Click 'Read the original text' for details. The concept of "all-staff marketing" has been around for some years, but from today's perspective, it is clearly underdeveloped. That is not a big problem, just as no one can clearly explain what new retail is today, yet that does not stop new retail from advancing with vigor and pride. All-staff marketing, as the name suggests, the most straightforward understanding is that every person in the company is a sales touchpoint. This is the first layer of meaning of all-staff marketing. A deeper understanding leans toward the meaning of marketing integration, that is, every position within the organization is centered on marketing for resource allocation and support. To achieve the second layer inevitably involves adjustments to organizational structure and functions. For distributors who are accustomed to focusing on the big picture and starting from small steps, doing the first layer well in stages is also a pragmatic choice. In the enterprises of upstream brand owners, the operational target of all-staff marketing is more concentrated on internal personnel. However, for most distributors, the organizational team is not too large. If the focus of all-staff marketing is only on the internal, it is likely to commit the dogmatic error of picking up sesame seeds and losing watermelons. Therefore, all-staff marketing must be a top-down, full-chain marketing, involving changes in three major relationships: between distributors and brand owners, with employees, and with consumers. This is also the concept of everyone-retail, which poses three major challenges to the future positioning of distributors. Relationship with enterprises: from a simple manufacturer-distributor relationship to switching between the identities of employee and distributor Against the backdrop of increasingly flattened channels, the rise of internet platforms, and the weakening of brand owners, the profits of both brand owners and traditional channel distributors are being greatly reduced. The brand premium of small and medium-sized enterprises is increasingly unable to sustain the expenses of sales teams. In previous years, it was not uncommon for brand owners to support employees in starting businesses and becoming enterprise distributors, but in recent years, the reverse operation of turning enterprise distributors into regional sales personnel has become more and more frequent. Distributor Mr. Liu from Shanxi benefited from such a background, and his distributor business multiplied tenfold in just four years. Of course, when I met Mr. Liu again this time, it was already four years later. Back then, he was a salesperson for the company he now distributes for in parts of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. Just over 30 years old, he carried a black briefcase that had long been common everywhere, traveling between the two provinces 365 days a year. Every six months, he returned to the head office for a debriefing, and every month, the order-taking girls, like the黑白无常 (Black and White Impermanence), urged him for orders. Although life was not easy, he still had some leisure time. In 2014, thanks to our suggestion of a "light operation" marketing system for this small-scale enterprise, the company began a sales reform of "all-staff marketing." In this reform, Mr. Liu's identity as a salesperson transformed into the general distributor for the Taiyuan region for this Shenzhen-based company. From then on, Xiao Liu became Mr. Liu, and his relationship with the manufacturer became simpler: from then on, it was just a matter of goods and money, bearing his own profits and losses. In four years, sales in Taiyuan have easily crossed the 5 million mark from a few hundred thousand, but the entire Shanxi province's sales are still less than 8 million. Today, Mr. Liu still has a smiling, Maitreya-like appearance, but his graying temples inadvertently reveal the hardships and worldliness of a businessperson. At this moment, he continues to express his gratitude to us. The "light operation" all-staff marketing policy was further adjusted last year. As a distributor, his identity has now changed somewhat. From salesperson to distributor, from simple transactions to deep cooperation, he is now not only the general agent for Taiyuan but also the manufacturer's representative for the entire Shanxi province. However, as the manufacturer's representative, he has no fixed salary but receives 5 points from the overall sales of Shanxi province as marketing expenses. Mr. Liu seems to have returned to the starting point, but clearly, the starting point is higher than before. This kind of change for Mr. Liu will happen to many distributors in the future, especially those of small and medium-sized enterprises, who can feel this change faster. The trend of channel reform is inevitable, and distributor channels are struggling to find a way out in a form of being broken and then reshaped. The exploration of fully merging the salesperson line and the distributor line, that is, distributors are sales personnel, and sales personnel are distributors, to achieve enterprise burden reduction and employee wealth creation, is one such difficult attempt. Relationship with employees: from a simple employment relationship to switching between the identities of employee and shareholder It is difficult for distributors to recruit people, and even harder to recruit capable people. This is basically a consensus among all distributors. Since the start of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation," a common saying in the marketing circle has been: "Without shares, people do not get rich; without night grass, horses do not get fat." Keeping people, keeping capable people, and after keeping them, making them work hard with all their might—this is a problem distributors think about day and night. Whether to give shares is not the issue; how to give them is the key. Sitting in front of Mr. Zhao, you would never feel that he is a large distributor with a volume exceeding 300 million. In 2013, when the internet was fully rising, Mr. Zhao in Foshan began to study share reform and organizational upgrading. In that era of national entrepreneurship, the younger brothers who had followed him for many years began to become restless. Old Zhao was a person who knew the principle of "when people gather, wealth disperses; when wealth gathers, people disperse." Unfortunately, time was short, and he was forced into action. At the end of that year, Mr. Zhao could only implement the share reform policy in a planned but step-by-step manner. First, a pilot share reform was carried out in the directly operated stores, with Old Zhao holding only 51%, and the remaining shares distributed to key positions and key employees. Share reform is a good thing; it immediately released the enthusiasm of these younger brothers. In 2014, when the overall environment was quite tight, sales in several directly operated stores almost doubled. In the past few years, the construction of hidden channels that they had been shouting about every day saw rapid progress that year. However, as more and more younger brothers met the conditions for share reform, new problems arose: if shares were divided too much, control was lost; if too few, employees lacked motivation. To expand into new markets, Old Zhao later adopted a "non-controlling entrepreneurship plan." He selected employees he liked and, based on their native places, selectively took on some new markets, encouraging employees to register new companies and return to their hometowns to start businesses. For peripheral markets, Mr. Zhao did not hold controlling stakes but only participated in shares, replicating his entire business philosophy to new markets. These employees who returned to their hometowns to start businesses were all loyal followers of Old Zhao for more than ten years, deeply influenced by him. They received help from Old Zhao in funds, goods, and experience, and they were all grateful for his support. Today, Old Zhao holds 51% controlling stakes in directly operated markets, while other markets are only shareholdings. The vast majority of employees have become shareholders of the company. And every employee who has become a shareholder is also working hard to sell every piece of goods for the company. Let employees become shareholders, and let shareholders become employees. When rights and responsibilities fully overlap, the engine of all-staff marketing truly starts. The future belongs to decentralized organizations, where small platforms derive from large platforms, creating more infinite possibilities for both employees and enterprises. Relationship with consumers: from a simple buying and selling relationship to switching between the identities of consumer and seller The ultimate form of new retail is roughly to achieve the situation of everyone-retail, smart retail, and unmanned retail. Among them, everyone-retail is to lower the threshold of retail through technical means, making the form of retail more generalized. In past marketing innovations, the referral of old customers has always been a focus. In today's information-explosive internet era, the precise referrals of old customers are even more valuable. In 2016, the three-level distribution system using QR codes as a medium was ruined by the excessive overdraw of WeChat business, and was labeled as pyramid selling. However, the efforts to try to make consumers become sellers have never stopped among distributors. Mr. Wang from Dongguan is the agent for a certain learning desk and chair brand in Dongguan. For the purchase of such children's learning products, from the earliest prenatal education and early education supplies to later maternal and infant products and electronic teaching products, their target groups are actually highly overlapping, and such groups are also easy to form a small circle. The probability of mutual influence in purchasing among mothers and fathers groups is very high. Based on this understanding, Mr. Wang has also been sparing no effort to find the G-spot of turning consumers into sellers, to open the valve of automatic sales. In 2018, Mr. Wang launched the "Search for the City's Youth Health Public Welfare Activity Promotion Ambassador" activity. Consumers who purchased the public welfare model (that is, the enterprise's special price model, the lowest price for the entire set) of learning desks and chairs within the specified time, as long as they voluntarily signed a contract to participate in the "XX Brand Youth Health Public Welfare Activity Promotion Activity," were awarded the certificate of "Public Welfare Promotion Ambassador." From the date of purchase, if they introduced three consumers to purchase the designated public welfare promotion model within one year, by the end of the year, they could return the equivalent amount of their own purchase of learning desks and chairs with receipts. Even if they did not complete the target of three buyers by the end of the year, they could still receive a refund of 30% of the purchase amount for each one introduced. For such activities, some consumers even directly called over friends from the mother circle at the scene, turning the scene into a buy-three-get-one-free group purchase, which also increased the single purchase amount. For consumers, all-staff marketing is closer to the offline version of everyone-retail. Internet technology only provides us with the possibility to approach more consumers, but to make consumers truly accept you, a living, flesh-and-blood three-dimensional intermediary is far more impactful than a piece of information or a link. In the era of online and offline integration, the most urgent to change and adapt to the environment are distributors. In the history of biological evolution, the ones that ultimately survive are not the strongest, fastest, or largest, but those that change the fastest. The adaptable survive. Just as in the industrial age, the voice that traditional handicraftsmen would completely disappear was loud, but today we are magically experiencing the arrival of the era of traditional handicraftsmen. Perhaps in another ten years, the voices that want to overthrow all distributors will also eventually die down and sigh in despair. From August 22 to 24, the "2018 FMCG China Digital Innovation Conference (2018FDIC)" with the theme "Finding New Engines for Growth" will be held in Shanghai, hosted by the China FMCG Industry Association and organized by New Distribution. The conference will last for 3 days, focusing on two major themes: marketing and supply chain, with six parallel forums on brand, channel, communication, B2B, same-city logistics, and innovative retail. We will invite industry bigwigs, CEOs, and senior brand executives to deeply interpret the trends and drivers of digital transformation in the FMCG industry. We will invite more than 500+ executives from FMCG enterprises, 200+ CEOs from the B2B industry, and 1000+ major distributors in the FMCG industry to gather together to discuss how the FMCG industry can use digital tools to achieve its own rapid growth again in the context of the digital era. This conference will build a bridge for brand owners, distributors, retail enterprises, and marketing institutions, helping FMCG manufacturers obtain the latest information, understand the best application practices, and master more practical transformation skills. Proposed invited companies Conference time August 22-24, 2018 Conference location Shanghai Baohua Marriott Hotel Conference content August 22: All-day check-in Afternoon 14:00-17:30 Distributor same-city logistics parallel forum Evening 18:30-21:00 New Distribution Night Bigwig Dinner August 23: Theme: Marketing Digital Innovation Morning 9:00-12:00 Marketing Digital Innovation Main Forum Afternoon 14:00-17:30 Brand, Channel, Communication Parallel Forums August 24: Theme: FMCG Supply Chain Digital Upgrade All day: FMCG Supply Chain Conference Registration method The registration channel is now open. Long press the QR code below or click 'Read the original text' to register. Limited-time special group purchase prices are hotly being offered! Registration consultation Ticket inquiries: Media cooperation inquiries: Highlights of New Distribution's previous conferences Click the links below to review the highlights of the first, second, third, and fourth FMCG + Internet conferences: -END-