---
title: "How to Solve the Problem of \"Tilling but Not Cultivating\" in Route Visits?"
description: "The article discusses the common issue of \"tilling but not cultivating\" in route visits by sales representatives in FMCG companies, where visits are made but not effectively managed. It proposes solutions such as terminal classification, key person identification, effective visit standards, and customer complaint and delivery management, all centered on customer relationship management to improve execution and market competitiveness."
author: "方刚"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-06-25"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/lElHLY_aibUaaYyvWK0XiQ"
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# How to Solve the Problem of "Tilling but Not Cultivating" in Route Visits?

> The article discusses the common issue of "tilling but not cultivating" in route visits by sales representatives in FMCG companies, where visits are made but not effectively managed. It proposes solutions such as terminal classification, key person identification, effective visit standards, and customer complaint and delivery management, all centered on customer relationship management to improve execution and market competitiveness.

Route visits by sales reps: "Tilling but not cultivating"

Reflections
(1) Channel intensive cultivation, meticulous farming, and deep distribution have become synonymous with many companies' marketing systems. But does "intensive cultivation" guarantee "meticulous farming"?
(2) Should intensive cultivation last forever? Should channels continue to be weakened? Must all orders be taken by the company?
(3) Execution is the basic guarantee system of enterprise management, but what is true execution?
(4) Customer relationship is a form of interpersonal relationship and is a soft indicator for enterprise management. In marketing system assessments, indicators such as sales volume, expenses, distribution rate, and visual merchandising can be quantified. However, for soft indicators like customer relationship, companies often feel helpless. How can "customer relationship management" be systematically addressed?

Currently, more and more FMCG companies are introducing deep distribution. In FMCG companies implementing channel intensive cultivation, facing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of terminals and hundreds or thousands of sales reps, they bear high "intensive cultivation" costs.

Route visits are the foundation of channel intensive cultivation, but the phenomenon of "tilling but not cultivating" often occurs. Many people think it's a problem with the company's assessment system, i.e., execution issues. Although strengthening execution is a good choice to solve the "tilling but not cultivating" problem in route visits, execution must be based on a clear "marching route." Execution without a clear route can lead to the tragedy of "one incompetent general exhausting the entire army." The premise of building execution is "knowing how to execute."

Moreover, simply strengthening assessment and overemphasizing execution is like the execution under the landlord's "whip," which may result in passive resistance or even "armed uprising" and "overthrowing the landlord and dividing the land."

**In actual market operations, taking market development as an example, companies generally adopt the following methods when entering a market:**
(1) Strong brands typically use the company's air support (advertising) and leverage channel power to concentrate distribution. After rapidly increasing distribution rate, they deploy route personnel for consolidation visits.
(2) Weak brands, without advertising support, typically deploy route personnel. Based on channel support, route personnel conduct penetration visits.

Thus, terminal visits become a daily routine for sales reps. In actual terminal visits, although there are management tools such as morning meetings, form operations, indicator checks, and performance assessments, some sales reps face dozens of stores on their daily route manual and are often in a daze before departure. Not knowing the theme and purpose of the day's visit, many sales reps just go through the motions to complete the day's visits, even coping or falsifying, like a drive shaft without power transmission, running idle without any function—"tilling but not cultivating"!

In "penetration markets," when facing a newly developed market, the phenomenon of "tilling but not cultivating" is more likely to occur.

In practice, I encountered a case: **a liquor company that had introduced a deep distribution system for nearly two years encountered the above "troubles" in local market growth.**
(1) In penetration visits, some of the company's growth markets had the problem of "tilling but not cultivating, only blooming but not bearing fruit" (as the company president put it).
(2) The company made great efforts to strengthen checks and improve execution, increasing rewards and punishments, but the overall effect was not obvious.
(3) There was a large turnover of personnel, including some key business backbone that the company had focused on training.
(4) Some regional distributors began to reduce their own sales staff, retaining only delivery personnel, almost completely relying on company orders.

In daily management, although the company's local offices made detailed breakdowns and assessments of data such as distribution rate, many breakdowns and assessments were about rewards and punishments based on data, with little business guidance or terminal policy follow-up. "Intensive cultivation" but not "meticulous farming." After multiple cycles of visits, many sales reps developed problems of "customer relationship misalignment or deficiency," mainly manifested as:
(1) When accompanying sales reps on visits, I found that sales reps had good relationships with staff at some blank stores, joking around and even greeting each other by nicknames.
(2) Checks revealed that at some terminals, although bar staff knew the route sales rep, the hotel owner couldn't name the sales rep or even describe their characteristics. Moreover, many blank store owners didn't know the product's price, promotions, or ordering channels.
(3) When visiting blank stores, sales reps didn't know the purpose of the visit before entering, mostly visiting just to complete the visit. Some even did a "one-minute visit" by stopping at the door or walking around and leaving.
(4) Sales reps were unfamiliar with terminal complaint procedures and distributor delivery standards, and didn't know how to handle situations when "complaints" or "delivery" were not in place.
(5) The route form did not specify the key visit targets for each store.

At the same time, in **daily market management of branch offices**, several problems also emerged:
**(1) There was no basic channel planning concept, only emphasizing "number of stores opened" or "distribution rate," resulting in new product launches mostly concentrated in small and medium restaurants or micro-supermarkets, with the completion of distribution targets relying entirely on the personal ability and quality of sales reps.**
**(2) Promotions were pushed forward in parallel across all channels, with basically the same policies for restaurants and circulation.**

In the route visits of sales reps, distribution rate sometimes couldn't be effectively improved for a long time. Some "fortress" stores had been visited dozens of times but still couldn't be conquered. Some route data was clearly better than other areas, with uneven overall performance, showing a clear "able person" phenomenon.

After accompanying visits on multiple market routes, repeatedly communicating with frontline personnel, and carefully reviewing route visit manuals, I pointed out the following issues:
First, terminal management was not refined. Distribution rate is an important assessment tool for developing markets, but not the only one.
Second, terminal customer relationship was not included in assessments, leaving sales rep visits in a "able person" state (those with good basic qualities perform well, otherwise weak). This was mainly manifested in: terminal customer relationship formation was left to free play without accurate management standards; after customer relationship was formed, there were no detailed advancement standards, resulting in failure to achieve maximum output per store after completing distribution rate. Although some basic visual merchandising was followed up, some terminals had distribution but no sales.

**(3) Although the company's route management module included customer relationship descriptions, it was basically part of skills training and not included in basic assessments.**

Route visits are the basic module of deep distribution. Route personnel carry basic functions such as customer management, order (or lead) transmission, shelf management, display, POP, inventory management, and promotion execution. They are the closest link between the company and the market, dealing with terminals every day. Without "customer relationship" as a guarantee, the effectiveness of route visits cannot be achieved.

However, customer relationship, as an interpersonal relationship, is a "soft indicator" that cannot be normally measured and assessed. The company raised "doubts" about this.

In response to this doubt, I propose some module improvements to the company's route visit management module from the perspective of "customer relationship advancement," based on the existing route visit management foundation.

**1. Terminal Classification Management**
Although the company has its own classification standards, it doesn't truly understand the purpose of classification. Sales reps execute according to the company's unified standards, but only mark them in the route manual, and that's all.

(1) Terminal Classification
Taking hotels as an example, they are generally classified into A, B, C categories to divide terminal grades. In county-level markets, A stores are terminals with significant influence in the region. Excluding A stores, terminals with five or more private rooms are B stores, and the rest are C stores. Overall, A and B stores account for more than 40% of all terminals in the region.

Only after accurate classification management of terminals can appropriate promotion methods be adopted based on terminal category, tailoring to the specific situation, and designing a reasonable terminal "promotion menu." The promotion menu includes:
(1) Small threshold order guidance distribution policy.
(2) Secondary order guidance distribution policy.
(3) Mixed venue agreement sales promotion policy.
(4) Exclusive venue promotion policy.
(5) Model store promotion policy.

At the same time, to prevent uncontrolled investment in promotions, combined with terminal classification, the "promotion menu" should be proportionally subdivided to each store periodically. For example, within a certain period, the target for "exclusive venue" proportion in B stores in a local market is 20%. If the proportion is not reached, penalties are imposed; if exceeded, application must be made to the regional manager. By refining the "promotion menu," the local supervisor is forced to automatically make detailed plans for the market area, solving the problem of year-after-year promotion investment with only blooming but no fruiting.

In response to the drawbacks of "flooding all channels" and "battle lines too long" in promotion design, based on reasonable market planning, the following improvements are made:
(1) Single store breakthrough, personalized advancement, abandoning parallel advancement, and focusing market resources.
(2) Concentrated promotions, focusing on breaking through market commanding heights, formulating basic information and development plans for key terminals, and specifying completion times, including them in assessments, urging completion, and striving to form a top-down suppression trend in local markets.

(2) Terminal Grading
Divide terminals into 5 levels for management.
Target stores: blank stores planned for development.
Distribution stores: terminal stores that have made initial purchases.
Active stores: mixed venue terminal stores with normal product flow.
Agreement stores: quantitative mixed venue or exclusive stores signed according to the "promotion menu."
Model stores: exclusive stores within a certain proportion in the region that have local driving influence.

According to the above standards, make detailed classification marks in the route manual, and conduct phased target advancement assessment management, clarifying advancement targets and times, so that sales reps consciously conduct "channel planning" for their areas under assessment.

**2. Key Person Identification and Customer Relationship Advancement**
Key personnel: In C-type stores, most are family-run, with the owner usually in charge of the kitchen and the owner's wife at the bar. In A and B stores, division of labor is more detailed, especially in A stores, which may be subdivided into bar, warehouse, purchasing, finance, etc. Some of these personnel have the right to choose and decide on product entry, while others have the right to decide and influence the flow speed after product entry.

According to terminal classification management standards, corresponding to the route manual, formulate terminal customer relationship advancement standards for sales reps, and make single-store classification marks and standard customer relationship advancement descriptions in morning meetings, while following up with guidance and assessment. According to the phased role of "key personnel" in different types of terminals and the "five-level management," formulate corresponding assessment standards. For example, when "distributing" in C stores, not only assess whether the owner (or owner's wife) knows the sales rep's name, distributor's distribution rights, visit cycle, etc., and their understanding of product promotions, but also guide sales reps in customer relationship communication with terminals, so that sales reps understand how to form "standard" customer relationships with terminals in stages during single-store development management.

**3. Formulate Effective Visit Standards**
While refining terminal classification management and customer relationship advancement management, add effective visit standards and phased target assessment, emphasize the "effectiveness" of visits, and implement daily (weekly) visit plan management. State the day's effective visit plan and the implementation of yesterday's effective visits in the morning meeting; formulate weekly effective visit plans and summarize at the weekend; effectively eliminate the "idle running" phenomenon in visits, and try to maximize the "effective" role of route visits; stipulate that the minimum number of "effective visits" per day is not less than 20 stores (specific markets can be appropriately adjusted).

In response to the excessive visit volume of nearly 60 stores per day for sales reps, try the "skip store declaration" system, that is, no longer implement the system of visiting every store, but periodically formulate effective visit achievement targets. When sales reps complete the targets, they can "skip stores" within the plan according to a certain proportion, but they need to submit a written report in advance at the morning meeting.

**4. "Complaints" and "Delivery"**
To achieve the stability of terminal customer relationships, start from the two angles of "complaints" and "delivery" to solve the worries of sales reps in route visits. Refine the "complaint" handling procedures, use "rebates" to assess the distributor's delivery service standards, formulate distributor delivery service standards, and determine delivery areas and terminal quantities based on the distributor's vehicles and personnel, so as to "cook according to the ingredients." Avoid terminal "contradictions" caused by untimely "complaint" handling and untimely distributor delivery.

**5. Clarify the Concept of "Order Guidance"**
Change the long-term "dependence" of distributors on orders and clarify the concept of "order guidance." The liquor industry is different from the beverage industry; not all sales volume must come from orders. In mature markets, the main functions of route visits are:
(1) Promoting new products to target channels.
(2) Terminal shelf management, visual merchandising, and promotion execution.
(3) Blocking competitors, understanding market prices, promotion management, data monitoring, etc.

In growth markets, while undertaking the above functions, the main focus of route visits is:
(1) Order guidance. Use channel power to guide distributors in product coverage.
(2) 80/20 layout. Not all terminals must be visited, otherwise the company's labor costs cannot be shared.
(3) Know when to stop. The purpose of route visits is to seize market commanding heights and "rule-making power," with the goal of becoming the leading brand in the area. The risk of visiting the entire area or all channels is high!
(4) Companies should prevent "the master working hard while the servant is idle." If the company overemphasizes orders and over-weakens channels, the company's "burden" will become heavier and heavier.

Through a series of module modifications and fine-tuning, with customer relationship management as the entry point, the aim is to create "clear" execution.

Terminal customer relationship, as the foundation of sales rep route visits, from the surface, "customer relationship" management is "doable," but not "sayable," and even less "assessable." However, visits without "customer relationship" are ineffective visits. In market intensive cultivation, companies invest heavily in labor costs. If sales reps cannot quickly form "effective customer relationships" with terminals, the company's investment in this area will be greatly discounted, and reflected in the market, competitiveness cannot be strengthened.

Around the main line of "customer relationship management," through a series of module improvements, the "soft indicator" has a concrete manifestation—and forms a specific assessment system. For example, in target stores, if after more than 3 cycles of visits by sales reps, the "key personnel" still don't know the product's entry price, promotion policies, etc., it is included in the corresponding deduction items.

Thus, a clear market "sand table" is placed in front, with the main purpose of taking "customer relationship management" as a breakthrough, so that sales rep visits are not just about skill improvement, but clearly delineate a "marching route" for them, letting them understand whether to "turn left or right" during visits. At the same time, clarify that the purpose of visits is to "guide" distributors to participate in the market, rather than excessively replacing distributor functions. With these in place, the problem of "tilling but not cultivating" will be easily solved!

Route visits in a company's marketing system are like an assembly line. Individual "gold medal" sales reps or "able" sales reps, or even individual powerful distributors, cannot solve the efficiency problem of the entire assembly line. To improve the efficiency of this "assembly line," companies should start from the whole, ensure system optimization while clarifying the synchronous development of each link in the system as much as possible. Managing sales reps cannot rely on "single combat." Let sales reps understand their work direction while following up with training and assessment, using training as the banner of action and assessment as the yardstick of action. At the same time, this "assembly line" needs continuous maintenance and improvement, and timely upgrades. Only then can route visits maximize their benefits.

**In market management, only by going deep into the front line and starting from the most peripheral parts of the market can effective things be obtained. Macro management, micro entry, bit by bit, down-to-earth market work, can form the company's true execution and competitiveness!**

This article is excerpted from Mr. Fang Gang's book "FMCG Veterans All Do This: Regional Manager Operation Tips."
To purchase this book, please click "Read Original Text"
If you think this article is good and want to communicate with the author, please long press the QR code below to add Mr. Fang Gang's WeChat. When adding, please reply: Learning

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