Person Introduction Boss Zhang is a food distributor in the Nanjing market, mainly representing Mengniu milk and some local leisure snacks, with annual sales of about 30 million yuan, of which Mengniu milk accounts for 70%. Due to the relatively short shelf life of milk, high inventory pressure, increased risk of products nearing expiration, and declining profit levels. Out of consideration for profit margins, Boss Zhang chose a sauce-flavored liquor brand X from Maotai Town, Guizhou. After effective implementation of the market promotion plan and strong cooperation and support from the manufacturer, Boss Zhang achieved sales of 3.68 million yuan in the first year, achieving a successful market entry! How did a liquor novice achieve over 3 million in the first year? 1 Understand Industry Trends Choose the Right Product Before formally deciding to represent a liquor brand, Boss Zhang gathered information about the development trends of the liquor industry. Through judgment of mainstream liquor trends nationwide and analysis of changes in the catering industry, Boss Zhang concluded that with the deepening of restrictions on official consumption and the cooling of high-end catering, the growth of high-end liquor will be affected. Meanwhile, as the living standards and quality of low-end consumers improve, retail prices between 50-100 yuan for mass-market liquor will see rapid sales growth. Later market realities validated Boss Zhang's judgment on overall industry trends. It can be said that from the product selection, Boss Zhang had already determined the genes for success. 2 Analyze Main Competitors' Strengths and Weaknesses Know Yourself and Know Your Enemy After determining the mainstream product direction, Boss Zhang systematically analyzed the main competing products in the city, from multiple angles such as competitor manufacturers' backgrounds, market support intensity, agent profiles, channel profits, terminal prices, and promotional activities, and formed written analysis materials on competing brands, carefully identifying their strengths and weaknesses, truly knowing both himself and his competitors. 3 Build a Professional Marketing Team Solve Who Will Sell After determining the product direction and category, Boss Zhang's first thought was not how to sell, but who will sell? The concept that people are the primary factor for success has always been Boss Zhang's core management philosophy. To this end, Boss Zhang recruited Manager Wang, the business manager of competitor agent Boss Li, at double the salary, and carefully selected 5 people from his own business team to establish a liquor marketing department, appointing Manager Wang as the marketing director. Manager Wang conducted centralized pre-job training for the 5 sales staff, systematically explaining the basic operating procedures and skills for liquor. 4 Clarify Marketing Action Requirements Improve Incentives and Assessment How to make this newly formed team show combat effectiveness in actual combat? Manager Wang deployed: first, clearly divided the work among the 5 sales staff, with 3 responsible for terminal (hotel) development, 1 for wholesale market startup, and 1 assisting Boss Zhang in focusing on group purchase business. Each salesperson set clear market operation goals, including product distribution and display goals, sales goals, and promotional material distribution goals. For example, the salesperson responsible for hotel development had to visit at least 15 target hotels daily, close at least 5 deals, and for each of the 5 closed stores, hang 5-10 lanterns, post no fewer than 2 POPs in each private room, and other specific assessment measures. As long as they met the assessment goals, the sales staff's income naturally increased significantly compared to before. 5 Focus on Local Markets Form Advantages As the capital of Jiangsu Province, the Nanjing market is extremely competitive and fierce! If the market were fully developed and launched, it would require substantial human and financial resources. After research, Boss Zhang and Manager Wang decided to implement a focus strategy, initially selecting only Jiangning District as the main attack market, concentrating all human and material resources in Jiangning District. The reasons for choosing Jiangning District are: First, Boss Zhang's company and warehouse are located in Jiangning District, ensuring timely delivery and maximum service levels; Second, compared to Nanjing's main urban area, competition in Jiangning District is relatively moderate, facilitating rapid market entry for new products; Third, Boss Zhang and some sales staff are from Jiangning District, with certain interpersonal networks, which is beneficial for early terminal consumption driving and later group purchase business. 6 Launch Terminals Three Steps The market launch of new liquor products mainly relies on terminal hotels first. Only by achieving distribution, display, and promotion in hotels can consumers consume the product in the fastest time, form word-of-mouth effects, and thus create terminal sell-through momentum. Once terminals form sell-through momentum, it can effectively drive rapid sales in wholesale and circulation channels. To this end, Boss Zhang and Manager Wang first formulated a three-step terminal launch plan around hotels in Jiangning District: Step 1: Classify hotels, making priorities clear. Boss Zhang divided all hotels in Jiangning District into A, B, and C categories: A-class hotels are mainly high-end hotels with 50 tables and more than 15 private rooms; B-class hotels are mid-range hotels with 20 tables and more than 5 private rooms; C-class hotels are small restaurants and food stalls with more than 5 tables and 1-5 private rooms. Based on X brand's price positioning, B-class hotels were the main attack direction, 5 A-class hotels were selected as image display windows, and the top 10 C-class hotels with good business were selected as key cooperation partners. Step 2: Chain policies, rapid distribution. After determining the main attack direction for hotels, Manager Wang first drew a detailed "battle" map based on the actual geographical locations of target hotels, divided the routes for the 3 hotel sales staff, specified daily visit routes and numbers, and formulated chain distribution policies. Manager Wang persuaded Boss Zhang to focus on opening the market early, tilting profit space toward terminal hotels, ensuring in the price system that hotels' actual profit per bottle of X brand liquor was at least 5 percentage points higher than competing brands of the same grade; for the first order of X brand liquor, one bottle of this product or a box of Mengniu milk was given as a gift (leveraging the influence of mature brands); based on the hotel's actual monthly sales, an additional 2% rebate was given (using channel promotion techniques at the terminal) and redeemed every 10 days (increasing terminal owners' trust); for hotels with monthly sales exceeding 20 boxes, a 3% rebate was given (effectively stimulating key customers' sales). Step 3: Win over hotel waitstaff, making them the most suitable promoters. In addition to normal bottle-opening fee redemption, for the 10 selected key hotels, excellent promotional staff were sent to conduct on-site promotions to achieve sell-through. At the same time, based on his years of experience in beverage operations, Manager Wang required hotel sales staff to build good relationships with hotel service staff, especially identifying those who are outgoing and good at communication, becoming friends with them. Besides giving small gifts irregularly, they also invited them out for meals and karaoke monthly (these people who usually serve others particularly need genuine respect), developing them into almost full-time promotional teams. Moreover, for those with strong recommendation abilities, special rebates were given to stimulate them to drive other waitstaff to actively recommend the new product. 7 Creative Promotions Form Word-of-Mouth Effects In addition to the above conventional terminal promotional methods, Boss Zhang and Manager Wang also persuaded relevant manufacturers to implement creative promotional plans, forming good word-of-mouth effects. The specific approach was: Select 10 hotels (4 A-class and 6 B-class). For guests celebrating weddings or birthdays, each table could receive one bottle of X liquor and one box of Mengniu milk for free (given in the hotel's name, which is crucial). The hotel would post banners in prominent positions at the entrance. Recipients needed to provide real names, units, and contact information (to accumulate connections for later group purchase marketing). The activity lasted one month. This not only formed good word-of-mouth publicity effects but also deepened relationships with core hotels and incidentally solved Boss Zhang's milk inventory problem, achieving multiple goals at once. 8 Capture the Leader to Capture All Successfully Win Over Wholesale Market Customers Key point: Capture the leader, grab Boss Xie, and drive a large group. The biggest characteristic of wholesale market customers is being "realistic." The so-called "realistic" means they won't do it if the product doesn't make money, and they won't do it if the product sells slowly. For new products, although there is higher profit space, the product's market prospects are still unknown, so starting the wholesale market for new products is relatively difficult. But if the wholesale market doesn't start, the product can only sell at terminals, always doing points, at most forming lines, never forming surfaces. Without surfaces, the product cannot truly sell well. To start the wholesale market, Boss Zhang and Manager Wang racked their brains, and finally Boss Zhang came up with a good method. As the saying goes, "Capture the leader to capture all." Targeting Boss Xie, the largest beverage wholesale customer in Nanjing Zhongcai Wholesale Market (Nanjing's largest non-staple food wholesale market), Boss Zhang reluctantly gave up his 5 best-selling hotels for Boss Xie to supply, but required Boss Xie to do certain image promotion for X brand liquor in his store and stack X brand liquor boxes prominently at the store entrance. Due to stable supply sources, Boss Xie's store delivered X brand liquor almost every few days, showing good sell-through momentum, which invisibly sent a positive signal to surrounding wholesale stores—X brand liquor sells well. On this basis, the wholesale market salesperson Xiao Li irregularly visited other wholesale stores, actively promoting the product and hanging banners and posting POPs in the wholesale market to build brand image, ultimately achieving successful wholesale market startup. 9 Focus on Core Retail Outlets Form Strong Presence Key point: Concentrate resources, first do well in Suguo Supermarket, enhance brand influence. With changes in channels and the evolution of retail patterns, various types of retail outlets occupy the main channel sales share, especially in first-tier cities. Without doing retail outlets, you can't open the situation; doing retail outlets, the high fees and harsh contract terms make many manufacturers and distributors fearful. What to do? After careful analysis, Boss Zhang and Manager Wang finally decided to only do the local Nanjing Suguo system, giving up all other systems, focusing all resources on the Suguo system, forming strong display and promotional momentum, creating advantages locally, thereby enhancing brand influence. 10 High Salary Incentives Launch Group Purchases Key point: Pass on saved profits to group purchase personnel. For the liquor market, the group purchase channel is an important sales channel, and Boss Zhang naturally knows this well. Because group purchases don't require many channel links, Boss Zhang and Manager Wang passed most of the saved channel profits to group purchase personnel as commissions and "under-the-table rebates" for relevant buyers, formulated favorable group purchase policies, and personally took the lead using various relationships to carry out group purchase business. This point must be combined with the specific resources of distributor friends in various places, formulate attractive policies, grasp key people, and start team sales. 11 Double Festival Promotions Boost Sales Key point: Seize the top five customers in each channel. For liquor sales, the two most important festivals are the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Spring Festival. If you don't seize these two festivals, sales and brand image won't improve. Facing the same competition from competing brands, Boss Zhang and Manager Wang still used the focus method, only conducting promotional pull in the Suguo system and the top 5 customers in the wholesale market, through focused resource use, forming a stronger promotional momentum than competitors. As the saying goes, with the same method, X brand stood out among similar brands by greater intensity. 12 Little by Little Image Gather into a Sea Key point: To open up the market for new products, you must have priorities and pay attention to details in promotion. The success of new products cannot be separated from brand image promotion. Besides the manufacturer's macro promotional activities, Boss Zhang and Manager Wang also used various promotional props provided by the manufacturer, paying attention to every detail of brand promotion, such as using banners in the wholesale market, concentrated hanging of lanterns at hotel entrances, concentrated posting of POPs in hotel private rooms, image menu inserts on hotel tables, image toothpick boxes, etc. These seemingly insignificant promotional items, through systematic, organized, and planned use, ultimately formed a combined force for brand promotion. After more than a year of effort, with Manager Wang's assistance, Boss Zhang reaped satisfactory market results. The product not only gained a foothold in the fiercely competitive Nanjing market but also showed rapid development momentum. Through the effective implementation of such a complete set of market promotion plans, Boss Zhang and his team gained confidence and courage, found methods for market operation, and these are the foundation for continuing to grow stronger and bigger in the future. Source: Jiushi Distributor Home -END-