Marketing novices aspire to become planning supervisors: representing the company to convey planning execution plans, controlling large market advertising budgets, negotiating with media on behalf of the company (regional market), and not having to personally visit the market. It can be said that there are many temptations. So, how far is the distance from marketing novice to planning supervisor? Based on the author's analysis and research of the growth history of multiple planning supervisors, a qualified planning supervisor needs to possess six basic abilities:
Ability 1: Market Insight Ability
Ability Description: Possess sensitive market insight. So-called insight means promptly discovering changes in consumer demand, abnormal dealer behavior, terminal display trends, and competitor market actions from subtle clues, making correct judgments, and responding at any time.
Training Path: For marketing novices who have just entered the industry, it is essential to gradually improve their market insight through the front-line market. At the same time, novices should not neglect reading books, newspapers, and magazines, which contain many insightful experiences and understandings. Generally, a marketing novice needs to spend half a year to a year, going through two stages: learning from a mentor (following an experienced marketer) and independently exploring the market, before initially establishing market insight ability.
Typical Case: Zhang Xing is currently a regional planning supervisor at a fast-moving consumer goods company A. A year ago, he was an ordinary salesperson. By chance, the regional manager identified him as a candidate for planning supervisor. It was a marketing meeting where salespeople reported on their weekly market visits as usual. Zhang Xing was a newspaper enthusiast, paying special attention to sales-related newspapers available in the local market. At that meeting, in addition to normal work reports, he pointed out that in a classified ad in "XX Daily," competitor K company was recruiting sales and promotional personnel in the local branch, even though it was not the peak sales season. Therefore, Zhang Xing analyzed that the competitor might be launching a new product. After further visits, he found that the batch numbers of the company's old products on terminal shelves remained unchanged, indicating that the competitor might be waiting for the old products to be mostly sold before launching new ones. This new product was likely a pilot in the local market. Since they stopped selling old products, there was no need to recruit staff; now expanding recruitment suggests they might be waiting for the pilot to succeed before expanding nationwide. After hearing Zhang Xing's report, the regional manager immediately reported to headquarters. As a result, headquarters learned through other channels that K company's intention was exactly as Zhang Xing had judged: to pilot in that region and create a climax when the peak season arrived. Consequently, A company's headquarters marketing vice president personally led the counterattack, deploying peak-season promotional plans, and promptly thwarted the competitor's attempt. K company's new product pilot ultimately failed.
Ability 2: Writing Ability
Ability Description: A qualified planning supervisor must be a "talented person" who can write plans and reports at any time. The writing ability of a planning supervisor mainly includes drafting planning proposals, market reports, meeting documents and minutes, summarizing market experiences, writing internal company publication articles, and drafting and editing public relations soft articles. If there is a lack of art staff, the planning supervisor often also needs to design and write POP, review advertising company's print ad proofs, etc.
Training Path: Marketing novices should collect and organize planning proposals from well-known companies during their daily work for learning and imitation. For official documents such as market reports and meeting minutes, they can imitate writing by studying relevant internal company materials. Additionally, maintaining goal orientation, considering issues from the reader's perspective, and practicing writing frequently can get them on track after about half a year. Another shortcut is to regularly read articles in marketing practice magazines like "Sales and Marketing" and carefully learn, experience, and imitate.
Typical Case: Liu Lei became the planning supervisor of the provincial company mainly because he once substituted for a leader's speech. After joining the company, Liu Lei interned in the office of a marketing vice president at headquarters for a few months. Once, the marketing vice president planned to attend a market meeting in Hunan and give an inspiring mobilization speech, but due to a sudden headquarters meeting, the trip was canceled. Liu Lei, however, went to the province as planned. The provincial company manager decided not to disappoint the market team and asked Liu Lei to read the mobilization order on behalf of the marketing vice president. Liu Lei spoke with great passion, and the audience applauded 10 times, jokingly called "10 climaxes" by the local market people. After the meeting, the provincial company office director asked for his speech script and praised his promising future. Everyone also said that Liu Lei had good writing skills and was suitable for planning.
Ability 3: Communication and Expression Ability
Ability Description: The communication and expression ability of a planning supervisor is mainly reflected in internal and external communication. Internal communication can be divided into upward and downward communication. External communication can be divided into communication with advertising partners and the public. Upward communication means clearly reflecting actual market problems to superiors and gaining their understanding and support for market work (especially resource investment plans). Downward communication means helping sales staff understand the company's overall operational strategy and planning layout, and persuading them not to blindly demand resources. Communication with advertising companies requires joint consultation on media plans and promotional plans. Communication with the public is actually promoting the company's image to the media and society from the company level, requiring certain public relations skills.
Training Path: The technical aspects of communication and expression can be obtained through self-study or training, but skill development requires persistent personal effort. For marketing novices, a shortcut is to carefully observe and learn from VCD lectures of well-known domestic marketing trainers, imitating comprehensively from content to expression.
Typical Case: Zhao Wen had a painful lesson before becoming a regional market planning supervisor, which he called the "Black 3 Minutes." When he first joined the company, he participated in a 3-minute speech contest organized by the company. Confident, he ate a full meal at night, ready to show off on stage. But the problem was precisely with eating: as soon as he got on stage, he couldn't help but let out a very melodious fart, and with the microphone on, all 200+ people in the audience heard it clearly and burst into laughter! Zhao Wen's speech words instantly flew out of his mind! The speech failure plunged him into a career low within the company. Later, by chance, he submitted a market observation article he wrote to the company's internal publication, which received a good response, gradually restoring his confidence. In the following six months, he practiced speaking hard, imitating CDs. At the end of the year, when he spoke as an advanced market representative, his speech was exceptionally brilliant, and he eventually grew into a planning supervisor.
Ability 4: Event Organization Ability
Ability Description: With the advancement of deep marketing, planning supervisors, especially regional market planning supervisors, must also face the organization of promotional activities in large retail outlets, communities, and other venues, as well as roadshow organization in third- and fourth-tier markets. Generally, organizing an activity involves planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling.
Training Path: Learn war through war, learn to organize activities through activities. The key to improving event organization ability is to participate in more activities and pay attention to recording and summarizing. First, collect and organize some activity templates, and implement your own activities according to these templates to avoid omissions. Additionally, develop the habit of planning before activities and summarizing after activities. After personally participating in organizing more than three large-scale activities, you can establish a basic awareness of event organization. The remaining time is for gradual accumulation and refinement.
Typical Case: Zhu Bing is a planning supervisor for a large beverage company in region J. Before taking this position, he participated in a large roadshow in front of W Mall in the city. The stage was set up on Friday night, and the performance was scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday. However, the advertising company's hastily produced large background logo could only be delivered at 9 a.m. Saturday. So Zhu Bing had to wait in front of the mall on Saturday morning for the advertising company to deliver it, then arrange for staff to hang it. Unfortunately, when the advertising company delivered it on time and hung it up, they found that the background was shorter than the stage, looking very ugly. Having the advertising company redo it was obviously impossible in time; they had to find ways to cover it up with red silk and other materials. But misfortunes never come alone: a strong wind suddenly blew, messing up the silk, tangling it together, not only failing to hide the flaw but making the stage even messier. And with only half an hour left before the performance, Zhu Bing's heart almost froze. What to do? Finally, the mall's planning department staff came to help, using a previously used large red cloth to pad the back, and had the installation workers reinforce it. The performance finally started on time. From then on, Zhu Bing vowed that before every activity, he would arrange for a dedicated person to check and verify all procedural details to prevent any mishaps.
Ability 5: Practical Sales Ability
Ability Description: Planning personnel should understand sales and preferably have sales experience. Practical sales ability mainly manifests as familiarity with the market, consumer environment, distribution channels and networks, the sales patterns of both the company's and competitors' product categories, and the rhythm and patterns of market-sales collaboration. In short, a core issue is that planning personnel should be able to foresee the favorable and unfavorable impacts a new planning proposal may have on dealers, consumers, competitors, and the company's own sales staff after being launched.
Training Path: The cultivation of practical sales ability requires honestly gaining experience in the market and building market sense. However, there is a trick: find a good marketing manager as a mentor to quickly become familiar with the market and master the rules, avoiding detours.
Typical Case: A state-owned feed enterprise originally had good profits and had never done promotions. Later, other enterprises caught up, and this enterprise panicked, hastily convening a sales staff meeting. Sales staff began complaining: "Other companies do great promotions—farmers get a T-shirt with a bag of feed, and big dealers get a 6-day tour to Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand." The enterprise thought, "That's not hard; we can do it too!" In the south, June to August is the busy farming season, when farmers are busy with "double grabbing" (summer harvest and planting), and the aquaculture industry is in the off-season. The off-season must stimulate farmers and induce them to buy. So the enterprise produced T-shirts with the product slogan on the back and the company logo on the front—indeed very nice. By the end of July, sales staff returned from the market and complained again: "Why are promotional items being distributed so late? Others did it long ago." It turned out that competitors had distributed all T-shirts by the end of May, because farmers have no time to buy feed during the busy season; they almost always buy feed before the busy season. At that time, your T-shirts were still being made by the processing enterprise!
Ability 6: Stress Tolerance Ability
Ability Description: Stress tolerance is an inherent ability that a planning supervisor must possess. The pressure on planning supervisors mainly comes from the following aspects: pressure from limited resource investment, pressure from work intensity, pressure from media debt collection, pressure from consumer complaints, pressure from competitors, and even pressure from industrial and commercial departments regarding advertising supervision.
Training Path: Regularly exercise, self-impose pressure, increase workload, and comprehensively exercise your stress tolerance. If you have spare time, you can also read motivational books and CDs such as Chen Anzhi's "Successology" and Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People."
Typical Case: Qian Cheng resigned as the market planning supervisor of H province under K company within half a year. When the author talked with him, he shook his head and said, "Too much pressure." He said that although the work intensity of staying in the office every night to write plans and make plans was high, it was still acceptable. The most fatal thing was the debt collectors: one was the market brothers who were eagerly waiting for preferential investment; the other was advertising companies, media, and printing production units. Every day when they came to work, the salespeople of these companies would sit smiling in front of the planning supervisor's desk to discuss payment issues. Qian Cheng said that he had never owed anyone money in his life, but unexpectedly, he ended up in such a situation at K company, which was heartbreaking. Finally, the pressure was too great, and he had no choice but to resign.
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