---
title: "Distributors: Let the Team Move Forward Bravely Under Assessment"
description: "The following is the speech content delivered by the General Manager of Sunflower Industrial Co., Ltd. at the \"FMCG2019·China FMCG Conference\" hosted by New Distribution, organized and published for readers. I am a professional manager who entered the industry in 2003 and followed my boss. In 2004, I was trained as the company's deputy manager. By 2010, our boss returned to his hometown to build a large food factory, and I was basically in charge of the distributor company. Our company has eight managers, six of whom have worked for more than ten years. In the distributor industry, I think it is relatively rare for the boss to be able to let go and enable the company to grow rapidly."
author: "周明振"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2019-08-28"
categories: "Dealer Operations, Management & Methods"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/-4fNt0jdfDXAszLoCFtNJQ"
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citation: "周明振. “Distributors: Let the Team Move Forward Bravely Under Assessment.” New Distribution, 2019-08-28. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/distributors-let-the-team-move-forward-bravely-under-assessment-4e5fdc18/"
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---

# Distributors: Let the Team Move Forward Bravely Under Assessment

> The following is the speech content delivered by the General Manager of Sunflower Industrial Co., Ltd. at the "FMCG2019·China FMCG Conference" hosted by New Distribution, organized and published for readers. I am a professional manager who entered the industry in 2003 and followed my boss. In 2004, I was trained as the company's deputy manager. By 2010, our boss returned to his hometown to build a large food factory, and I was basically in charge of the distributor company. Our company has eight managers, six of whom have worked for more than ten years. In the distributor industry, I think it is relatively rare for the boss to be able to let go and enable the company to grow rapidly.

The following is the speech content delivered by the General Manager of Sunflower Industrial Co., Ltd. at the "FMCG2019·China FMCG Conference" hosted by New Distribution, organized and published for readers.

I am a professional manager who entered the industry in 2003 and followed my boss. In 2004, I was trained as the company's deputy manager. By 2010, our boss returned to his hometown to build a large food factory, and I was basically in charge of the distributor company. Our company has eight managers, six of whom have worked for more than ten years. In the distributor industry, I think it is relatively rare for the boss to be able to let go and enable the company to grow rapidly.

In the past two years, due to changes in business direction and brands, we solved the operational problems and achieved growth. This year, in 2019, with the industrial structure and channel structure remaining stable, the company achieved a growth of 20.4% from January to July. I have some insights. After hearing my introduction, New Distribution hoped I could talk about one issue. Since I am responsible for all aspects of management, and time is limited here, I will briefly introduce my experience in team assessment.

Why talk about this topic? I believe that among those here, there are excellent large distributors, and there may also be more who are eager to learn something they can use immediately, with relatively early-stage company development. I am not talking about cases, but about my own journey.

First, the content has three parts:

**First, if the assessment is not good, the responsibility lies with the boss, not the employees.** We bosses all hope employees are excellent. As a professional manager, I think about this. I am not the boss, so how should I manage? I need to stand from both the boss's perspective and the employee's perspective. I have this insight.

**Second, let employees work happily driven by interests.** The previous speakers also mentioned this idea. Of course, I believe the previous speakers' companies are relatively well-developed, with complete financial systems and team structures.

**Third, assessment is actually just a form of distribution.** This means that for a company to develop, it must solve the problem of distribution. If we think big, a country is also a distribution problem; at a smaller level, a company is also a distribution problem.

Now let me talk about the first issue: if the responsibility assessment is improper, the main responsibility lies with the boss. I will introduce it from "three plans and three summaries":

**The responsibility for improper assessment always lies with the boss**

**The first plan: the once-abused assessment system, the target method.** This is my own experience, and it was an assessment system I formulated. Many companies have experienced similar situations. The assessment system starts with a target, and when the monthly target is achieved, for example, the salesperson can receive a bonus at 1% of sales. This is the most basic method, and we did this at the time. Why do I say this is a parallel assessment system? Because reality slapped me in the face. It easily causes the team to push inventory, because as long as goods are pushed out, there is commission. If goods are pushed (as mentioned by President Guo earlier, it is calculated based on actual POS sales, which is good), and management is extensive, pushing goods may lead to returns. Too many returns will lead to high turnover.

Today, I am telling you this. For some distributors, you may still be on this path. This is the experience of our predecessors. This management method overestimates employees. Ten years ago, I couldn't figure out the reason. Today I can: our salesperson may be a novice who just entered the industry. We also have managers, finance, planning, brand, and market personnel. He does not have the comprehensive ability of various positions.

If you give him a management method beyond his ability, the result will definitely be bad. The cost is high turnover, and you become an entry-level school for the industry. You painstakingly teach salespeople how to improve management skills and business capabilities, but they take the bonus and then encounter setbacks and go to the next company. Their resume at the next company will definitely say that they doubled performance at the previous company. In fact, it is our assessment method that has problems.

**The second plan: the once-assumed assessment system, the competition method.** Because I was a college student among distributor managers, and in 2003, college students in management were relatively rare, especially among distributors. I created a competition method, thinking competition would be more reasonable.

For example, divide into three areas, with 0.5% of total sales as bonuses. Then see who collects more payments among the three, and the higher the proportion, the more bonus they get! When I first thought of it, I was quite proud, thinking this method is suitable: those who contribute more get more. But after a few months of implementation, I felt very uncomfortable, and reality slapped me in the face. It might be that for several consecutive months, things went against my wishes. This assessment method may not have formed competition, but instead concentrated the bonus on one person.

The other two people may not have received much bonus, but they may have worked very hard. However, due to various reasons, this also caused team instability. The pressure returns to the boss. At this time, do you persist or not? I have used this method. I tell you, there is no need to persist. The size of contribution in the team is related to ability and effort, but also to the channel and product structure you allocate, and the overall company resource allocation. Fortunately, the power is in the boss's hands, and the boss can re-formulate the assessment.

**The third plan: the once-smooth assessment system, the trust method.** I believe some companies are also using this: as long as you achieve a sales target, you get a big reward; as long as you achieve the annual target, you get a heavy reward. For example, if the first year achieves the heavy reward, the second year will definitely have an effect. As long as you work hard to achieve it, the boss is generous and keeps his word. During the process, some problems were encountered. In the early stage of entrepreneurship, when there were few people, this method was effective; under heavy rewards, there are brave men.

But in reality, it will encounter a problem: when the company reaches a certain scale, problems emerge. Originally, a salesperson was responsible for a large channel, sold 5 million last year, and 8 million this year. He must be very capable. But you need to know that in the further development process, there are many supporting departments. How do you calculate the contribution of the supporting departments? This is a problem. The salesperson is the most glamorous, running in front, and the bonus is given to him. Our supporting departments still get the original salary. We are unconvinced, but we cannot tell the boss. Otherwise, the boss will say, "If you are capable, you do it." That is impossible.

The way to break through the bottleneck is to learn and move toward refined management.

The core theories of the previous speakers are: **First, equity incentive method, virtual dividends or registered shares. Second, the Amoeba management method.** These are all very good, and we have also learned a lot outside. Through learning, you can shorten your efforts. The cost of learning is always far less than the return it brings.

I was talking with President Li below. President Nie spoke very well. In such a short time, everyone can only get information; you cannot learn it. Of course, there are courses tonight, and we can continue to communicate.

The first purpose of coming to New Distribution is to get information, but ultimately it is to implement. But I think President Nie and President Guo, like me, can not fully participate in company affairs, and can spend more time doing things that benefit the industry and improve efficiency, and see what methods can help more distributors here to implement.

The three methods just mentioned are not successful methods. In this very short time, I want to tell everyone to avoid some pitfalls and detours. **The responsibility always lies with the boss, because you made the plans, and you bear the final results.** Although I am a professional manager, I also exercise the boss's responsibilities.

The three summaries are that we should be a boss who makes the rules. As a boss who makes the rules, I have also been frustrated. Sometimes I think, employees are smart, why don't they use their intelligence on the right things? Later, I thought the responsibility is on ourselves. When formulating management methods, we must understand human nature. I believe the methods of President Nie and President Guo are like this: they understand human nature. It is normal for employees to exploit loopholes. Employees cannot make rules; you make the rules. So our rules should conform to human nature, so that they use their intelligence on work.

The second summary is to be a boss who encourages employees. Employees are like children in front of the boss, because they do not have full speaking rights or decision-making power. You cannot say they are not excellent or not hardworking. We need to put ourselves in their shoes and cherish our employees. In terms of caring for employees, I rarely criticize my employees, especially not in the morning. Once you criticize someone in the morning, that day's salary is wasted, or the next few days' salary is wasted. I have seen some bosses who have broken many phones, and employee turnover is very high. In fact, the boss's cost is very high. Breaking a phone is a cost, training new employees is a cost, and employees leaving is also a cost.

The third summary is that if you treat employees as your own children, I believe your assessment system will be more reasonable. Be a boss who is a strong backing for employees. The boss will definitely say, "I pay you a salary, you should work hard, you should charge forward." This is indeed the case, but it may not be achieved.

Because in the market, the business field is a battlefield, and the difficulties he faces are huge. When he comes back, he may not tell you how much difficulty he encountered. If you are a boss who breaks phones, he will definitely not tell you the difficulties he encountered. You still need to let employees reflect back the real things they encounter.

In my management, when my team encounters things outside, they come back and communicate with me. I am always the last to leave work every night. I wait for my employees to come back and see if they have anything to ask me. Once they ask me, I also reward them with a point. If they come back today and communicate with me, I untie the knot for them, and their efficiency in solving problems will improve.

If he comes back today and the boss is not in the company, and he encounters difficulties, he will think: the boss gets more money, and you are not even here. I get less money, so what am I doing here? I can't solve the problem, so I'll talk about it tomorrow. This greatly reduces efficiency. Of course, I am a professional manager, and the boss can be absent all year round.

The three assessment plans and three summaries may not be bought with money, but with time.

**Let employees work happily driven by interests**

Now I will introduce what a good assessment method is.

Employees should work happily driven by interests. The previous speakers talked about more specific aspects. I will talk first, and they will talk later, so you may understand better. As an employee assessment, it should have three major functions.

**First, indicate the direction. For example, your target method indicates the method.** You need to tell employees what you want and how employees should do it.

**Second, affirm their performance.** This affirmation includes all departments, not just the sales department. How to affirm the performance of each department?

**Third, quantify the assessment.**

**Indicate the direction: what you want your employees to do, why to do it. First, the goal must be clear, where to go.** The goal must be clear, and several things need to be said. Because I just mentioned my identity. For example, our boss says, "Last year's sales were this much, this year I require a growth of this percentage." This is usually how bosses or manufacturers set rules. What I want to say is that because I am the one operating the company, I need to be responsible to the boss and employees. I usually set the assessment goal reasonably, considering specific factors, such as channel changes and brand changes. If these factors are not considered, the goal set will not be accepted by employees.

**Second, the process should be direct. In the process,** in my assessment, basically my salespeople and my supervisors and managers can calculate it themselves in the middle and end of the month, before the assessment is calculated. They cannot wait until the end of the month to calculate the salary and find out whether they get 2,000, 3,000, or 5,000 yuan in bonus, whether it is more or less, because they can no longer change the process. Salespeople know during the process whether this month will be better or worse than last month in about ten days or a week.

**Third, the key points should be simple.** Because my salespeople need to be able to calculate it. If the assessment method is too general, it won't work. If it is too detailed, with 20 or 30 items, they can't remember, and they don't know how much money they can get. In the end, the effect is not the best. These are the three sentences about indicating the direction.

**Affirm performance: First, use more positive incentives. When there is no other way, use negative incentives, that is, fines.** There are also negative incentive methods. Rewarding other people is equivalent to punishing this person. Each assessment item should be independent and not offset each other. If sales completion gets a 1,000 yuan bonus, but there is a problem with display, deduct 300 yuan; if there is a problem with payment collection, deduct 500 yuan. In the end, he only gets 200 yuan, and he doesn't even know how he got the 200 yuan.

**You are the boss. You set the assessment rules. How much for sales, how much for display, how much for payment collection. There should be simple indicators, so that they are simply added, not offset.** The assessment process must include gross profit. I believe that conservatively, 50% of distributors do not assess gross profit. If you do not assess gross profit, it will lead to performance chasing sales volume, and you will find there is no profit. Some bosses will say that by the end of the year, they have earned a warehouse full of old stock.

**Quantify the assessment. The assessment should still be quantified, and subjective scoring should be avoided or reduced.** A friend told me that their company mainly relies on supervisors and managers to score the assessment, and it is becoming less and less useful. Second, assessment items should not offset each other as much as possible. Third, the process assessment can also be posted. How many bosses here post the process assessment? Probably few. Posting the sales progress, display progress, rankings, etc., during the process will have some reaction in employees' minds.

How to make the team work happily under assessment? Because our boss is always one person, and employees are a team. To fully mobilize everyone is better management.

**Assessment is also just one form of distribution**

**Assessment is also just one form of distribution.** Here I will talk about three forms. On the afternoon of the 20th, Teacher Xu also talked about distribution. My understanding is that she integrated the three forms. Whether to integrate them or not is not the key; the key is that multiple forms need to be combined. Employees are your children. How you guide their growth is very important. Use three forms to help everyone achieve freedom!

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, employees' needs include physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. The boss has these needs, and employees also have these needs. You realize your needs, but how do you realize theirs?

**Physiological needs are capital wages, which are the guarantee.**

**Safety needs require bonuses, and bonuses should account for a relatively large share.**

**Social needs mean having role models and honor.** What I just said about posting is this: let them have a role model or honor through ranking and evaluation.

**There should be dividends and equity, which belong to esteem or self-actualization.**

**Finally, the inheritance of value should be realized. The greatest value of the boss's value inheritance is that the boss can be absent from the company, and the company can continue to develop very well.** I tell you how I settle with the boss: from the day the boss is absent from the company, all our company's capital turnover is calculated at 1% monthly interest. This is the cost of capital. If the boss puts 50 million in, he first takes 500,000 each month. These are all costs.

**After subtracting all costs, the rest is profit. Our sales team, including me, takes 33% of the dividends. Of course, bonuses are calculated as costs first, and dividends are in addition to bonuses.** In this case, the boss can be absent, and his capital can get an annual return of 12%. In addition, there is the brand, the company, and the inheritance. This is the value of assessment.

Some bosses say, "Can we do dividend assessment after the company grows bigger?" Evaluate it yourself. Personally, I think the sooner the better. If I had learned more before, the path of exploration would have been shorter, and development would have been faster.

How to achieve what I just mentioned: wages, bonuses, honor, role models, dividends, equity, and value inheritance. There are three methods:

**First, performance assessment. Performance assessment is just one of the methods.**

**Second, points-based management.** Points-based management is actually related to honor, and it is also related to equity, because it is a very good evaluation method.

**Then, equity incentives. Equity incentives are a form, and there are many types.**

**A distributor boss who wants to realize his self-worth should find ways to let his employees, even a salesperson today, know the path to realize value.**

**Our company is just a distributor in Shenzhen. To this day, most of our company managers have bought houses in Shenzhen. Some salespeople can also get welfare low-rent housing in Shenzhen, a very good two-bedroom apartment built by the state. Because ten years ago, we told all our employees: quickly get a bachelor's degree and transfer to Shenzhen hukou.**

Ten years have passed in the blink of an eye. Now our company has three salespeople with two children each and Shenzhen hukou. They have been allocated houses in Shenzhen. Their salaries may not be very high, but with bonuses, they can get 6,000 to 10,000 yuan. Planning is very important. Because ten years ago, we encouraged everyone to take exams. The company paid for it, and the 10,000 yuan learning fee only required them to continue working for one year. In fact, they continued for five or ten years. Learning and attending classes were also considered paid leave. Our company has a complete set of methods.

Okay, the conference staff reminded me earlier that time is up. This is what I introduced. We can continue to communicate later. Thank you all!


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 周明振
- Published: 2019-08-28
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/distributors-let-the-team-move-forward-bravely-under-assessment-4e5fdc18/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/-4fNt0jdfDXAszLoCFtNJQ

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