---
title: "Eight Key Internal Management Checks for Small and Medium Distributors"
description: "Small and medium distributors often operate like versatile frontline fighters, but their growth depends on improving internal management. This article outlines eight key areas—from vehicle sales visits and business processes to salary structures and assessment results—that distributors must refine to enhance operational efficiency and market competitiveness."
author: "方刚"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2019-07-23"
language: "en"
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---

# Eight Key Internal Management Checks for Small and Medium Distributors

> Small and medium distributors often operate like versatile frontline fighters, but their growth depends on improving internal management. This article outlines eight key areas—from vehicle sales visits and business processes to salary structures and assessment results—that distributors must refine to enhance operational efficiency and market competitiveness.

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We can see that distributors mostly work on the front lines year-round, somewhat like mountain-bandit-style "warriors." Many small and medium distributors are all-capable: delivering goods, collecting payments, negotiating, shipping, unloading... they can do everything, one person replacing N, and are "models" who fear neither hardship nor fatigue.
Even if the manufacturer sends a truck with over ten tons of goods, a husband-and-wife team can unload it all in one go and then go out to deliver. Moreover, too many distributors seem stuck in a "money hole." When the business is small, they can't afford to hire people, so they do it themselves.
When the business grows, they are reluctant to hire, and even if they do, they only like "machine-type" salespeople who work without eating. The result is that they hire but can't retain. **How small and medium distributors elevate their operational level depends not only on their opportunities and environment but also on their "intelligence" in business team management.**
**First Check: Vehicle Sales Visits**
**Distributors' combat units are mostly structured in a 1+2 model—that is, one vehicle and two people, one driver and one salesperson. This is the standard vehicle sales model.**
**What is the visit model? It's the 1+1 model, where salespeople ride bikes to visit retail points individually to take orders, and drivers deliver goods by truck according to the orders.
The advantage of the vehicle sales model is simple management** and immediate transactions; the drawback is that salespeople visit large stores (those with good turnover) but skip small stores (those with poor turnover), often missing stores and jumping around, casting a wide net with poor results, leading to low efficiency and high costs.
The visit model's advantage is area-based development, meticulous operation, thorough visits, and precise delivery with low costs. **The drawback is that managing the sales team is difficult**; the cat-and-mouse game is played daily. Once the sales team slackens, order output drops, and management problems arise.**
**Second Check: Business Processes**
The so-called **business process refers to the distributor's internal management process, from warehousing and shipping, to delivery and payment collection, to financial management**. Many small and medium distributors operate on a boss + boss's wife model, or boss + boss's wife + boss's wife's mother (mother-in-law or relatives).
Some bosses are "Monkey King" types, capable of anything—handling warehouse, finance, delivery, negotiation, and even loading and unloading themselves. Such distributors mostly exhibit characteristics of the early entrepreneurial stage, often resulting in exhausting themselves, even if they earn a hard-earned profit, it's like "meat rotting in the pot"—they only know they made or lost money, but not where the profit or loss came from.
**Third Check: Salary Structure**
The vast majority of distributors pay their sales staff on a **base salary + commission** model. As long as attendance is sufficient, the base salary is guaranteed. The key lies in the commission part. Many distributors calculate commission based on turnover: turnover × commission rate = salary.
In the early stages of this model, if the rate is set appropriately and salespeople can see and actually receive the commission, it benefits sales promotion. But over time, distributors will find:
Salespeople only sell old, best-selling products and ignore new or non-best-selling items. Worse, to achieve turnover targets, they may manipulate prices, promotions, or even payment collections.
**For distributors, it is essential to elevate the sales personnel assessment model to a management level. Assessment is the distributor's "command flag," and where the flag points is the direction for the sales team to attack.** Regarding assessment indicators, it's normal for salespeople to have a "policies above, countermeasures below" mentality, but distributors must be "the monk is one foot tall, the devil is ten feet tall."
For example, after discovering that the base salary + commission model is ineffective, distributors can introduce category-specific assessment methods, or combine them with new products by adopting "special project" commissions, setting a commission rate per box of new product sold, and changing monthly commissions to same-day settlement.
Continuously fine-tune assessment indicators so that while salespeople keep their eyes on commission wages, the distributor's operational focus is elevated with the changes in indicators.
**Fourth Check: Territory Division**
Early distributor management is often "bandit-style." On the hilltop, the distributor waves his hand: "Brothers, beyond the mountain are fine wine and treasure! Go!" Then a group of salespeople scatter, fighting and slashing, eating meat and drinking soup!
There's no distinction between east and west of the city; after stocking, they fight among themselves—you took my job, I fought for your territory. Several vehicles fly around, and the money earned isn't even enough for gas.
Adopting territory division management not only solves these problems but also allows the distributor to let his subordinates each show their talents. **Local market issues can be discovered and remedied in time, and the distributor can master resource allocation within the sales team.**
**Fifth Check: Assessment Results**
At the end of the month, the distributor pays his subordinates and asks: "Zhang San, how much did you get?" Zhang San: "3,860 yuan." Ask: "Do you know how this salary came about?" Zhang San: "I don't know!" This is the problem of **chaotic financial systems**.
If the distributor company can also establish a transparent financial system and processes, this problem can be solved, allowing employees to be clear, stable, and wholeheartedly focused on their work.
For example, Zhang San answers: "This month, my base salary was 2,900 yuan, plus sales commission of 360 yuan, selling 2,000 cases of new product X beer, commission 700 yuan, and a deduction of 100 yuan for exceeding the gas allowance." This is the ideal state.
**Sixth Check: Commission Orientation**
When the sales team is immature, commission-based management is a common tool. Once the distributor's management matures, they mostly adopt a "contract system," where the vehicle and market are contracted to subordinates, and the distributor just sits in the warehouse, only responsible for contacting the manufacturer.
Under the commission model, small and medium distributors often have overly simple management systems—a simple ledger is already good—and face difficulties in data aggregation and information transmission. Commission rates are mostly set by experience. Assessment models often remain unchanged for years, leading to a situation where salespeople do more or less and get the same.
Salespeople appear diligent and dedicated in the warehouse, but once out, they play hide-and-seek, even using the vehicle for personal errands, sneaking off to internet cafes, or gathering for mahjong. The distributor is kept in the dark, sitting at home listening to salespeople complain: "The market is tough, harder than climbing to heaven!"
The main reason for this phenomenon is the distributor's **"big pot" assessment mechanism**. The base salary accounts for more than half of the salesperson's income, and commissions on best-selling products account for the other half. Everyone is harmonious, and salaries are similar. With the guarantee of best-selling old products, everyone can earn about the same with their eyes closed, without much worry or effort!
The distributor's initial commission model: base salary + turnover commission; intermediate model: base salary + category commission + new product special project; advanced model: turnover commission + category commission + performance improvement commission.
For example, the distributor sets an annual performance growth commission, adding a 1,000 yuan bonus to reward the top few salespeople with the fastest annual growth, or reward the top few with the fastest month-over-month growth.
As long as methods are diverse, rewards are in place, salespeople's enthusiasm is mobilized, reward standards are clear, and assessments are daily, giving everyone the desire to strive for progress, the team will be a "howling" sales team.
**Seventh Check: Bottle Return Commission**
Beer distributors are well aware of beer's bulky, low-value nature in logistics. The key is that beer bottle recycling occupies an important position in the business process. If the distributor doesn't put effort into the bottle return link, there will be "one-shot deals"—the terminal accepts the goods, but the bottles either have no one to take them or are sold as glass waste for a few cents per bottle.
If the distributor sets the bottle return commission for salespeople improperly, problems like salespeople only delivering and not returning bottles can occur, leading to increasing terminal customer complaints, gradual loss of outlets, and inevitably sales issues.
**Eighth Check: Driver and Salesperson Salary Composition**
**In the distributor's 1+2 business model, the driver and salesperson form a combat unit, more like two grasshoppers tied to the same rope. Without unified coordination, efficiency drops while internal friction increases.**
**When setting assessment indicators, the distributor must consider the integrity of this combat unit, clarify the superior-subordinate relationship between the two, and link the driver's salary to the salesperson's salary—that is, the driver's wage level depends on the salesperson's wage amount.
For distributor salespeople, even if the boss grabs them by the ears every morning and shouts, "Sell the wine well!" they'll treat it as a passing breeze once out the door. Because no distributor salesperson is willing to do what is "hoped for"; they only do what is assessed.
Only assessment determines their income. Therefore, **distributors must work on and perfect their internal assessment system, striving to enhance market competitiveness through improved internal management.**


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