---
title: "Four Major Misconceptions in Terminal Sales for Distributor Salespeople"
description: "This article discusses four major misconceptions that terminal salespeople often have, which lead to business failures, and provides strategies to overcome them. It emphasizes the importance of balancing sales and market development, treating all customers fairly, managing products of all sizes, and combining incentives with proper management."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2014-08-06"
language: "en"
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# Four Major Misconceptions in Terminal Sales for Distributor Salespeople

> This article discusses four major misconceptions that terminal salespeople often have, which lead to business failures, and provides strategies to overcome them. It emphasizes the importance of balancing sales and market development, treating all customers fairly, managing products of all sizes, and combining incentives with proper management.

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The channel is the customer, and the terminal is the market. This is a tune that marketers have sung frequently and loudly in recent years. Indeed, as a link in the sales channel, the retail terminal faces consumers directly, serving as a gateway for products to become consumer goods and the source of actual sales for manufacturers. To ensure their products leap over this gateway and generate actual sales, manufacturers compete in terminal operations. However, in actual terminal work, many terminal marketers fail in their business due to misconceptions.

**Misconceptions**

**1. Content: Emphasizing Sales Over Market**

Simply focusing on delivery, payment collection, and other routine business tasks, making product sales the sole goal; forgetting market development, maintenance, and network building; neglecting to help customers in the market circle grow and develop together. In terminal marketing, is it about "building networks" or "making sales"? This confusion leads to a situation of "sales without market." In fact, sales and market should coexist; only with a solid market can there be long-term sales.

**2. Target: Emphasizing Large Customers Over Small Shops**

Failing to flexibly apply the "grab the big, let go the small" customer development principle, leading to a bias toward large customers. We can classify terminal customers into four categories: high sales/high profit, high sales/low profit, low sales/high profit, and low sales/low profit. What defines a "large customer" (key terminal)? It is not based on the terminal's overall sales volume or scale, but on the proportion of our business to their total business volume and the profit generated from this business. Furthermore, small customers are also necessary to develop:

1. Small customers can grow into large customers;
2. Small customers can fill gaps in our terminal network;
3. Small customers do not necessarily mean small business or small profit.

**3. Product: Emphasizing Large Products Over Small Products**

Large products are those with higher retail (supply) prices, which account for a large proportion of terminal salespeople's performance. This is especially evident in wholesale enterprises: their product mix is diversified. If salespeople only focus on such products, they easily become specialized salespeople for a single product, even "hanging themselves from one tree." Conversely, low-priced products are more popular, facilitating a fast-in-fast-out sales pattern, reducing inventory buildup and the risk of payment loss. Moreover, we should not simply assume that high-priced products are large products; instead, we should measure by the profit margin that operating the product can bring, because the retail (supply) price is not directly proportional to the profit margin.

**4. Method: Emphasizing Incentives Over Management**

We often devoutly treat every customer as a god, yielding to their demands such as bargaining, gift distribution, etc., without any principles. While being accommodating, we must also monitor them. That is, while "respecting customers as gods," we should also "guard against them as thieves." Prevent them from switching allegiances, using our policies to sell others' products, or even moving or closing overnight. Policy incentives are like storms: they come quickly and go quickly. Only thoughtful, timely, and comprehensive service and management can truly have a subtle influence.

**5. Link: Emphasizing the Middle Over Both Ends**

Terminal work has three links: first, the products we supply to the terminal; second, the terminal with which we directly establish a buying relationship; third, the consumers who establish a buying relationship with the terminal. Some terminal salespeople only focus on the middle (the terminal with which we directly establish a buying relationship), neglecting the two ends (the products supplied to the terminal and the consumers who establish a buying relationship with the terminal). This leads to an inability to fully understand the products and systematically introduce them to customers, nor to establish typical consumer files for after-sales service, thus failing to win customer loyalty to the product (brand) and secure repeat customers.

**Business Failures**

It is precisely due to these misconceptions that terminal work fails. Many distributor bosses often sigh when checking terminal work: "Ask three questions, know nothing." That is, the terminal does not know which manufacturer's (or merchant's) salesperson is doing business with them on which products.

1. **Not knowing the company operating the products:** The terminal does not know the manufacturer's (or distributor's) business scope, scale, and strength; what advantageous projects they have; what cooperation methods are available, etc.

2. **Not knowing the salesperson handling the products:** The terminal does not know the name of the salesperson, which company they come from, what products they handle, what their responsibilities are, and what conveniences they can bring.

3. **Not knowing what products the salesperson handles:** They do not understand the basic information such as product specifications and prices; nor do they know the product's selling points, features, and sales policies at a deeper level.

**Master the Basics to Prevent and Cure the Disease**

**1. Formulate Three Major Strategies: Achieve Three Lock-ons**

1. **Product Lock-on:**
   - Be familiar with the company's product range to promptly identify shortages or stockouts at terminals;
   - Be familiar with each product and its similar products' specifications, prices, and features to correctly introduce them to customers.

2. **Personnel Lock-on:**
   - Lock on terminal sales staff; build deep relationships so they are "happy to sell" our products;
   - Lock on manufacturer (merchant) salespeople; form alliances to negotiate and solve various terminal marketing issues.

3. **Customer Lock-on:**
   - Observe every relevant customer entering the terminal and seize sales opportunities;
   - Establish terminal files, track service, win word-of-mouth, and strive for repeat orders;
   - Attract, maintain, and consolidate direct customers through quality service.

**2. Use Three Major Tactics: Promote the Spirit of Three Diligences**

1. **Diligent in speech:** Communicate more with people you meet, introduce and promote products, yourself, and the company; explain more to others to eliminate doubts and misunderstandings;
2. **Diligent in legs:** Visit more stores each day, and visit each store more often;
3. **Diligent in ears:** Collect market feedback information; adjust strategies promptly to meet terminal customer requirements.

**3. Fight Three Major Battles: Achieve Three Major Goals**

1. **Promote your company:**
   - Basic company information: location, founding date, business scope, scale;
   - Advantageous projects: product variety, pricing (compared with competitors or peers, whether lower or higher), service (whether it can eliminate the other party's concerns);
   - Cooperation methods: whether the terminal comes to pick up goods or the salesperson delivers; whether it is cash or consignment;
   - Welcome them to visit the company.

2. **Promote the products you handle (preferably with samples and promotional materials):**
   - Basic product information;
   - Selling points and features: compared with similar products, what is the core concept?
   - Sales policies: distribution area, anti-diversion and price control efforts;
   - Promotional policies: advertising, terminal promotions (costs, gifts, giveaways) methods;
   - Supply prices: cash price, consignment price.

3. **Promote yourself (different from a job interview self-introduction):**
   - Name: break it down, explain character by character, link it to a famous place for easy memory;
   - Company: state the full name, avoid abbreviations to prevent misunderstanding;
   - Products: introduce a few well-known or exclusive agency products to attract attention;
   - Responsibilities: what business services you can provide, what conveniences you bring;
   - Request support and cooperation, such as checking sales volume, flow, and selling price.

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