Recently, the author communicated with a distributor friend. He and his wife (the boss and boss lady) had just attended a training session at a distributor annual conference organized by the manufacturer. They were excited and emotional, feeling it was quite useful. Because the trainer at the meeting said that distributors should establish a culture for their teams, not just talk about money with employees, but also talk about future development, how to make employees wholeheartedly follow the distributor boss, have long-term plans, and retain excellent employees. This distributor was in a dilemma where he had nothing to talk about with his employees except money. Hearing about building a distributor team culture felt like a sudden enlightenment, like grabbing a lifeline. When the author asked this distributor friend how he would establish his culture upon returning, he said he couldn't articulate it now, but he would think of a few slogans and mottos, then promote them to his team to "fool" them, and also put the culture on the wall, hanging these slogans and mottos so employees could see them, and that would basically be done. The author disagreed and cited Han Han's description of officials: "Chinese officials themselves are extremely split; they enter conference halls in the morning and clubs in the evening..." Before finishing, the distributor laughed heartily. He realized that establishing a distributor team culture with a "fooling employees" mindset is split, self-deceiving, and cannot have a positive effect. The biggest difference between establishing culture for distributors and for manufacturers (enterprises) is that distributors must establish a "culture under the nose," while enterprises establish a "culture beyond the nose." The origin of the biggest difference between distributor culture and enterprise culture is the scale of employees. For manufacturers (enterprises), it ranges from dozens or hundreds to thousands or tens of thousands. For example, Himin Solar, which the author has served, has thousands of employees; Haier Group has tens of thousands; Walmart has hundreds of thousands globally. For enterprises with such employee numbers, rules and regulations alone are not enough; a strong corporate culture is necessary because not all employee behaviors are visible under the boss's nose, and employees may not see their boss all year round. For enterprises, only by establishing corporate culture can they regulate and constrain all employee behaviors, forming an "invisible hand" to control employees' thoughts and actions, guiding them toward a track conducive to enterprise development and the highest state of "unity of purpose leads to victory." For the vast majority of distributors in China, teams range from a few to dozens of people, and those with over a hundred employees are rare, accounting for a very small proportion. Distributor employees' actions are basically all under the boss's nose, and the boss's actions are also basically within the employees' sight. Distributor employees' understanding of culture is basically by observing the boss's words and actions. The boss's behavior is the most direct manifestation of culture. Therefore, if the distributor boss says one "culture" but acts another, employees will ultimately identify with the culture of the boss's actions, not the culture preached verbally or posted on walls. If so, it will inevitably form a "two skins" culture, where employees' behavior and words become split, learning to say one thing and do another, engaging in deception and flattery, ultimately harming the distributor boss himself and violating the original intention of establishing culture. Whether it's corporate culture or distributor culture, the author summarizes that it must solve three problems, which the author often calls the "three heads" problem: prospect, profit, and sentiment. First, employees must feel there is a "prospect." Prospect for employees may be hope and satisfaction in knowledge, skills, income, position, space, vision, career, etc. A good boss has the ability to "draw a pie" and make employees believe it is achievable. Second, employees must feel there is "profit." The boss eats meat, employees drink soup; this is the basic corporate ethics of symbiosis between employees and boss. Most employees clearly understand this basic ethic and have no excessive expectations. The fear is that the boss deprives employees of the right to drink soup, leaving them to drink the northwest wind, and then employees won't play with you. When wealth is dispersed, people gather; when wealth is gathered, people disperse. No boss doesn't understand this truth, but few can truly do it. Taking money from one's own pocket to distribute to employees is a great test for every boss. Not many can withstand the test, so successful big entrepreneurs like Niu Gensheng and Ren Zhengfei are rare. Third, employees must feel there is "sentiment." Here, sentiment means thinking of kinship, affection, and human warmth. People are emotional animals; they don't show emotion to strangers but do to relatives and close ones. Emotion is an excellent interpersonal adhesive. Therefore, "fighting tigers with brothers, going to war with father and sons" enterprises or distributor husband-wife shops are easy to survive and grow in early stages because of blood relations. Relationships like "served in the army together, studied together, went to the countryside together" also tend to succeed because besides monetary interests, emotion is important. This "three heads" culture, for enterprises, is ordered as prospect, profit, sentiment; for distributors, it is exactly the opposite: sentiment, profit, prospect. Corporate culture naturally solves the enterprise's vision and mission. With these, employees can have a good "prospect," and the boss's dream can become the dream of all employees, making it possible to achieve the highest state of "unity of purpose leads to victory." Profit solves the salary structure, treatment, and income issues. Good incentive and benefit-sharing mechanisms ensure the achievement of enterprise goals. Sentiment ranks third in corporate culture. The larger the enterprise, the less it can talk about emotion, human feelings, or kinship; instead, it must talk about systems, norms, and processes, otherwise chaos ensues. The larger the enterprise, the more rigidity and less flexibility. This is inevitable and relatively easy to understand. For distributors, this culture, which differs from enterprises and is more "under the nose," must be ordered as sentiment, profit, prospect. The first culture a distributor boss should talk about is kinship, affection, and human warmth. These "three emotions" are the most effective adhesive and stimulant for managing the team and winning hearts. Distributors can retain and motivate excellent employees, and employees' sentiment toward the boss ranks first. Second is employees' income and treatment, and third is employees' prospect, i.e., future development space and platform, because no matter how big the distributor boss's space and platform are, compared to enterprises, they are insignificant and incomparable. In summary, distributor culture, distinct from corporate culture, is "culture under the nose," relying more on the distributor boss's words and deeds and personal example to embody culture. Distributor bosses' culture is established and maintained following the order of "sentiment, profit, prospect." Understanding the above principles, distributor bosses can establish their own effective culture; otherwise, they blindly learn culture, do culture for culture's sake, and end up "drawing a cat but it looks like a dog," going in the opposite direction. -END- Excerpt from "Terminal Visit General Model" September 10, 2015 20:00--21:00 Long press the QR code below now, 9.9 yuan to listen to the class.