---
title: "How Manufacturer Sales Personnel Can Understand Distributors"
description: "Manufacturer sales personnel serve as the bridge and bond between the manufacturer and distributors. If this role is played well, cooperation will be smooth; otherwise, conflicts may escalate, harming the market. Therefore, sales personnel must understand distributors to build good relationships and manage the market effectively. First, they should survey the market before visiting distributors, as this facilitates communication. Distributors dislike salespeople who are absent except for payment collection, rarely visit the market, lack market knowledge, or act arrogantly. Salespeople must also identify and solve market problems, act as both coach and player, and avoid empty promises or blame-shifting. A capable salesperson who understands distributors can make a market thrive."
author: "段杨"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-06-21"
language: "en"
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markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/how-manufacturer-sales-personnel-can-understand-distributors-2d3e48ef.md"
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# How Manufacturer Sales Personnel Can Understand Distributors

> Manufacturer sales personnel serve as the bridge and bond between the manufacturer and distributors. If this role is played well, cooperation will be smooth; otherwise, conflicts may escalate, harming the market. Therefore, sales personnel must understand distributors to build good relationships and manage the market effectively. First, they should survey the market before visiting distributors, as this facilitates communication. Distributors dislike salespeople who are absent except for payment collection, rarely visit the market, lack market knowledge, or act arrogantly. Salespeople must also identify and solve market problems, act as both coach and player, and avoid empty promises or blame-shifting. A capable salesperson who understands distributors can make a market thrive.

Manufacturer sales personnel are the bridge and bond between the manufacturer and distributors. If this bridge and bond function excellently, cooperation between the manufacturer and distributors will be very pleasant; if this link is not handled well, conflicts between the manufacturer and distributors will increase, even intensify, causing great harm to the market. Therefore, as manufacturer sales personnel, you must understand distributors before you can talk about building good relationships with them, and then talk about doing the market well and managing it well.

First, when sales personnel arrive in the market, they should first get an understanding of the market before going to the distributor. Do not go straight to the distributor as soon as you get off the car; before you even sit down, the distributor raises one or two market questions that stump you, and you don't know how to respond. In fact, the goals of the manufacturer and distributor are the same: both want to do the market well and strengthen the brand to maximize profits. Therefore, whether you are a salesperson for a weak brand or a strong brand, you should go to the market every day. The more thoroughly you understand the market and the more problems you know, the easier communication with the distributor becomes. Distributors themselves also pay attention to the market every day; on one hand, they go to the market to understand; on the other hand, they receive market information feedback from their business personnel. Whether goods sell well or not is the distributor's biggest concern. So if manufacturer sales personnel understand the market more and more deeply than the distributor, it goes without saying that such sales personnel can build good relationships with distributors, and distributors are very willing to deal with such sales personnel. Conversely, distributors will feel antipathy from the bottom of their hearts. Distributors dislike these types of manufacturer sales personnel the most:

1. Usually invisible, but when it's time to pay at the end of the month, they appear, urging payment more urgently than anyone;
2. Rarely go to the market, don't care about the market, and occasionally go to the distributor to freeload. Completing the monthly task by luck is considered a victory;
3. Go to the market often but don't understand it, only know a little superficial knowledge, and only give blind commands, completely off the mark, unable to solve practical problems;
4. Put on airs of a leader, speak in a bureaucratic tone, treat the distributor as their subordinate, and after two visits, they make the distributor disgusted.

Therefore, it is particularly important for sales personnel to work steadily in the market and be honest in dealing with people in front of distributors.

Second, on the basis of understanding the market, sales personnel must learn to discover problems, and after discovering problems, they must be good at solving them. The market is ever-changing, and various problems arise every day. This requires our sales personnel to have the ability to discover market problems and solve them. For example, why has market sales declined? What is the reason for the decline? This requires analyzing the reasons, finding the problems, and then prescribing the right remedy. Another example: why haven't sales increased for a long time? Is it due to competitors, inappropriate promotions, or low distribution rate? If any aspect is not done well, assist the distributor to adjust and correct it as soon as possible. If manufacturer sales personnel can do this level of work with dedication, what problems between the manufacturer and distributor cannot be solved? Distributors are afraid of encountering these types of sales personnel:

1. When encountering market resistance or discovering market problems, instead of thinking of ways for the distributor and solving difficulties, they only find faults and complain that the distributor didn't do this or that well, attributing all problems to the distributor, as if the manufacturer has no responsibility.
2. Recklessly promise the distributor, asking them to do this activity or that activity. The distributor spends a lot of money, but the manufacturer doesn't know about it at all, or knows but the promotion application report hasn't been approved. The distributor does the promotion activity, but the expenses cannot be reimbursed, and in the end, the salesperson leaves without taking responsibility.
3. Avoid and evade problems, pretend to be confused about existing market problems, delay resolution for a long time, or simply lack the ability to solve problems, leading to escalating conflicts between the manufacturer and distributor that remain unresolved.
4. Be indifferent to the market expenses advanced by the distributor, or be unclear about the company's expense reimbursement process, only caring about sales volume and payment collection. In the end, the distributor's expenses are deducted by the manufacturer or cannot be reimbursed, causing the distributor to suffer undue losses, and the salesperson cannot stay in that market either.

Therefore, an excellent salesperson is not only an executor of the manufacturer's policies but also a consultant to the distributor. If sales personnel can offer advice and make correct market guidance for the distributor, how can the distributor not cooperate?

Third, sales personnel should act as both coach and player. For example, if distribution is not moving, take the lead in distributing, setting a model; if supermarkets are hard to negotiate, bring the distributor's business personnel to negotiate together; if display is not up to standard, create a standard for others to learn from; if secondary wholesalers are not opened, assist the distributor's business personnel to open them together. In this way, the distributor will be grateful from the bottom of their heart, thinking that you are truly helping them. Then you won't worry about payment at the end of the month. Distributors are most unwilling to see these types of sales personnel:

1. Talk eloquently but don't take action themselves, only talk without practice;
2. Engage in armchair strategy, doing unrealistic things, thinking that filling a few forms and writing a few market plans can solve all market problems;
3. Say the distributor's business personnel lack ability in this or that, but in fact, their own ability is not much better.

Therefore, whether a salesperson is capable or not, the distributor can tell through a few conversations and observing their work attitude. Distributors interact with many manufacturer sales personnel, and they have a scale in their hearts.

Therefore, an excellent salesperson can make a market flourish, which is related to the salesperson's ability to understand distributors.

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