--- title: "Freeing Salespeople from KPI Traps" description: "At the 7th China FMCG Conference hosted by New Distribution, the former chairman of China Resources Beer proposed 'freeing distributors and salespeople,' which resonated deeply. Salespeople are trapped by endless visits and reports, unable to escape KPI constraints. The industry's KPI 'consensus' is actually counterintuitive, as most 'consensus' behaviors are contrary to common sense." author: "刘春雄" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2025-08-31" categories: "Dealer Operations, Distribution & Channels, Management & Methods" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/freeing-salespeople-from-kpi-traps-8a8811e8/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/freeing-salespeople-from-kpi-traps-8a8811e8.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_E8vKj5OwPSJ5GfztKqDbA" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E8%A7%A3%E6%94%BE%E4%B8%9A%E5%8A%A1%E5%91%98-%E4%B8%8D%E5%86%8D%E5%9B%B0%E4%BA%8Ekpi-8a8811e8.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/freeing-salespeople-from-kpi-traps-8a8811e8/" citation: "刘春雄. “Freeing Salespeople from KPI Traps.” New Distribution, 2025-08-31. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/freeing-salespeople-from-kpi-traps-8a8811e8/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # Freeing Salespeople from KPI Traps > At the 7th China FMCG Conference hosted by New Distribution, the former chairman of China Resources Beer proposed 'freeing distributors and salespeople,' which resonated deeply. Salespeople are trapped by endless visits and reports, unable to escape KPI constraints. The industry's KPI 'consensus' is actually counterintuitive, as most 'consensus' behaviors are contrary to common sense. At the 7th China FMCG Conference hosted by New Distribution, the former chairman of China Resources Beer proposed 'freeing distributors and salespeople,' which was powerful and resonated with the audience. Salespeople are trapped by endless visits and reports, unable to escape KPI constraints. Industry KPI 'Consensus' While attending the 7th China FMCG Conference, I exchanged ideas with brand expert Miao Qingxian and other experts in Shanghai, and we reached a consensus: most 'consensus' is actually counterintuitive. The current popular salesperson visit routines are a case in point. Salespeople are trapped by visit KPIs. Salespeople's daily visits involve many KPI indicators, such as number of stores visited, communication with store owners, shelf restocking, orders (policy-driven stocking), POP, etc. These indicators are now digitized through SFA. Among KPIs, the most important and mandatory one, which is attendance-based, is the number of stores visited. With the rise of SFA, the number of visits has become a hard check-in indicator. These actions are performed daily by salespeople in FMCG companies, seemingly an industry 'consensus,' but upon reflection, they are counterintuitive. Four years ago, I discovered that a liquor company required salespeople to visit 20 stores daily. I found that the most valued indicator was also the number of visits. Because other indicators are flexible: communication with store owners has a minimum time but is relatively flexible; restocking is flexible unless there's a check-in; order tasks are flexible unless there's a rigid stocking pressure. The only rigid indicator is the number of visits. Because it's rigid, salespeople have no pressure to complete it, and other indicators are left to fate. The key issue is that I found daily visits are useless. Stores that don't sell won't start selling just because of visits. I asked company executives and salespeople why they required this. The answer was obvious: everyone does it, so we do it too. Everyone does it. This is the industry 'consensus,' a convention, a habit, a source of income. No discussion, no thought. In fact, not only do store-level distributors do this, but managers targeting distributors also do it, visiting one or two distributors a day is the norm. It has become an unthinking behavior. The more ineffective the actions, the more perfect the KPIs. The more complex the KPI assessment, the larger the proportion linked to income. Salespeople are trapped in KPIs, just like delivery riders are trapped in algorithms. Counterintuitive 'Consensus' Years ago, I accompanied a company executive on a field trip. At noon, we arrived at a store and asked the owner: 'How many salespeople have visited today?' He counted on his fingers and said, '28.' I was shocked that so many people visited. Then I asked: 'When a salesperson visits, what's your first thought?' He thought for a moment and replied: 'Get rid of them quickly!' This is the result of our visits and customer relations: you're trying to build rapport, but the owner is trying to get rid of you. So, the owner has developed a set of skilled tactics to 'dismiss' people. Imagine if the owner spent all day and energy on customer relations with salespeople, would they have time to work? Since visits are useless, why did it become an industry consensus? This involves the origin of deep distribution actions. Deep distribution was first proposed by teachers Bao Zheng and Shi Wei, initially for the home appliance industry. 'Sales and Market' magazine promoted it heavily in 2003. The popularity of deep distribution came from Wei Qing's 'Eight Steps of Deep Distribution,' which are eight steps for visiting terminals. At that time, many companies were still in the wholesale stage. Suddenly, a salesperson visiting stores made customer relations easy, and sales naturally grew. Thus, visits and customer relations became an FMCG 'consensus.' In economics, there's the 'fallacy of composition' theory: what's true for the part is not true for the whole. A typical example is the 'paradox of丰收' (bumper harvest paradox). One farmer's harvest increases both yield and income; all farmers' harvests lead to price drops, so bumper harvests don't bring higher income. Applying the fallacy of composition to store visits: when no one visits, visits are very effective and are an incremental action; when all companies visit stores, visits become ineffective or even counterproductive. Marketing is a competitive behavior, and competitiveness comes from comparative advantage. If no one does it, you have a comparative advantage; if everyone does it, there's no advantage. One person studying hard raises their score; everyone studying hard raises the cutoff line. Involution always ends this way. When deep distribution became an industry consensus, it was already involution, no longer an incremental action. So, in most cases, the consensus behavior of doing the same thing is actually against economic logic. Breaking the Consensus While serving a bottled water company, it was winter. Due to weak brand power, sales were poor. During salesperson interviews, I found their routine work was still: daily visits (30-40 stores), restocking (organizing shelves), and ordering. So, I asked three questions: Question 1: In winter, where does bottled water sell well? Answer: Skewer restaurants, internet cafes, gyms, saunas, etc. Question 2: When do these places have the most foot traffic? Answer: Noon, afternoon, and evening. Question 3: What are your working hours? Answer: 8 AM to 6 PM. After hearing the answers, my conclusion was: they perfectly missed the best sales times and the best terminals. My adjustment plan was: 1. Adjust working hours and lunch/dinner times: start at 11 AM and end at 8 PM. Lunch and dinner times align with the retail service industry. 2. Distributors should promote at different stores based on peak foot traffic times of winter hot-selling stores. 3. During non-promotion periods, do store visits without requiring a specific number. The result: winter sales exceeded summer sales. My logic was: First, sell-through is more important than distribution. When sell-through is good, distribution is simple; sell-through is a 2C action, distribution is a 2b action. Second, sell-through times for similar stores are concentrated, and different types of stores have staggered sell-through periods. Promotion schedules should be based on the types of stores that sell well. Third, store sell-through creates spillover effects. When sell-through stores do well, they drive circulation stores, making visits and customer relations easier. At that time, I hadn't yet proposed bC integration, but looking back, it was the prototype of bC integration thinking. Incremental Thinking Fan Guofang, the 'God of Management' in the agricultural materials industry, said: Either do what others can't do, or do what others can do to the extreme. The most terrifying thing in marketing is when everyone does the same thing, and efforts cancel each other out. In 1995, my first article in 'Sales and Market' was 'Transparent Marketing,' which discussed making salespeople's behaviors transparent to managers. In the era without internet check-ins, it was very difficult. Despite the difficulty, it had to be done. Why make salespeople's actions transparent? Because managers need to analyze behavior. I classify the effects of salesperson behaviors into three types: incremental actions (increase sales), stock actions (maintain sales), and ineffective actions (no value). Salespeople's actions should mainly be incremental, not the solidification of stock or ineffective actions. However, the same action can have different results in different periods. For example, visits were incremental in the early stage of deep distribution, became stock actions in the middle stage, and are now ineffective. Salespeople are expensive now, and precisely because they are expensive, they cannot do ineffective actions. So, action effectiveness analysis is particularly important. Before 1998, in the wholesale era, wholesaler layout was an incremental action. That was the salesman era—2B era. From 1998 to 2002, when market focus shifted downward, distributor placement was an incremental action. That was the salesperson era—another 2B era. After 2003, deep distribution was an incremental action. That was the distributor era—2b era. In 2013, digital deep distribution was an incremental action. A typical case is Jinmailang's 'Four-in-One,' which was the peak of deep distribution. In 2019, I proposed bC integration, which is an incremental action. A typical case is Dongpeng's bC integrated digitalization. In 2024, I proposed scenario marketing, which is an incremental action. A typical case is Mingren Soda Water. Sorting out the logic of offline incremental actions, roughly: wholesaler 2B → distributor 2B → deep distribution 2b → digital deep distribution 2b → bC integrated deep distribution → bC integrated scenario. Among these, the marketing touchpoint moves from B to b, then to bC, which is a main line, getting closer to the C end. If competitors do B, you do b; if competitors do b, you do bC. In short, do what others can't do. Similarly, for deep distribution, if you use manual deep distribution while Jinmailang uses digital 'Four-in-One,' that's doing what others can do to the extreme. Similarly, for bC integration, pure offline bC integration versus Mingren's 'step-empty-te integration' scenario marketing is also doing what others can do to the extreme. Where is the increment? From which actions does the increment come? This is a very important judgment of the times. Incremental Action Analysis If you clock in, you get basic salary. That's the thinking of office workers. If you check in for visits, you get basic salary. That's the thinking of distributors. Whether the work after check-in is valuable is management's judgment. Don't leave this judgment to frontline employees. Jinmailang's early 'Four-in-One' had digital functions certainly not as advanced as current SFA, but only Jinmailang's digitalization played a functional role; others mostly used it as a check-in tool. The reason: Jinmailang's backend had digital action analysis personnel. How powerful were Jinmailang's backend analysts? From a job requirement perspective, they understood both digitalization and frontline actions, and could analyze action effectiveness and improve actions. From an authority perspective, backend analysts' instructions were above frontline managers. In contrast, current SFA, despite AI analysis, only does statistical analysis, which is more convenient than traditional check-in statistics. Current AI analysis can hardly do incremental action analysis. So, it's not so much that salespeople are trapped in KPIs, but that management causes salespeople to be trapped. Salespeople need management, but not outdated KPI solidification. If individual salespeople have problems, it might be their fault. If the company as a whole has problems, the responsibility lies with top management. Freeing Salespeople Endless check-ins, endless reports. Despite many reports, analysis of effective actions is missing. A large number of actions consume time and expenses. It's time to free salespeople! How to free them? Not by not managing, not by letting them do whatever they want, not without action requirements, and not without assessment indicators. Freeing salespeople from actions without increment and guiding them to do incremental work is the true liberation. What are incremental actions? Top management needs to make accurate judgments based on the progress of the times. For recent service companies, I have several requirements: First, no fatigue work. Don't normalize overtime. Short-term breakthrough activities with overtime are acceptable. Second, use sell-through to drive distribution. This is the core of incremental actions. Focus on sell-through actions. With this action, other actions can be unassessed. Ask: which store, when ordering, doesn't have a salesperson doing distribution? Sell-through actions are the core; many KPIs are auxiliary. KPIs without sell-through are soulless. KPIs for stocking pressure are even harmful. Third, correctly understand bC integration. The soul of bC integration is 'take a step forward, then half a step back.' Deep distribution has already reached the b end; one step forward is the C end. Only by stepping forward can you reach the C end; only by stepping back half a step can you be efficient. That is, sell-through drives distribution. Fourth, organizations need breakthrough forces. Many companies' 'flying teams' are actually special forces, playing a 'surprise' role. Here, 'surprise' doesn't mean unexpected, but 'ji' (meaning extra). The current popular salesperson KPIs are based on deep distribution. When deep distribution has no incremental value, the more perfect the KPI, the more harmful it is, and the more it traps salespeople. To jump out of KPIs and free salespeople, start with core actions. 2C sell-through and promotion actions are the core actions of bC integration. In the current situation, as long as there are 2C actions, there is increment, even if other KPIs are imperfect. Early deep distribution had no KPIs but was effective because it was cutting-edge. --- ## Citation metadata - Publisher: New Distribution - Author: 刘春雄 - Published: 2025-08-31 - Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/freeing-salespeople-from-kpi-traps-8a8811e8/ - Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_E8vKj5OwPSJ5GfztKqDbA ## Copyright and AI use This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL. Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671