---
title: "From Zero to 50 Million in Annual Sales in 5 Years: What This Distributor Did..."
description: "During the golden decade of the baijiu industry, some distributors, platform operators, and brand operators seized opportunities to make quick profits, and even some non-industry bosses could make money by licensing a famous baijiu brand for national recruitment. However, in the past two years, the industry has undergone deep adjustment, sifting out the genuine from the false. Distributors without a base market or stable consumer base, especially traditional ones, have been falling away. Strictly speaking, cultivating a base market is the foundation for a baijiu distributor's survival and growth. Using a real case, the author explains how to build and strengthen a regional market."
author: "朱奎林"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-09-12"
language: "en"
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# From Zero to 50 Million in Annual Sales in 5 Years: What This Distributor Did...

> During the golden decade of the baijiu industry, some distributors, platform operators, and brand operators seized opportunities to make quick profits, and even some non-industry bosses could make money by licensing a famous baijiu brand for national recruitment. However, in the past two years, the industry has undergone deep adjustment, sifting out the genuine from the false. Distributors without a base market or stable consumer base, especially traditional ones, have been falling away. Strictly speaking, cultivating a base market is the foundation for a baijiu distributor's survival and growth. Using a real case, the author explains how to build and strengthen a regional market.

During the golden decade of the baijiu industry, some distributors, platform operators, and brand operators seized opportunities to make quick profits, and even some non-industry bosses could make money by licensing a famous baijiu brand for national recruitment. However, in the past two years, the industry has undergone deep adjustment, sifting out the genuine from the false. Distributors without a base market or stable consumer base, especially traditional ones, have been falling away. Strictly speaking, cultivating a base market is the foundation for a baijiu distributor's survival and growth. Using a real case, the author explains how to build and strengthen a regional market for peer exchange and reference.
Huzhou, Zhejiang, is located in the center of the Yangtze River Delta, adjacent to Jiangsu and Anhui provinces. With a total population of less than 3 million, it administers two districts and three counties. The local drinking culture is strong, with low-alcohol products of 33% and 38% ABV being the mainstay. As a prefecture-level city, its economic level ranks lower in Zhejiang, but its baijiu consumption volume ranks first. Before 2008, Tuopai, one of China's 17 famous liquors, had zero sales in this market. Now, Tuopai is a household name locally, far surpassing former market leaders like Luzhou series and Yilite series, becoming the absolute king. This success has attracted many distributors and factory personnel to visit and learn.
As the market supervisor for Tuopai, I experienced and witnessed the entire process of its growth and expansion. I can't help but marvel that it has created another industry miracle, becoming a typical case of a single product breaking through in a regional market.
**I. The Three Starting Pillars: Team, Capital, and Product**
Before launching, the Huzhou Tuopai general distributor had clear strategic preparations in both thought and action.
1. Team Building: First, a management team of six was formed from friends from different industries with certain network resources and a willingness to fully commit to the liquor industry. They divided work reasonably, collaborated highly, but did not interfere with each other (the chairman managed the overall situation, and the general manager was both a management expert and sales expert). Subsequently, a professional business execution team was formed.
2. Capital Preparation: The six-member management team invested according to their shares, preparing sufficient initial order payment and operating funds.
3. Brand Selection and Product Positioning: The distributor visited major liquor enterprises nationwide and finally decided on Tuopai, moved by Tuopai's quality management and ecological management philosophy, and attracted by its stable quality and ample high-quality base liquor reserves. In terms of product positioning, considering market and consumer characteristics, the famous brewing master and blending master, Mr. Li Jiashun and Mr. Li Jiamin, personally designed a product tailored for Huzhou consumers: one liquor body in two specifications—33% ABV in 500ml and 250ml bottles—priced at 50 yuan and 30 yuan. The soft, sweet, clean, and refreshing style with a lingering aftertaste, coupled with affordable pricing, played a crucial role in the rapid market development that followed.
**II. The Three Doors to Market Entry: Consumers, Channels, and Distributors**
1. The Consumer Door
Whether a product can take root depends first on consumers. Without consumers, the market door remains closed forever. After the product arrived, the Tuopai general distributor did not rush to find sub-distributors or blanket the market with products. Instead, they focused on one thing: using all means to invite people to meals and drinks, and giving each guest two bottles of wine and a product flyer on departure. They invited people to taste the liquor in three main ways: first, leveraging shareholders' and friends' circles; second, leveraging the business team's relationship networks; and third, leveraging hotel owners' and regular customers' circles. This tactic worked immediately. Because of the product's good quality and the fact that everyone was within their network, quite a few people came back to buy.
2. The Channel Door
For a mass consumer product to spread quickly and reach thousands of households, channels are an indispensable path. Faced with numerous channels such as supermarkets, famous tobacco and liquor stores, and catering, the distributor ultimately chose to start with hotels, which have the highest operating costs. According to traditional practice, products in the tens of yuan range should be placed in B and C class stores. However, they started with several four-star hotels that were relatively upscale and few in number at the time, such as Tianhuang Hotel. They operated with a refined approach: first, starting with the simplest basic work—in-store displays, stack displays, pull-up banners, and private room tastings. Second, providing supporting materials and building rapport with service staff, such as shampoo, towels, and umbrellas. Third, encouraging service staff to push more sales with a one-time reward for box tops and a secondary reward for bottle caps. Fourth, driving end-consumer pull with bottle-opening prizes, including lighters, razors, electric bikes, and trips to Beijing, Taiwan, and Europe. Fifth, reaching deep cooperation with hotel middle and senior management to form a community of interests, exchanging resources, providing expense sponsorship, purchasing dining vouchers, and offering sales incentives. They encouraged hotels to fully promote Tuopai and create Tuopai-exclusive events. With their unique business and network advantages, coupled with consumer recognition of the product's good value, several major hotels gradually spread Tuopai's reputation.
With the catering leaders driving momentum, moving on to other B and C class hotels, then famous tobacco and liquor stores, supermarkets, and group purchase channels was basically a natural progression, advancing quickly and smoothly.
3. The Distributor Door
To grow the market pie, it is necessary to leverage sub-distributors and effectively integrate their advantageous channel resources. As the consumer and channel doors gradually opened, some county-level distributors proactively extended olive branches, showing willingness to cooperate. At this point, the Tuopai general distributor adopted a cautious approach to developing and selecting sub-distributors. They chose partners by county, selecting those with strength and channel network advantages. If conditions were not mature, they preferred not to develop them temporarily. Once an excellent sub-distributor was confirmed, they immediately stationed a business team to directly handle market development and maintenance.
**III. Two Growth Hurdles: 10 Million and 50 Million Yuan**
Early market development was arduous, requiring both sweat and wisdom. It took the general distributor more than three years to reach annual sales of 10 million yuan. During these three-plus years, the focus was on one market: the urban area. The main urban area focused on direct operation of catering channels, while also covering supermarkets and famous tobacco and liquor stores. In the suburbs, they selected the four largest towns for full-channel operations.
From 10 million to 50 million yuan in annual sales took only two years. The focus was on two markets: first, continuing to invest heavily in the urban area, and second, doing well in Changxing County, with teams going down to townships for station-based operations. Other markets were only laid out and developed incidentally.
To build a market, one must persist in carpet-style advancement, doing fine, detailed, and thorough work to become big and strong. The Tuopai general distributor's team did this and persisted, and the market yielded gratifying results. These two hurdles, which the industry calls development bottlenecks, were overcome by adhering to the following four key points:
**1. Attracting Talent:** As business needs grew, they timely recruited and brought in excellent executive managers, and added professional channel operation and group purchase personnel. Through environment, compensation, and promotion platforms, they effectively retained talent. Over the years, basically no excellent management or business personnel voluntarily left, maintaining team stability.
**2. Team Downward Deployment:** Taking one town or two adjacent towns as a unit, they formed 3-5 person teams for refined operations. The general distributor always insisted on building a self-operated direct sales team and never relied on sub-distributors to do market work. This effectively controlled the channel network and market initiative.
**3. Expense Implementation:** Brand expenses, display expenses, tasting expenses, promotional expenses, bottle cap expenses, and relationship expenses were never passed through the hands of sub-distributors or channel merchants. They were always implemented directly by market supervisors. This ensured that market expenses were fully realized and effective. Expenses were completely separated from product prices, ensuring healthy market development. As a local city manager put it, Tuopai's local victory had much to do with their proper market expense control and thorough execution of market activities. Conversely, other competing products that were once strong were forced to retreat step by step because their market management had problems, leading to price declines, reduced channel profits, and sales enthusiasm gradually shifting toward Tuopai products.
**4. Relationship Building:** Selling liquor requires both profit and emotion. Tuopai achieved this in the Huzhou market. At product launch, tasting events were continuous. Since then, three annual activities have been indispensable: the Mid-Autumn Festival ordering meeting, the Spring Festival networking event, and off-season travel activities. Participants included sub-distributors, channel merchants, core terminal owners, core consumers, and group purchase unit personnel. Sellers made profits and had fun selling; drinkers drank healthily and happily.
**IV. Four Weapons for Rapid Growth: Flattening the Market, Controlled Pricing, Promotional Lock-in, and Combating Cross-regional Dumping**
When the market foundation is solid enough and brand influence ranks in the top three locally, further growth is less about strength and service and more about wisdom—a battle without gunpowder. Because when one brand sells more, the market clearly reflects that other brands sell less. Competitors can clearly feel sales fluctuations. At the critical moment, the Tuopai general distributor wielded four swords:
1. Decisively and deeply flattening the market. This completely broke the previous model of setting up distributors by county, changing to a township-based model where each township had 2 to 5 distributors by area and channel. As a result, the number of distributors suddenly expanded to over 200. These former lower-level customers became direct partners, greatly boosting their enthusiasm and fully leveraging their advantageous channel resources, leading to doubled sales. Of course, this caused dissatisfaction among the former county-level distributors. To resolve conflicts, the general distributor promised that as long as they continued cooperation according to relevant regulations and completed tasks in their reserved markets, their annual profits would be guaranteed not lower than the same period before. With this move, over 60% of quality liquor merchants united to work together on Tuopai, forming a community of interests.
2. Launching a controlled pricing sales model where the supply price equals the retail price, ensuring price system stability. Product price is the lifeline of the market. Many brand products, once they sell well, see their prices collapse, marking the beginning of decline. After full market flattening, the Tuopai general distributor immediately introduced a policy: all sub-distributors and secondary wholesalers supply at retail prices, with no low-price sales and no cross-regional dumping. Their profits came entirely from rebates. Terminal sales rose significantly, but retail prices fluctuated little because profit margins at each distribution level were scientifically designed and controlled, leaving very limited room for price concessions.
3. Making promotions frequent and diverse to lock in sub-distributors' idle funds, leaving less opportunity for competing brands, and ensuring the strong get stronger. Every month of the year had policies, combining monthly, quarterly, and annual incentives. Monthly rebates, quarterly rebates, capital interest, storage subsidies, and travel rewards came in rich variety. Sub-distributors couldn't dodge them, and competitors were overwhelmed. The general distributor creatively formulated a chain promotion method that ran through the entire peak sales season, ensuring steady annual sales growth.
The chain promotion method, from October to the end of March each year, set a total task for each sub-distributor over these six months, allocated monthly. Task figures were based on the same period last year and market saturation, with a 10%-30% growth base. Sub-distributors had to complete the overall task and monthly tasks, with inventory not exceeding 30%. This qualified them for monthly awards, peak-season promotional awards, capital interest, and storage subsidies.
4. Combating cross-regional dumping with heavy blows, institutional safeguards, and addressing both symptoms and root causes. Cross-regional dumping is fatal to the market. The general distributor applied secondary coding and marking to all products, strictly distinguishing products for different regions and sub-distributors. They also established a dedicated market inspection team, led by a deputy general manager responsible for rectifying dumping. Clear penalty rules for distributor dumping were stipulated and strictly enforced. Through multiple crackdowns on dumping incidents, all sub-distributors now consciously comply, and no one actively dumps products. The market has been purified and protected.
It is harder to defend a kingdom than to conquer one. The king's position constantly attracts attention and attacks from many competitors. To make the brand distribution path go further and more steadily, the Huzhou Tuopai general distributor has timely introduced a new product launch strategy, attracting over 200 distributors to cooperate through shareholding, forming a strategic alliance to continue growing stronger.
Source: Jiuye Jia (酒业家)
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