1 Life is severely punishing those who refuse to study hard. Giving lectures at annual meetings for distributors of hundreds of companies, I often recall a saying: "Life is severely punishing those who refuse to study hard." Many distributor bosses, during their school years, either were too playful or came from poor families, so they entered the business world early to sell goods. The first generation of distributors started poor and became rich, relying entirely on hard work. They skipped classes, played around, but once they entered the business world, they instantly became workaholics. They ate worse than pigs, worked harder than oxen, woke up earlier than chickens, and slept later than prostitutes. They would rather swallow their own eyeballs than stop selling. They poured their hearts and souls into their work, and finally achieved moderate wealth. Then, the problem arises— As the business grows, with more goods in the warehouse, more customers outside, more debts, and a larger team, relying solely on the boss's hard work is no longer enough. They must systematically improve their management level. Facing many difficulties at work, life forces distributors to want to learn. They come to training classes with their problems. Their desire for knowledge is 100% sincere because they are anxious. In class, as long as they hear something useful, their attentiveness moves the speaker. However, the personal level of distributors and the current state of their company management vary greatly: Some distributor companies have primitive management systems, still using manual ledgers, still paying salespeople based on sales commission, and lacking basic management processes for warehouse and accounts... With such management status, listening to a full set of internal management improvement courses is hard to apply back home—you're teaching quadratic equations, but they haven't even mastered two-digit addition and subtraction. Some distributor bosses have poor cultural literacy and lack the habit of learning and summarizing, which affects their knowledge absorption. But driven by life, they really want to learn and listen attentively. I see these bosses "greedily" taking photos (of PPT slides), wearing reading glasses to take notes word by word, not dozing off in the afternoon classes, staring wide-eyed, and surrounding the teacher with questions after class. I often think: if these distributors had been this attentive during their school years, would they have to suffer so much today, work so frantically, and learn so laboriously?

2 How does a bowl of rice become a piece of your own flesh? Even distributors with tens of millions in annual sales ask questions that seem confused. For example, they might blurt out: "I hired three accountants, but the accounts are still unclear. We calculate profits daily, but at the end of the year, we find we've lost money. What should I do...?" "How should I design performance assessments to motivate employees to sell my goods...?" "My employees are afraid to manage; if I discipline them, they threaten to resign. What should I do...?" What to do? What to do? What to do? The questioners are urgent, sincere, and anxious. But these questions are too general and unspecific. To truly answer them, you'd have to start from scratch and lecture for a day. It's unlikely that a teacher can understand each distributor's current team, business status, and various details, and provide tailored, specific answers—that would become a consulting project. There are tens of millions of distributors in China; it's impossible to provide personalized consulting to each one. What teachers can do is provide practical verification, theoretical refinement, and summary. They tell everyone the general rules, case analyses, and usage methods.

For example, six ways and operational steps for distributors to reduce capital retention and solve funding difficulties...

For example, 14 principles, tool tables, and system templates for distributor inventory management...

For example, for distributor personnel assessment, the general systems, common methods, common pitfalls, and tool details in the major modules of "sales assessment," "process assessment," "vehicle expense assessment," "promotion assessment," and "accounts receivable assessment"...

For example, how to establish a sales data ledger format for distributors, and how to use computerized information management to set up data alarm mechanisms: monitor which product, region, terminal, or salesperson has performance problems at any time...

For example, salary assessment and welfare design systems to reduce employee turnover for distributors...

For example, nine models and execution tools for distributor profit improvement...

For example, how distributors should hold morning meetings, and what the boss should specifically say...

And so on. Distributors are happy in class, taking photos, taking notes, applauding, which moves the speaker. But that's it. These courses are just "principles" and "rules," other people's knowledge, and predecessors' experience. There is no personalized textbook that closely matches each distributor's current situation. Distributors can only go back and teach themselves. How do you teach yourself? After listening, draw inferences, take the knowledge, tools, models, and methods learned in training, and based on your company's current situation, extract the applicable parts, try them out, modify them, polish them, and integrate them into your trading company's management system. In other words, the chef can only cook the meal for you with care, making it delicious and easy to digest, and even feed it to you. But whether you can metabolize and absorb it, and turn it into a piece of your own flesh, depends on your own effort.

3 If your "IQ" is insufficient, you will inevitably suffer. Turning a bowl of rice into a piece of your own flesh—turning classroom knowledge into a mature operating mechanism for your company—is not easy. This requires "learning in class": listening attentively, participating in interaction... That's not hard; just be serious. "Reviewing after class" —the so-called "the wise draw power, the benevolent see cause and effect"—means not only reviewing knowledge but also thinking, learning, and critically examining what you've learned: which methods can I use, which ones can't I use for now... This is slightly difficult. What's harder is "practicing after class": make an "action plan" for yourself. Which method from this training can I use now? When, where, and with whom do I plan to "try it out"? Then practice it yourself. You will definitely encounter difficulties; solve them rather than giving up at the first setback. Even harder is "reflection: if I could do it again": after trying the new method for a period, review and reflect: How has the new method worked recently? What problems did I encounter? If I were to apply this method in my company, and if I could do it again, how should I modify it...? Knowledge becomes skill only through practice, and skill becomes instinct through repetition: In this way, learn-review-practice-reflect, learn-review-practice-reflect... cycle repeatedly, practice, explore, modify, and finally polish it into shape, overcome the body's rejection reaction, force it into a habit, and make it natural, then it becomes your own. Whether this process can be achieved really depends on the distributor boss's learning and comprehension ability, and their ability to practice, explore, summarize, and adapt. It may not be related to education. But it is definitely related to how many books you've read seriously and how many things you've done with your heart. It is definitely related to whether you've had the habit of learning and summarizing in your past life and work. It is definitely related to whether you've developed the mental quality to persistently overcome difficulties. —These are the real IQ. IQ, like muscles, must be trained. If your IQ is insufficient, you are "stupid," and reciting three hundred Tang poems won't save you. No offense intended. I myself was mischievous as a youth, attended a second-rate college, skipped classes to run a restaurant and a clothing factory, and even failed the CET-4... I started low, suffered a lot later, worked overtime, stayed up late, endured unspeakable hardships, and "made up lessons" in the school of society. I know this myself. If you're "stupid," you will inevitably suffer.

4 Don't let your children struggle as hard as you did. In the world, don't be afraid of anything, but some debts will eventually be repaid. The first generation of distributors all came from hardship. The suffering they endure today is, to some extent, "repaying debts"—the debt of "not studying hard back then," the debt of "only looking down to pull the cart, not looking up to see the road, acting recklessly without thinking, and not reflecting after losses"! Distributor friends, let's suffer for our own generation, but don't let the next generation suffer like this. The world is full of storms; you can't be the boss forever. It's not easy to retreat at the peak, and even harder to withdraw completely. You will eventually leave the scene. But before you wash your hands of it, let your children study well. Yes, the knowledge learned in school may not be useful. Even if your child majors in marketing, the theoretical knowledge in textbooks is far from the real business world. But remember, the most valuable thing a person learns in school is not knowledge at all. It's learning habits, reading comprehension, summarization and extraction, and the ability to draw inferences. Let your children study a few more years, and preferably after graduation, let them work in a large company for a few years before coming back to take over your business. The career they build will surely be different from yours. In a chaotic world, ask yourself: if the son surpasses the father, then the father is qualified to applaud the self from the depths of time. Don't let your children struggle as hard as the first generation of distributors.

Source: Teacher Wei Qing (ID: weiqinglaoshigongsi) -END-