envelopes on the first day of the New Year. Because the activity performance far exceeded expectations, some distributor friends even bought jade bracelets themselves to reward promoters. All frontline staff worked overtime during the Spring Festival. The Henan sales leader, a 19-year veteran, stood firm like a newcomer. A promoter from Kaifeng, a new recruit who had only been with the company for a year, was told by his family after the Spring Festival that his grandmother had passed away during the holiday. He had already lost his mother during the Mid-Autumn Festival battle. This Spring Festival, too many of us sacrificed our small families for the big "Jia" (JDB). How could such a team not succeed? Whether in sales or promotion, to earn respect, you must rely on performance. You can take away my microphone, but I still have my throat; don't say I have no audience, I am moved by myself. I am not working, I am selling my dream—here I borrow this lyric to pay tribute to every Henan soldier. Thank you for being there; this Spring Festival was infinitely golden and brilliant. -END- The best FMCG distributor learning platform in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and actionable tutorials for enterprises and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get the corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent Article Selection | 002 Distributor Market Operations | 003 Terminal Visit Management | 004 Sales Supervisor Skills | 005 Sales Improvement Techniques | 006 Channel Expansion | 007 Managing Distributors | 008 Distributor Development | 009 Distributor Internal Operations Management | 010 Team Management | 011 Efficient Distribution Techniques | 012 Sales Manager's Skills | 013 KA Operation Methods and Strategies | 014 First Lesson for New Salespeople | 015 Internet, Brands | [Long press QR code to follow] To join QQ/WeChat groups, click: Read Original