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During my service to manufacturers, I am often invited by their distributors to train employees or improve internal management to make sales teams more executable. With years of marketing management experience, dealing with small companies of "three or five people, seven or eight rifles" scale, designing a complete management system is a piece of cake. I easily created a distributor corporate operation manual for these distributors, including warehouse transportation, finance, internal affairs, business operations, etc., and detailed employee management systems such as leave policies and job responsibilities. I also set corporate philosophy, business purpose, and development vision. It was dozens of pages thick, and the distributors were satisfied, hanging important systems in each functional office for guidance and execution.

However, after a period, when I went to inspect the market with the manufacturer, the internal management of the distributors was still the same. Although problems were fewer, many fundamental issues remained unimproved:

  1. Low employee morale, like wooden blocks, needing a whip to move forward;
  2. After painstakingly cultivating a salesperson who could be given some freedom, they "jumped ship";
  3. Sending these guys to run the market daily, morning meetings all said no problems, but when the distributor personally visited, there were many customer complaints; ...

Why can these old problems that trouble distributors not be solved even with such a complete system? Is it a system problem or...? After in-depth interviews, the problems clearly surfaced: First, internal relatives and employees are not paid equally for the same work, nor punished equally for the same mistakes. Relatives even enjoy special privileges and don't follow rules, so employees naturally feel unbalanced; Second, the distributor's motive for introducing the management system is impure. Management should activate people, not restrict them, not be a grandiose shackle imposed by the distributor; Third, the distributor goes back on their word, fails to honor promises, violating the principle of integrity in business dealings, dampening employee enthusiasm, leading to slack and passive work; ...

During interviews, many employees said the system was complete and they learned a lot from it, but the problem was that it wasn't fully implemented. The management system remained a decoration, and people ignored it.

Indeed, is there a lack of management systems in the world? Even a management system or process designed by McKinsey, if not effectively implemented, is just a pile of wastepaper in a drawer, worthless. Moreover, distributor companies are small and don't need anything complex.

So, successful internal management lies "outside the poem"!

Although the distributor academy gave me the topic "Distributor Internal Management," this time I won't discuss how to manage internally. I'll briefly talk about a few "outside-the-poem" skills to ensure effective execution of internal management:

First, ensure process management through checks. The difficulty of marketing management is that salespeople work where the boss can't see them. Once employees go out, it's like "sheep released," relying on self-discipline to make them work honestly is fooling yourself. No amount of systems or forms can fully ensure process management; "the higher-ups have policies, the lower levels have countermeasures," and clever salespeople can easily crack them in at least ten ways. So distributors, no matter how busy, should go out and spot-check salespeople's work. Two points to note: 1. Combine with regular reports and morning meeting feedback; if there's a problem, check immediately; 2. Make checks irregular so these guys can never predict you, making them feel like there's always an eye watching them.

Second, eliminate employees' worries through integrity. This problem exists in all enterprises, only with different severity. Many experts talk about "carrot and stick" approaches. Almost every distributor has a "base salary + commission" standard, and the performance appraisal systems of good distributors aren't necessarily better. Many distributors' problems lie in salespeople working hard to complete tasks but not receiving the bonuses or commissions stipulated in the system, or even having 30% of commissions withheld. Most grassroots salespeople's living conditions aren't ideal. A salesperson once joked: "Work hard all year, no year-end bonus, wife won't even pour foot-washing water." What a tragedy! Therefore, distributors must be honest in this regard. In salary standards, expense reimbursement, and bonus commissions, once a system is formed, honor promises promptly, and salespeople's enthusiasm will naturally not be slack.

Third, create a sense of belonging through career planning. Distributors find it hard to recruit people, and even harder to recruit capable ones! Why? Besides salary, there's a deeper reason: working for a distributor gives no sense of belonging, no development prospects, because the company is small with no room for advancement. This is why many salespeople prefer to start from the grassroots at a manufacturer rather than be a manager at a distributor. So, from the first day an employee joins, the distributor needs to do career planning for them. This sounds a bit vague, but distributors who are too practical can effectively discuss career development with salespeople from a higher level, because grassroots staff aspire to that. Of course, career planning doesn't need to follow HR experts' rules; distributors often have low education and can't learn it anyway. Just do the following points solidly, and over time, distributors will see unexpected results:

  1. Show family-like care to employees. A HR manager at a manufacturer I served once tried this method, which was very effective, and distributors can imitate it—when HR recruits a batch of regional managers, after interviews and hiring, the HR manager and sales manager visit the new regional manager's home. As we know, salespeople have the highest turnover; often when problems arise, salespeople leave, and the manufacturer doesn't understand or find them. But home visits show care for employees; this method costs nothing but is more effective than spending money on meals; second, it shows your company is standardized, and family members are reassured and will fully support his sales work; third, it's a chance to learn about the person's family situation. It kills three birds with one stone.
  2. Treat relatives and employees equally. Distributors often have relatives working in the company, which is fine, but the problem is that kinship breeds privilege. So distributors must be careful: relatives in finance or administration should serve employees well, even if supervising, don't gossip or point fingers in front of employees. Relatives in business should rely on their abilities like non-relative employees, ideally setting an example. Make non-relative employees feel they are part of the company.
  3. Mandate employee development space. Here, development space includes not only positions but also benefits that distributors haven't tried, such as: distributors can stipulate that salespeople who work for one year (of course, those who complete tasks) can have their base salary raised to a certain standard; after two years, besides a raise, buy them pension and social insurance; after three years, help solve household registration issues. The purpose is to retain excellent salespeople.

Fourth, improve business capabilities through training. Training is the investment with the highest return for enterprises. The smaller the company, the more important training is. Due to salary limits, companies can't recruit experts, but at least they should quickly turn newbies into skilled hands. Salespeople with weak foundations, without any training, are thrown into battle, relying only on sales pressure and their "self-study" and "genius" to improve. Poor execution is one thing, but if they blindly rush in without understanding the rules, the damage to the distributor can be immeasurable. Training is not a luxury. Besides having old salespeople "mentor apprentices," distributors can also leverage the manufacturer's resources to systematically train the sales team during the off-season.

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