---
title: "How Did He Achieve Annual Sales Over 100 Million in a County Town with a Million Population, Representing Brands like Mondelez, Lay's, and Qiaqia?"
description: "A distributor in a county town with a population of over one million achieved annual sales exceeding 100 million by transforming from a brand agent to a channel supply chain company, focusing on the snack category, optimizing channel structure, and improving salesperson efficiency through a 'salesperson + merchandiser' model."
author: "周群"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2024-04-16"
language: "en"
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# How Did He Achieve Annual Sales Over 100 Million in a County Town with a Million Population, Representing Brands like Mondelez, Lay's, and Qiaqia?

> A distributor in a county town with a population of over one million achieved annual sales exceeding 100 million by transforming from a brand agent to a channel supply chain company, focusing on the snack category, optimizing channel structure, and improving salesperson efficiency through a 'salesperson + merchandiser' model.

"Business is getting harder and harder. Now I feel anxious every night when I look at the reports, especially seeing the data of many quality stores declining. I feel lost about the future." This is the real feedback from a distributor friend I visited in Shandong a couple of days ago.
On one hand, upstream overcapacity, supply exceeding demand, and increasingly homogeneous products have intensified competition among local peers. On the other hand, various new channels are emerging, from community group buying to front warehouses and snack stores, all cutting into offline business.
**Industry changes and channel fragmentation are putting increasing pressure on distributors.** The harder times are, the more we need to look at the practices and thoughts of excellent large distributors externally. This is also the significance of the 'New Distribution 100 People' column.
Today's protagonist of 'New Distribution 100 People' is Xie Xuejin, a distributor with 24 years of entrepreneurial experience and general manager of Mengcheng Xishi Trading. The company primarily deals in snack foods, representing over 50 brands including Mondelez, Mars, Lay's, Qiaqia, and Wuzhou, with more than 1,800 SKUs.
Since 2017, Xishi Trading has deeply cultivated all channels and maintained good growth every year. In a county town with a permanent population of over one million, annual sales exceed 100 million.
Recently, New Distribution had an in-depth exchange with Xie Xuejin, general manager of Xishi Trading, in Mengcheng, Anhui. This article shares some of his practices and thoughts, hoping to bring you some inspiration.
**Doing Supply Chain Business**
**Rather Than Agency Business**
Xishi Trading was established in 2000, making it a relatively early trading company. At the beginning, it mainly did wholesale business on a small scale, with little change in the first four years.
It wasn't until 2004 that Xishi Trading represented its first brand and formally started the distribution agency business. From then on, the categories and brands represented by Xishi Trading gradually increased each year, spanning beverages, non-staple foods, snacks, and seasonings.
However, over time, problems gradually emerged. On one hand, although the categories were rich, each category was not handled very professionally. On the other hand, after the scale reached 50 million, it became difficult to achieve growth by adding brands, and growth hit a bottleneck.
So, starting in 2017, Xie Xuejin reorganized the company's development direction. He abandoned the concept of doing business with a brand mindset, actively reduced dependence on brands, and increased the business team's emphasis on channels.
**First, reposition yourself as a channel supply chain business, not a brand agency business.**
In essence, capital and brands are not the advantages of distributors; only channels are the core advantage.
In the past, when doing trading business, distributors often had to passively 'listen, follow, and execute' whatever the brand asked them to do.
But what brands want is not necessarily the real needs of stores. For example, when launching new products, not every new product is suitable for every store, but sometimes under pressure, they have to distribute widely, and if the results are poor, it harms the store relationship.
"Don't do brands for face; instead, do products that help channels, terminals, and the team." Xie Xuejin redefined his trading company as a supply chain company.
**From a supply chain perspective, with store needs at the core, provide whatever products stores need. Helping stores increase sales will naturally feed back into your own business growth.**
**Second, focus on advantageous categories. First concentrate on becoming a professional supply chain for one category, then expand to other categories.**
Although Xishi Trading handled many categories in the past, based on its own genes, it had more advantages in the snack category. Moreover, the Mengcheng market has a strong gift box culture, and snacks are the main force in gift boxes.
**"Doing one category thoroughly is more important than doing many categories superficially."** Xie Xuejin decided to first focus on the snack category, and after doing it well, tackle other categories one by one.
**Third, optimize channel structure and supplement the sales decline of a single channel through multi-channel layout and operation.**
**The decline in sales of a single channel and the trend of channel fragmentation are irreversible. For local trading business, you must pay attention to new channels in the region.**
Xishi Trading proactively optimized its channel structure, reducing the proportion of wholesale business to below 10%, while accelerating the development of new retail, special channels, and deep cultivation of traditional small stores, building an omni-channel layout.
Facts have proven that Xie Xuejin's series of adjustments and practices were correct, and Xishi Trading returned to a fast track of healthy growth. **In five years, the business scale doubled, with annual sales exceeding 100 million.**
**Improving Salesperson Efficiency Is Not About Pressuring Salespeople**
**But About Making Them 'Do Less'**
Salesperson efficiency has always been a headache for distributors because **the level of efficiency directly determines the operational efficiency and profitability of the distributor.** But often, due to wrong methods, salesperson efficiency cannot be improved.
For example, if one salesperson is responsible for 100-120 stores and visits weekly, they need to visit nearly 20 stores per day. In each store, they need to do relationship building, account reconciliation, sales, new product promotion, inspection, maintenance, and for key stores, also do visual merchandising.
After a standard set of actions, plus travel time, the salesperson's time and energy are completely dispersed. Can efficiency be high?
In Xie Xuejin's view, **the key to improving salesperson efficiency is to free them up and let them 'do less.'** So Xishi Trading adopts a 'salesperson + resident merchandiser' model on the business side.
**Salespeople focus on three things:**
> **1. Act as business consultants for stores, continuously increasing store stickiness.** For example, providing business advice, helping improve the shopping environment, and sharing good market cases.
>
> **2. Help customers select products and optimize product structure.** Since positioning as a supply chain, use a high-level perspective to help stores optimize shelf product structure.
>
> **3. Sell products, promote new products, and communicate activity display resources.** The essential job of a salesperson is sales, which is also the most core work.
**Merchandisers take over other tasks that salespeople used to do, also focusing on three things:**
> 1. Follow company standards to provide store services, such as product shelving, display maintenance, facing maintenance, and inventory maintenance. 2. Visit frequently, basically every 2 days per store, with a maximum interval of 4 days.
>
> 3. According to company tasks, take photos and check in. For example, some brand display requirements need daily management, which is handed over to merchandisers.
**Through the 'merchandiser + salesperson' combination, salespeople's time and energy are fully focused on sales, without worrying about trivial matters, maximizing value.**
Especially during peak seasons like Spring Festival, when migrant workers return home and many consumers go out to buy New Year goods, store sales are fast. Relying solely on salespeople would miss many orders. The 'resident merchandiser' as a stable frontline combatant can quickly meet demand during peak seasons, achieving twice the result with half the effort.
**The Key to Supply Chain Business**
**Is to Help Stores Do Business Well First**
**The essence of supply chain business is a business model centered on meeting store needs.** If stores are active and place more orders, the distributor's business will naturally be good.
How to increase store activity?
**First, build good relationships.** In the entire northern Anhui region, emotional communication is generally valued, so building good relationships with stores is crucial.
**On one hand, 'salesperson + resident merchandiser' provides high-frequency face-to-face service.** Store owners can frequently see your company's employees, naturally building stronger trust.
**On the other hand, the boss should personally participate in store management.**
For stores with high annual sales, organize no fewer than 3-4 promotional meetings each year, led by the boss personally. The purpose of these meetings is to increase the store's sense of belonging and trust, and to understand the current problems faced by key stores and provide solutions.
**Second, help stores make money.** The essence of opening a store is to make money. If you can help stores earn more, they will naturally favor you.
From the distributor's perspective, the core is two levels: **first, provide stores with good business ideas and strategies; second, provide stores with good products.**
What does providing good business ideas mean?
Many distributors' business logic focuses on distributing products to small stores, but now distribution is not enough. The focus should be on sell-through, **helping small stores sell products. When small stores do well, orders naturally increase.**
For example, snack chain stores have a big impact on stores. Xishi Trading helps stores provide solutions: the price of best-selling products can be lowered, but don't place such products in key positions; good display positions should be for high-margin, non-transparent products.
Then provide good products. In the past, the logic of brand agency was: I have what I push; but now it is: what the store needs, I find for them.
**Final Thoughts**
In the current market, distributors generally face two problems:
**First, the trading industry has entered a white-hot stage. Factory pressure, task indicators, etc., cause distributors to fall into anxiety and lose direction.**
**Second, channel diversification, and not knowing how to respond to these changes.** Previously, there were only wholesale and small stores. Now there are about 8-10 channels, including online and offline, O2O, community group buying, snack stores, etc.
Against this backdrop, **distributors need to develop new capabilities:**
**The ability to find and promote new products.** Many 'old products' have very weak growth in the market and have little profit. Distributors need to keenly observe market and store needs and continuously promote new products.
**Multi-category supply chain management capability.** Most distributors focus on one category, but in the future, moving towards supply chain development will inevitably face cross-category issues. So now, during the extension process, they need to explore methods for cross-category management.
**Multi-channel operation capability.** Channel fragmentation is irreversible. If you still stick to your own small plot, the market will only be gradually eroded by competitors, and your survival ability will decline.
**Continuous learning and thinking capability.** Look at how excellent peers do business. Only by comparison can you know the feasibility of the path and avoid many detours.


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