Once, I chatted with a county-level distributor. His business was quite large, with annual sales exceeding 50 million yuan, representing more than 10 brands, all major ones in their categories. He also hired a professional manager as general manager. He asked me: "My company is quite formalized, with a professional manager and relatively complete management model. Why do I still feel so busy and tired? I really want to learn more to improve myself, and I also want to take time to visit the field and talk with terminal outlets. I even want to cultivate my child to adapt to this business environment and take over earlier. But I just feel I have no time; every day I feel overwhelmed." Through in-depth communication, I found three main problems: First, although he hired a general manager and delegated authority, he still felt uneasy psychologically. He would arrive at the company early every day, watching or listening to how the general manager arranged work. Second, although he didn't interfere with the general manager's specific work arrangements, he always liked to sit in the office, which made the general manager unable to act freely, and even small matters were referred to him for approval. Third, he spent endless time dealing with manufacturers' sales representatives, either new manufacturers recruiting him or existing partners seeking him to solve problems. This left him busy and exhausted every day. I think many distributors often face these problems and find them headache-inducing. On one hand, it's about the distributor's mindset and trust in professional managers; on the other hand, it's more about the distributor's control model and personal time management. So how should distributors use effective time management to improve and strengthen their control over the company? Next, let's set a monthly time management plan for distributors.
1. 4-5 days to review various reports and documents: The boss's delegation of power to the professional manager is more of an authorization than a complete handover. The purpose is to let the professional manager handle complex and trivial management tasks, while the boss strengthens control over marketing results and supervises and audits the marketing process. Therefore, the core work for bosses each month is to review various marketing reports and documents. This takes about 3-5 days. They must carefully go through each report and document to fully grasp the company's operations and potential risks and crises. The first report is the "Monthly Operating Budget Execution Results Table." Through this, the boss understands the achievement of monthly sales and profit targets (compared with the monthly operating budget) and the growth or decline compared with the same period last year (compared with the actual operating results of the same period last year), along with comparative analysis. This is the key performance indicator for the professional manager. The second report is the monthly target achievement of sales personnel at all levels, to understand each salesperson's efficiency and capability differences, since the core of management is people management. The third report is the target achievement of each brand or main product, to understand the sales of brands and their product lines, especially high-profit products. The fourth report is the sales situation of key terminals or different markets, to understand the sales and dynamics of core customers. The fifth is to review all documents issued by the professional manager during the month. The purpose is to check for any unauthorized actions, serious unfairness, and more importantly, to understand the professional manager's management style, work priorities, and direction.
2. 5-6 days to deal with manufacturer representatives: Distributors, especially those with a certain scale, often face interruptions from many manufacturer representatives. There are new manufacturers recruiting and existing partners. Each meeting and communication basically takes more than 2 hours, wasting half a day and disrupting many work plans. Much time is unknowingly wasted. The solution is simple: set specific times for meeting manufacturer representatives. For example, meet them on dates with 3 or 6 in the month, or from the 3rd to the 9th of each month. At other times, don't meet them at all. The company will gradually form a routine: only those who visit during the set times can see the boss.
3. 5 days to visit 10-20% of terminal customers: No matter how big your business is or how busy you are, excellent distributors must take time to visit terminals and customers. On one hand, it's to maintain market sensitivity; on the other hand, it's for customer relationship maintenance. When the boss personally does customer relations, the effect is definitely different, especially for major customers. At the same time, it also effectively supervises and checks the service awareness and attitude of sales personnel. It's a win-win-win situation, so why not do it?
4. 8-10 days for communication, improvement, and learning: There are mainly three ways for distributors to learn and improve: first, communicate with middle and senior management of manufacturers; second, communicate with peers, especially excellent distributor peers; third, actively participate in industry training and exchange activities. Distributors interact most with grassroots sales personnel of manufacturers, mainly dealing with goods, payments, plan execution, and market service issues. It's hard to learn industry knowledge, strategies, and management skills from them. To learn and improve through manufacturers, you must communicate with their middle and senior management. But it's not easy to meet them, unless your market performance is outstanding, and you can invite them to visit and guide your market. The rest is the annual distributor conference, where you can only listen to their relatively general and standardized marketing strategy plans. There's no chance for individual communication, except maybe at the dinner, where you might sit at the same table, but before you can say a few words, they start toasting around. So the best way is to visit them directly at the factory when they are relatively free, under the pretext of visiting, exchanging ideas, and reporting market issues. Any manufacturer will give sufficient attention and respect to a distributor's visit. Senior management will meet you, give you the maximum time for individual communication, provide high-standard hospitality, and even buy your return train or plane tickets. If you propose visiting local scenic spots, they will arrange thoughtful services. In 3-5 days, you can learn, improve, and even have fun, all for free. If you bring your wife and children, it also enhances family bonds. What a great thing! Of course, you need to be confident in doing well with their brand and products, and indeed provide some reasonable suggestions for frontline market operations. The other two learning methods need not be elaborated; they depend more on the distributor's participation awareness and enthusiasm.
5. 5 days of rest time for free disposal: The purpose of making money is to live a more dignified and carefree life, not to turn life into a mechanical money-making exercise. As Jack Ma said: "We are not here to work; we are here to enjoy life. We are here to be human, not to do things. If we spend our whole life doing things and forget to be human, we will regret it in the future. So before 48, my work was my life; after 48, I hope my life is my work." We should also take more time to find joy in life, cultivate more hobbies, often drink tea with friends, chat, drink, boast, play cards, fish, travel, practice martial arts, play ball, play chess, believe in Buddhism, and calm the mind.
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