Recently, a distributor friend asked me: "I now sell over 10 million yuan a year, and team management is starting to get overwhelming. Do I need to adopt sales management software?" I asked him several questions: Where did your salespeople go today? How many stores did your salespeople visit today? How many kilometers did your vehicles cover in a day? What is the sales proportion of each product? What is the sales share of high-margin products? What is the profit contribution rate of each SKU? Who are your top 50 stores by profit contribution? What is your current product distribution rate? Which customers contribute 80% of your sales? How many times did each store order from you over the past year? If you find it hard to answer the above questions but think they are important, then I suggest you adopt the software soon. Below the 10-million-yuan sales scale, most distributors handle everything themselves—finance, warehouse, sales, loading and unloading. They are busy all day and exhausted. The finances are a mess; they only know whether they made or lost money, but not how much. They only know how much salespeople sold in a day, but not how those sales were generated. This is indeed the current state of internal management for many distributors in the food and beverage industry at this scale in China. Sales are increasing, business is growing, and staff numbers are rising, but profits are not growing correspondingly. As for where the money goes, they cannot explain. At this stage, when the team size reaches seven or eight people or more, distributors clearly feel that managing the existing team is becoming difficult. Many areas are not properly supervised, and leaks are increasing. They want to change but do not know where to start. Here I offer three suggestions to distributors: First, start digitizing your company's information. As sales scale grows, digitizing all company information is a necessary stage for a distributor to grow into a trading company. Information digitization does not merely mean digitizing financial data; it means that all information in your trading company should be reflected through backend data, and the data should be systematically compiled into regular analysis reports. This allows the boss to understand the company's daily operations in real time without leaving the office. Besides maintaining regular market visits, using data to analyze and manage existing problems and improvements is a skill distributors must develop. Second, start institutionalizing your management. When there were few people, they worked under the boss's nose, and no matter what they did, they could not escape the boss's control. But now with more people, the boss cannot even guarantee being at the company every day. Can the boss rely on himself to monitor trivial matters like lateness, early departure, absenteeism, and leave? These can no longer be managed by the boss personally but by systems. Here, systems are not just slogans on the wall but practical norms and processes used in daily attendance. Through these systems, employees know their daily goals, how to achieve them, and what they cannot do. This requires gradually standardizing and consolidating relevant content in daily management. Third, gradually standardize salesperson operations. Standardization here means that salespeople's work within the company should have requirements and unified standards for execution. This includes standards for inbound/outbound, returns, refueling, vehicle repairs, and other related activities. These standards are developed through daily management. Returning to the topic of this article, vehicle sales software is one of the core tools for distributors to digitize company information. It is a key tool that converts salespeople's market operations, terminal transactions, and transaction flows into clear, intuitive data. The issue is not whether to adopt it, but whether you can use it well after adoption. Some distributors have adopted vehicle sales software and started using it to manage their teams, but often find the backend too complex. Salespeople strongly resist the software, complaining about complicated operations, high battery consumption, or technical issues. In short, they find various reasons to refuse using it. To maintain team stability, distributors often tolerate this resistance and allow those who strongly resist to not use it. As a result, when one person stops using it, others gradually follow suit. Why do salespeople resist? Salespeople may slack off, withhold promotional items, combine orders, split orders to exploit package policies, sell at higher prices, or misappropriate payments. These practices are common among distributors of this scale. Adopting sales management software is like putting a tight band on Sun Wukong's head—which salesperson would willingly accept such management? Some distributors have used the software but found that it did not improve team management much. Work remained the same, salespeople ran the same routes, sales did not increase, and efficiency did not improve. After a period, they felt it was worse than the original method and either returned to the old order-taking mode or used the software only for invoicing. Why do distributors fail to use sales management software effectively? For example, when you buy a car at a 4S store, the seller can tell you the car's performance and top speed, but they do not teach you how to drive or how to get on the road. The 4S store only handles maintenance and repairs, not your driving skills. Similarly, when software vendors sell you the software, they generally do not deeply involve themselves in the distributor's internal operations. The distributor, without professional driving experience, has to figure out how to use this vehicle (software) on their own. Do you think you can drive it well on the road? For a driver, is driving ability more important than the car's performance? Most distributors started from scratch and built their businesses through hard work. They generally lack professional management training. Their existing management methods come from practical experience or are copied from peers, lacking theoretical and technical support. The lack of professional management skills becomes the biggest shortcoming in the development of distributor enterprises. Ultimately, the effectiveness of management depends on the boss's own level and thinking. Sales management software is a management tool. Tools themselves cannot create benefits or value for a company. Only when tools are fully utilized in combination with the company's management needs can real benefits be seen. Using sales management software may seem like just adding a tool to the team, but in fact, it requires fundamentally changing the distributor's existing extensive management model. This means the distributor must make gradual adjustments to the company. Such changes require the distributor to have corresponding methods and skills. If a distributor wants to use vehicle sales software well but lacks determination, it is better not to change at all. Since you are determined to change, I suggest you take a pen and paper and write down the following questions before adopting the software:

  1. What improvements do you want to achieve through vehicle sales software?
  2. Which functions of the software are needed for these improvements? During the implementation process, the biggest problem is not the sales team's non-cooperation, but the distributor's lack of methods to drive change. Remember, implementing management software is a long-term, gradual process. The team needs time to become familiar with and accept the software. If you rush, employees will strongly resist, and the implementation plan may fail. After listing the above two questions, introduce the software's functions to your team one by one. For example, in the first month, use the first week to only take display photos for the manufacturer to verify display fees. This action helps the team gradually become familiar with the software's functions and slowly input key store information into the system. In the second week, gradually increase the difficulty. For example, standardize the process: not only display stores but also take at least 5-10 product shelf photos per day. The next day, compare the photos. Also, gradually input information for all photographed stores... Through this gradual implementation, the sales team and internal staff will slowly adapt to and become familiar with the software. Only then can your software implementation have a higher success rate. Zhao Bo will soon open a WeChat group specifically for distributor friends to exchange ideas on how to implement vehicle sales software. Interested friends can long-press the QR code below, add Zhao Bo on WeChat, and reply "车销" to join the group. -END- China's best learning platform for FMCG distributors Focuses 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 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 eighteen 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 the original text