---
title: "Have You Figured Out How to Run Your 2021 Dealer Conference?"
description: "Why do we keep having meetings? Meetings are the most common and troublesome aspect of modern enterprises. Every modern person is trapped in a sea of meetings, attending numerous ones annually, monthly, or even weekly. The only differences are who organizes them and whether you speak. We must reflect on why we meet and why so often. First, for any organization, meetings are undoubtedly necessary. Historical events often tie to important meetings, proving their necessity and significance."
author: "陈思廷"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-11-15"
language: "en"
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markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/have-you-figured-out-how-to-run-your-2021-dealer-conference-5ea79774.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ekAB1sJdbY2ouOSXZwtOYg"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/2021%E5%B9%B4%E7%9A%84%E7%BB%8F%E9%94%80%E5%95%86%E5%B9%B4%E4%BC%9A%E6%80%8E%E4%B9%88%E5%BC%80-%E4%BD%A0%E6%83%B3%E5%A5%BD%E4%BA%86%E5%90%97-5ea79774.md"
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# Have You Figured Out How to Run Your 2021 Dealer Conference?

> Why do we keep having meetings? Meetings are the most common and troublesome aspect of modern enterprises. Every modern person is trapped in a sea of meetings, attending numerous ones annually, monthly, or even weekly. The only differences are who organizes them and whether you speak. We must reflect on why we meet and why so often. First, for any organization, meetings are undoubtedly necessary. Historical events often tie to important meetings, proving their necessity and significance.

**Why do we keep having meetings?**
Meetings are the most common and troublesome aspect of modern enterprises. Every modern person is trapped in a sea of meetings, attending numerous ones annually, monthly, or even weekly. The only differences are who organizes them and whether you speak.

We must reflect: why do we meet? Why so many meetings?

First, for any organization, the necessity of meetings is beyond doubt. Every major historical event is often linked to an important meeting, proving their necessity and importance. For instance, the Paris Peace Conference sparked China's May Fourth Movement, igniting the most vigorous youth democratic movement in modern China. Similarly, the Zunyi Conference became a critical turning point in the Chinese revolution, and the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee was a pivotal moment for China's reform and opening-up.

For modern enterprises, whether in R&D, production, marketing, or HR, meetings are among the most important organizational activities. The Communist Party of China is the world's most adept at convening and conducting meetings. Decisions and policy implementations require meetings; meetings are a fundamental daily work method.

Mao Zedong valued meetings highly: "When there's a problem, call a meeting, put it on the table for discussion, set a few rules, and the problem is solved." He wrote extensively on meetings in "Methods of Work of Party Committees," discussing why to meet, how to run good meetings, and how to avoid formalism.

Mao said, "All party organizations at every level must establish sound committee meeting systems. All important issues must be discussed by the committee, with members fully expressing opinions, making clear decisions, and then implementing them separately." Thus, for the CPC, meetings are a key form of exercising duties. Any organization must hold meetings. So the focus isn't whether to meet, but what meetings to hold and how to run them well.

**As 2021 draws to a close, the dealer conference is the most important annual meeting for FMCG companies. Many prepare for months at great expense. But have you figured out how to run this year's conference well?**

**The Marketing Director's Dealer Conference Pain**
December and January are peak times for dealer conferences. In 2020, due to strict pandemic controls, many companies canceled their conferences. In 2021, despite sporadic cases, the situation has stabilized. According to New Distribution, many FMCG companies plan dealer conferences in December 2021 and January 2022.

This conference is significant as it's the first in two years, and companies are paying close attention. But how to run this exceptional conference is troubling many marketing directors.

**Every dealer conference costs a fortune but increasingly feels like a chicken rib—unpalatable but hard to discard. Not holding it is impossible; holding it costs a lot yet yields little innovation in content or form.**

**Historically, issues like lack of theme, no substance, one-way communication from the company, and outdated formats have plagued these conferences. Companies are dissatisfied, dealers are indifferent—dealer conferences have become the year-end pain for every marketing director.**

Most dealer conferences start with leadership speeches summarizing achievements and outlining future visions, followed by awards for outstanding dealers and their acceptance speeches, and end with a banquet. In essence, leadership speeches, customer awards, and feasting have become the unchangeable three pillars.

Without content innovation, customers have no expectations. Companies spend huge sums to gather channel partners, only to end up with a large customer dinner.

A company rarely has more than two opportunities a year to gather all channel partners. The dealer conference is the most important meeting for a company and its partners—arguably the most critical organizational activity of the year.

So how should we run our dealer conference effectively? Let's illustrate with a brand's conference planning case.

**Three Innovations to Help Companies Run a Successful Dealer Conference**
Brand A is a leading condiment company with sales ranking in the industry's top three and about 3,000 dealers nationwide. They plan to hold their national outstanding dealer conference by the end of December 2021, with around 400 attendees.

How to run this special 2021 conference? The marketing leadership at A was troubled and sought help from New Distribution's conference planning team.

When analyzing A's needs, we asked: Who is the core audience? What do they care about most? What does A expect from dealers? What are the brand's strategic goals for next year?

Undoubtedly, the core audience is the dealers. But what do they care about most? Is it which leader speaks? They care, but that's not their top concern. They care about matters affecting their own fate.

Two things directly affect dealers: the company's next-year goals and channel policies, and industry trends and their own capability growth.

The first is covered in every company's conference. But the second—empowering dealers—is rarely addressed.

What does the brand expect from dealers? In China's FMCG industry, over 90% of sales are achieved through dealers. So, **the primary purpose of the conference is to unify the dealer team's thinking and understanding, then clarify next year's goals and plans, and finally, to have dealers identify with and rally around the brand, achieving next year's market goals without reservation.**

To achieve these goals, traditional content and formats are limited. Based on these considerations, the New Distribution team proposed three innovations in the conference plan.

**1. Innovation in Organization and Theme**
Why have past conferences been ineffective? First, the brand is the sole organizer, so dealers naturally think, "You invited me to educate me, maybe even to commit to next year's tasks." With such a mindset, dealers instinctively become defensive and adversarial, undermining the goal of unifying understanding.

New Distribution is a professional media outlet with influence in the FMCG industry, with expertise and credibility in industry trends, dealer development, channel upgrades, and digital transformation.

So, we suggested A innovate in organization: instead of being the sole organizer, A would co-host the summit with New Distribution.

This has two benefits: First, New Distribution's co-hosting provides third-party media endorsement, reducing the awkwardness of the company talking to itself while dealers ignore it. It also lessens dealers' fatigue and resistance to the content.

Second, the content isn't just internal company policy. New Distribution adds industry trend reports, condiment industry research and analysis, and professional talks on dealer transformation and upgrading.

This gives dealers more than just the brand's perspective—they hear broader industry insights, a valuable opportunity for dealers who rarely venture beyond their own turf.

With New Distribution as co-host, we also suggested the theme combine industry trends with corporate strategy, rather than clichés like "Unite for Greater Glory."

**2. Innovation in Speakers: Internal and External**
Previously, only company and dealer representatives spoke—leaders and award-winning dealers. Such closed-door meetings often repeat old topics, lacking fresh third-party ideas. Some dealers even say they know what a leader will say before they speak, leading to boredom and drowsiness.

In planning A's conference, we designed speeches including New Distribution executives sharing industry trend reports, inviting well-known restaurant chain executives to discuss condiment trends, and marketing experts to share on lean management for dealers.

**This content helps dealers understand not only how to do business with A but also the overall condiment trends, terminal customer needs, and how to meet them.**

Additionally, dealers learn how to transform and upgrade their own companies, improve management, and enhance profitability and competitiveness.

Achieving these makes the conference truly empowering for dealers.

**3. Innovation in Content and Format**
Past conferences were often dull by day and drunken feasts by night. To break this habit, content innovation is essential.

In co-creation meetings with A's team, we understood their needs and goals, combined with A's next-year strategic goals, and planned content with different directions and themes.

**The direction is to start from business, focus on dealer business, be practical, and avoid empty talk. Only content that genuinely benefits dealers will be welcomed.** If the conference is just for eating and drinking, don't dealers already have plenty of good food?

Besides content, the format must innovate to keep dealers engaged and awake.

Traditional formats were one-way: stage to audience, leader to dealers. We proposed innovations like roundtable dialogues or GM dialogues, involving some dealers in live discussions. Dealers are highly participatory; once involved, the atmosphere will heat up.

We also suggested that dealer sharing be in-depth, not just simple acceptance speeches. Often, dealers lack speaking experience and get nervous, affecting the impact.

So, we proposed that **New Distribution first interview outstanding dealers recommended by the company, help organize their experiences into cases, and rehearse with them to ensure effective sharing.**

After three weeks of communication and planning, New Distribution and A's marketing team developed a mutually satisfactory plan. A's team is confident they will make the 2021 conference one of the most distinctive and valuable in their history.

These are some of New Distribution's thoughts and practices on "how to run a successful dealer conference." After reading this, are you more confident about running this year's conference?

We focus on researching and reporting excellent FMCG brand cases. For communication, you can add WeChat by long-pressing, noting your company, position, and name.

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