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Let's look at a few scenarios first—

Scenario 1: The company's products are not good Salesperson Xiao Liu was frustrated when selling his company's beverage products and complained to colleagues: "With our company's strength, products, and policies for downstream customers, we simply can't compete. Look at our product packaging, it's average, our prices aren't lower, our sales policies are not supportive, and we have little brand advertising. Most importantly, competitors have strong promotional activities. This product can't be sold."

Scenario 2: Task completed, let's go drink Salesperson Xiao Wang's mood is very unstable. For example, when he completes his monthly tasks well, he invites friends to drink before his salary is even paid. But the next month, when sales hit a wall, he becomes depressed, doesn't focus on work, and is not proactive in anything. He attributes this to bad luck. Xiao Wang's work attitude is typical of lacking planning, feast or famine.

Scenario 3: I tried my best, it's not my fault Salesperson Xiao Li recently had major problems at work, failing to complete tasks for three consecutive months. The boss talked to him about it. Instead of reviewing his work, he kept complaining: "Our product prices lack competitiveness, and we give customers so few policies. How can they promote our products? Moreover, market competition is fierce, and customers are difficult. I've tried my best; it's not my fault."

The above three scenarios vividly describe three typical negative mindsets among salespeople. Negative mindsets arise from excessive pressure caused by fierce market competition, potentially unachievable task volumes, and lack of personal planning. Salespeople in trading companies generally have lower quality, and when facing pressure, they may not find ways to relieve it, falling into negative mindsets. Therefore, as bosses, distributors need to help salespeople relieve pressure. To this end, our reporter interviewed Song Yu from Jiangsu Wuxi Deyuanfeng Trading Company. Manager Song shared a four-step management approach for salespeople's mindset.

Step 1: Set performance goals Salespeople lack work planning and have no clue about their work. To address this, the company requires salespeople to create a performance planning form at the end of each month, filling in performance goals. Performance goals should include task volume, customer relationship maintenance, vivid display, product expressiveness, etc. After setting performance goals, salespeople not only clarify their tasks but also know where to seek solutions when problems arise, rather than complaining blindly and being at a loss. At the same time, a reward and punishment system can be implemented—rewarding the top three performers. This performance-oriented management of salespeople's mindset avoids issues like lack of planning, goals, direction, and responsibility in daily work. Moreover, breaking through each performance goal will boost salespeople's confidence, helping them shed negative mindsets and relieve pressure.

Step 2: Establish work logs The company requires salespeople to keep work logs, recording daily work content, including orders completed, problems encountered, and gains. Work logs help salespeople analyze their daily work rationally. In this process, they can correctly understand failures, identify root causes, and when they know where problems lie, they reduce fear of work, thereby lowering pressure and making work relatively easier.

Step 3: Set up a "Mutual Assistance Award" The company holds a weekly work log exchange discussion meeting. Besides sharing daily work experience, they discuss whether each person's work log is correct in attitude and understanding, which aspects are positive and worth learning, and which are negative and should be discarded. During each group discussion, members must take notes and provide reasonable suggestions. The work log exchange discussion meeting helps salespeople understand which problems are common, which are personal, and which should be avoided, thereby eliminating unnecessary tension, continuously improving their work, and enhancing their ability to identify problems and propose suggestions, subtly improving their quality. Distributors can also use this as an important basis for promoting managers.

Step 4: Hold "Mindset Adjustment Seminars" At the end of each month, salespeople summarize their work logs, analyzing their work status, content, gains, and problems for the month. After analysis, the company organizes mindset adjustment seminars in groups. The seminars serve two purposes: first, they allow salespeople to share practical and effective methods they find useful, including sales skills, negotiation skills, terminal display skills, customer complaint handling skills, and how to adjust mindset, to achieve exchange purposes. Second, speeches exercise salespeople's language expression and logical abilities, and articulating inner thoughts clearly will clarify and deepen the content of their speeches, serving as secondary memory. In this way, salespeople will clearly recognize their problems and grow. At the same time, they sort out their work content for the month, and clear thinking makes them proactive and reduces complaints.

Success = Mindset × Ability. If a company blindly focuses on results while neglecting salespeople's mindset management, even if they have high ability, an improper mindset will ultimately prevent cultivating excellent salespeople. Distributors cannot only talk about results without considering causes. Helping salespeople analyze and solve practical problems not only enables them to identify and solve problems, eliminate unnecessary pressure, and continuously improve themselves, but also provides a good opportunity for distributors to cultivate excellent managers and discover solutions to their own product management issues.

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