---
title: "First Lesson for New Sales Managers"
description: "Salespeople, as representatives of manufacturers, are tasked with maintaining steady revenue growth. For most, the immense performance pressure and volatile market environment make sales one of the most unstable career groups. Whether you're a novice or a veteran, when you take over a new regional market, what problems will you face? How can you quickly get up to speed and demonstrate your performance? Based on years of experience in the consumer goods industry, this article systematically outlines the first lesson for regional salespeople new to their role."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2014-11-22"
language: "en"
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# First Lesson for New Sales Managers

> Salespeople, as representatives of manufacturers, are tasked with maintaining steady revenue growth. For most, the immense performance pressure and volatile market environment make sales one of the most unstable career groups. Whether you're a novice or a veteran, when you take over a new regional market, what problems will you face? How can you quickly get up to speed and demonstrate your performance? Based on years of experience in the consumer goods industry, this article systematically outlines the first lesson for regional salespeople new to their role.

Warm reminder: Click the blue text above to follow "FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting" for more insights on marketing and distributor internal management.

Salespeople, as representatives of the manufacturer, bear the responsibility of maintaining the company's steady and sustainable revenue growth. For the vast majority of salespeople, the immense performance pressure and ever-changing market environment also make this group one of the most unstable professional groups in the workplace. Whether you are a newcomer or a seasoned veteran, when you take over a new regional market, what problems will you face? How should you quickly get into the swing of things and demonstrate your work performance? Drawing on years of experience in the consumer goods industry, this article will systematically outline the first lesson that regional salespeople should focus on when newly appointed.

**1. Make a Professional Debut**
Salespeople are the highest representatives of the manufacturer and brand in the regional market; their personal image reflects the company's image. A brilliant debut for a newcomer is crucial, as a good first impression will pave the way for smooth work ahead. In a nutshell, salespeople new to a market should present a professional image to clients. For salespeople, professionalism is mainly manifested in the following three aspects:
1. Professional mindset: proactive, determined, and ethical.
2. Professional image: formal attire, clear communication, and keeping promises.
3. Professional skills: familiarity with policies, spotting opportunities, and proactive improvement.

**2. Four Aspects to Initially Grasp the Market**
Sales is like warfare; knowing yourself and your enemy leads to victory. When a salesperson takes over a new regional market, they should not make any conclusive subjective judgments about the market easily. Instead, they need to gather more information first. An outstanding salesperson should master the following four aspects of information in the shortest possible time.

**1. Market Environment**
As the person in charge of a regional market, salespeople should quickly understand the basic market conditions of their area. Key information and channels to obtain it are as follows:
- Macro data: population, GDP, administrative divisions, total retail sales of consumer goods, residents' income levels, and industrial structure (output value of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries). Such data can be found in local government statistical yearbooks or via Baidu.
- Business environment: commercial centers, business ecosystems (number and scale of department stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, wholesale markets). Collect information online, but focus on field visits.
- Competitive information: sales scale, channel models, and relevant sales policies of major competitors. Initial information can be obtained verbally from superiors or predecessors.
- Consumption habits: consumer purchasing habits, local cultural customs, and purchasing channels. Initial information can be obtained from superiors or predecessors, and some from taxi drivers or roadside restaurants.

**2. Company Information**
For newly appointed salespeople, especially those changing jobs for the first time, quickly understanding company information provides crucial support for getting into work mode.
- Company overview: sales scale, number of employees, products, technical advantages, organizational structure, development history, company stories, and development plans. Sources include the company website, company documents, and training materials (the best way to understand the organizational structure is the company directory).
- Key systems: attendance, compensation, reporting, expense, promotion, and approval systems. Standard companies usually provide training on these; if not, gather as much information as possible from superiors or colleagues.
- Product knowledge: product lineup, categories, functions, selling points, technical advantages, and R&D strength. Mainly from company training materials and the company website.

**3. Marketing Policies**
For salespeople, mastering the company's marketing policies is like having weapons in the market; it's the basic guarantee for controlling the market. Policies vary by industry and company, but the core parts are usually as follows:
- Pricing policy: standard retail prices from the company price list, supply prices for different customers, order fulfillment policies, and sales rebate policies. Obtain from company documents.
- Product policy: price differences among products, pricing policies for image products, main products, profit products, special-offer products, and policies for handling inventory and slow-moving products. Obtain from company documents.
- Promotional policy: promotional resources (materials, gifts, rebates, advertising). Obtain from company documents.
- Channel policy: channel models (direct sales, agency, distribution, e-commerce, wholesale, exclusive stores, retail, etc.), pricing policies and profit margins for different channels, criteria for selecting and changing distributors, restrictions on distributors, and penalties for cross-region sales or price chaos. Obtain from company documents; a shortcut is to get the annual distribution contract for the relevant channel.
- Service policy: return and exchange terms, logistics and freight responsibilities and standards, handling of quality issues, handling of slow-moving products, and after-sales support. Obtain from company documents; some may be in the distributor contract.

**4. Customer Information**
For different sales models, the definition of customer differs fundamentally. For direct sales models, individuals are direct buyers; in a sense, direct salespeople face the greatest difficulty in understanding customers because they deal with countless diverse individuals. Here, we focus on sales models targeting channel partners, where customers may be wholesalers, agents, distributors, retailers, etc. Only by fully understanding customers can salespeople act with precision. Key customer information includes:
- Basic qualifications: company name, registered capital, registration date, business scope, organizational structure, personnel size and quality. Obtain from business licenses, company files, relevant websites, and field visits.
- Operating status: sales scale, sales structure (sales structure of different brands and manufacturers), gross profit levels, operating expenses (office, personnel, logistics, materials, assets, capital), inventory and sales data for our brand, market position (whether general agent or distributor, local market share), and distribution network data and quality. This is the most core information; obtain reliable data from the company as much as possible, experiential information from superiors or predecessors, verification from customer personnel, and through field visits and inspections. (Don't miss the opportunity to visit the customer's warehouse, and don't underestimate the value of the customer's delivery personnel.)
- Management capability: company systems and processes, decision-making mechanisms, proportion of relatives among employees (especially the role of family members in decision-making), whether regular meetings and training systems exist, whether there is a manager other than the boss (who can decide on purchases), the boss's industry experience, and the company's social resources. This information mainly comes from "hearsay" and personal field observation.

While gathering the above information, gradually think and conduct a SWOT analysis of the company in the regional market.
- Opportunities: Where are the market opportunities? How to gain market share?
- Threats: Where are the threats? The market power of competitors and substitutes? Consumption habits?
- Strengths: Our strengths? Product advantages? Price advantages? Promotional advantages?
- Weaknesses: Our weaknesses? Customer quality? Product prices? Product line?
Through SWOT analysis, continuously correctly understand the company's opportunities in the responsible market, avoid threats and weaknesses in the short term, concentrate resources and energy on seizing opportunities, leverage strengths, and achieve breakthroughs.

**3. Six Magic Weapons for Short-Term Breakthroughs**
For salespeople, the core is improving sales performance. After fully understanding the market, the next step is to take action to boost sales and change the numbers on the sales report. Based on experience across industries, here are six areas to focus on:

**1. Set Goals**
Salespeople face at least two goals: one set by the company and one set by themselves. Salespeople must have clear goals; otherwise, all efforts are in vain.
- Performance goals: shipment amount, retail amount, distribution amount, and collection amount. Goals should not be lower than company targets.
- Action goals: daily work content and action routes, quantified as much as possible, such as how many clients to visit, how many terminals to visit, and how much to sell.

**2. Secure Resources**
After setting goals, salespeople should actively secure corresponding company resources to achieve them. These resources mainly include promotional resources, price resources, and policies for handling special-offer and slow-moving products.

**3. Persist with Effort**
Persistent effort means continuously running in the market until goals are achieved. There's not much to say here, but it's still listed as an important point, indicating that sustained effort is crucial.

**4. Be Good at Communication**
In business activities, learn to communicate. Communication targets include relevant leaders and colleagues at the company, customer personnel, and end users of products. Don't neglect communication with end users; it's an ongoing process that can bring unexpected inspiration.

**5. Keep Fighting After Failure**
Salespeople are essentially in a game with customers and consumers. Don't worry about winning or losing each round; just maintain a continuous fighting state.

**6. Focus on Key Breakthroughs**
When taking over a new market, salespeople should learn to avoid the heavy and focus on the light, concentrating resources and energy where breakthroughs are easiest. Especially, don't get entangled in historical issues raised by customers; shelve major issues temporarily, find easy problems to solve first, and make some achievements to prove yourself.

**4. Advice for Salespeople**
1. The more information you have, the more confident you are, the more methods you have, and the better your performance.
2. There are always more methods than problems. Accept customer complaints, but don't complain with them.
3. Salespeople are only responsible for sales data. Without data improvement, all efforts are meaningless. Therefore, never talk about your hard work to leaders or customers.
4. Don't be intimidated by the other party's aura in negotiations. The stronger they appear, the weaker they are inside. Always hold your ground.
5. Don't care about doubts or even exclusion from customers, leaders, or colleagues, because "every grandfather was once a grandson."
6. Keep thinking as you go. Be a thoughtful salesperson, good at summarizing, actively thinking, and continuously improving.
7. Sales is first a physical job. Without good health, you can't achieve first-class sales.
8. Remember, when you're far away, keep in touch with leaders and headquarters at all times! (Use new media to voice your opinions.)
9. No more success motivation; in a word, the brave wins when they meet on a narrow path!

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Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671