"Do market work in the off-season, do sales in the peak season" – I've heard this phrase too many times. I now deeply realize that those who casually repeat it are mostly outsiders, because insiders have no interest in chewing over such a cliché.

Simply put, doing market work in the off-season is to boost sales in the peak season; there should be no doubt about that.

So what factors affect peak-season sales volume?

  1. How many outlets are there?
  2. How many core outlets are there?
  3. How many outlets are willing to sell for you?
  4. How many people are willing to buy?

In industry terms, these translate to distribution rate, number of core outlets, outlet push rate, and consumer awareness.

Therefore, during the off-season, you need to complete preparations in these areas: increase distribution rate, build core outlets, cultivate consumers, and simultaneously strengthen team execution. The off-season market operation diagram is as follows:

I. Achieve Distribution Rate: Cover Over 70% of Main Outlets for Competing Products at the Same Price Point

  1. How to increase distribution rate? Divide the existing team into groups and carry out concentrated distribution activities. Focus on three months, divided into three stages, and conduct distribution competitions. The first stage targets urban outlets, the second stage targets surrounding areas and urban-rural fringes, and the third stage fills gaps and deepens development.

At this time, KPI assessment should focus on distribution, increasing the coefficient for outlet development quantity in KPI. Also set up development awards, with cash rewards for the development champion of each stage. The overall champion receives a higher reward.

Track daily outlet development numbers and successful methods, summarize results, and learn from each other. For particularly difficult outlets, provide multi-person guidance and on-site drills.

  1. Distribution precautions Use small-batch, high-frequency distribution or replenishment. This ensures that store owners don't take too much stock and aren't afraid to accept it. As long as they can sell a little, they'll feel it's fast-moving, and salespeople should follow up promptly to replenish quickly.

II. Core Outlet Cultivation: Reach Over 20% of Stocking Outlets

  1. The role of core outlets: Role 1: Drive large volumes in peak season. Core outlets have high throughput; once they believe your product sells, they'll stock up heavily when peak season arrives. Role 2: Drive ordinary outlets. Core outlets often influence surrounding or well-connected tobacco and liquor stores. They watch core outlets' product turnover, and core outlet sales often set an example, driving them to stock up. Role 3: Set price benchmarks. Core outlets are often the main force in maintaining prices; they focus on long-term stable returns, so they protect prices well, which influences consumer and ordinary outlet perceptions. Role 4: Enhance market confidence. Core outlets are basically opinion leaders in the market; products sold in core outlets are trusted by both consumers and ordinary outlets.

  2. Conditions for selecting core outlets: Condition 1: High-volume retailers that account for a large share of retail sales. Condition 2: Have influence over surrounding outlets and are influential among similar outlets, i.e., have some wholesale nature. Condition 3: Strongly endorse the company's operating model and have good willingness to cooperate. Condition 4: Good reputation in the industry, so as not to have a negative impact on the product. Condition 5: The product fills a gap in their product mix or has clear advantages over best-selling products.

  3. Methods for cultivating core outlets: Creating a hot-selling atmosphere: continuous outlet merchandising, uninterrupted and varied promotional activities, constant small-batch replenishment, and continuous prize redemption.

Maintaining customer relationships: plan visit routes, conduct periodic visits, ensuring core outlets are visited at least twice a week. Analyze and sort out outlet relationship maintenance points, formulate a monthly outlet relationship improvement plan, and strictly execute it, such as whether the boss or family members have birthdays this month, how many banquets are needed, how much gift wine, what small gifts, which customers need assistance in development, whether there are travel arrangements, or any special hobbies of the boss.

III. Consumer Awareness Cultivation

Consumer awareness cultivation mainly involves consumer changes

  1. Tell consumers who is drinking this wine, satisfying their vanity.
  2. Create outlet and city atmosphere to make consumers feel the wine is about to become popular or is already very popular.
  3. Conduct consumer promotional activities to create a hot atmosphere, while using benefits and fun to induce purchases, maintaining good sell-through momentum.

For group purchase promotions, aim for those who see it to taste it, those who taste it to buy, and those who buy to get benefits. For tobacco and liquor stores, those who enter the store see it, those who see it try it, and those who try it get discounts. For restaurants, those who enter can taste it, those who taste it are willing to participate, and those who participate get purchase discounts.

  1. Conduct tasting events to let consumers try and accept the product's taste.
  2. Conduct public relations activities, especially interactive events with core consumers, to bring the brand closer to consumers and increase their identification with the brand. Note that the principle of PR activities is to use core groups to drive target consumer groups.

IV. Team Development

Team development refers to the following three aspects:

  1. Standardization establishment. Standardize outlet actions: standardize outlet visit routes and outlet visit actions. Standardize outlet merchandising: standardize merchandising items, specifications, quantities, norms, and compliance requirements. Standardize outlet relationships: standardize relationship goals, items, implementation plans, and result checks. Standardize daily management: standardize daily management items, compliance standards, and reward/punishment measures.

  2. Improve individual salesperson combat capability. Method 1: Training and drills. These are two steps. Training instills professional ethics, skills, and work habits; it can be internal or external, but internal training is recommended. Drills are more important; they are key to ensuring training doesn't become a formality. Be sure to conduct on-site drills with role-playing, one-on-one or one-to-many, to form personal techniques and methods, so that in real combat you'll be adept. Drills also boost salespeople's confidence and prepare them for various challenges. Method 2: Mentoring: experienced staff guide newcomers one-on-one. I won't elaborate much, but here's a tip: pair capable and experienced staff with promising newcomers, pair capable but slow staff with diligent newcomers, and pair average staff with average newcomers – you can figure out the reasoning yourself. Method 3: Form good daily habits. I won't elaborate; good habits and a good atmosphere lead to good performance.

  3. Maintain sales staff confidence and morale. Method 1: Healthy personnel rotation. Establish an internal elimination mechanism, eliminating the bottom performers in each phase and continuously bringing in new people. This keeps the team dynamic, and veterans have inexplicable confidence and motivation in front of newcomers. Method 2: Internal competitions. Around the key work of each phase, hold large-scale internal competitions. The scale must be large, but goals should be broken down as small as possible, such as monthly outlet development activities with goals broken down to weekly or even daily development numbers. This creates a lively atmosphere, while small, specific goals are easier to achieve, continuously boosting salespeople's confidence. Method 3: Create heroes. In each phase, highlight outstanding performers through bonuses, prizes, certificates, honor boards, commendation meetings, and sharing reports. Note that heroes aren't just sales champions, but also champions in outlet development, merchandising, and customer relationships. Method 4: Refine and strengthen KPI assessment. This is very important. Many companies focus on results, not processes, thinking that as long as salespeople complete tasks, they don't care how they did it. This is a big mistake, leading to slackness, low morale, lack of communication and mutual promotion among teams, and unfairness – salespeople in good regions can get good sales regardless of effort. So, define the core work for each phase, further break it down, and include it in assessments.

Conclusion

Overall, completing the momentum-building before the peak season is key.

What is momentum? It's channel confidence, store owner confidence, salesperson confidence, and consumer confidence. Through the above activities and methods, you can gather this confidence, and then it's hard not to achieve high sales in the peak season.

Source: MicroWine

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