So, in the deep water and hot fire of the FMCG market, how can distributors change their survival status? I have summarized five viewpoints:
Letting go is making money; learn to do subtraction
A question that has always been irresistible to distributors: Is it better to have more brands? Certainly not. Is it better to have more products? Certainly not. Why are they reluctant to give up? When giving up, it always feels like a chicken rib—tasteless to eat, but a pity to discard. There are two points of hesitation:
1. Having a brand in your own hands is better than in the hands of competitors. Even if you can't do well with the brand, you can't let it go to competitors. 2. Taking on one more brand means more products, more sales, and sales staff can bring in profits along the way.
These concepts are not advisable. Brands that are not done well will first affect the distributor's reputation, and secondly waste human and material resources. Brands not done well will cause salespeople to engage in non-core promotional activities, with a pile of brands without priority, not knowing which to sell. At the same time, having too many brands in hand, in terms of operational level, sorting out product structure, channel structure, consumer structure and other strategies will be counterproductive, resulting in quality brands not increasing volume and average brands having no sales. Finally, in terms of products, only by eliminating "zombie SKUs" can "star SKUs" play their due role. So distributors should do "subtraction," essentially to concentrate resources and focus limited resources on work that can produce results. How to do it specifically? There are three suggested directions.
1. Strategy adjustment: Distributors may decide to reduce the number of brands they represent based on market demand, consumer preferences, or company strategy, in order to better focus on core products or target markets.
2. Operational optimization: Too many brand representations may lead to problems such as resource dispersion and management complexity. To improve operational efficiency and resource utilization, distributors may decide to do subtraction and focus on developing more profitable brands.
3. Brand adjustment: Some brands may perform poorly in the market or face competitive pressure, so distributors may decide to stop representing these brands to reduce potential risks and economic losses.
In short, whether for the above reasons or others, distributors doing subtraction in brand representation is a common business decision aimed at optimizing the distributor's operating conditions and enhancing profitability.
Human efficiency is making money; digital management
Improving human efficiency for distributors means reasonably allocating personnel energy to maximize value. With the continuous increase in labor costs, improving human efficiency is something that must be done. Why?
1. Improve productivity and efficiency: Improving human efficiency can increase productivity and efficiency, enabling enterprises to complete more tasks and work with fewer resources and time.
2. Optimize resource utilization: Distributors have limited resources, including human, material, and financial. Improving human efficiency can better utilize these limited resources, avoiding waste and inefficiency.
3. Improve work quality and customer satisfaction: High human efficiency means work is more efficient, standardized, and professional. Employees can complete tasks better and provide high-quality products and services.
4. Strengthen teamwork and employee morale: Improving human efficiency can improve teamwork and employee morale. Employees complete work tasks and achieve goals more efficiently, experience their work value and sense of achievement, thereby stimulating work motivation and enhancing employee satisfaction and loyalty. These are crucial for the long-term development and sustainable competitiveness of distributors.
Of course, I also want to emphasize here that there is no absolute classification of which model a distributor belongs to. From a category perspective, the distributor is a category distributor, for example, focusing on daily chemicals. At the same time, from a channel perspective, if they only focus on the KA channel distribution business, which model they belong to depends on the distributor's own development direction planning. First there is classification, then there is cognition. The purpose of classification is to help us understand the distributor business more clearly.
Learning is making money; diversified exchange
Why should the learning ability of distributor bosses be included in the money-making system? My answer is: After visiting many excellent distributors, it is not difficult to find their common characteristic: they are good at learning. The boss's personal cognition determines the company's ceiling. You can't not go to the front line to see the market, nor can you stay in the front line every day. Distributors should become social activists. Here, social activists don't mean eating and drinking with manufacturers every day or maintaining customer relationships with downstream clients, but going to other places to learn from the excellent experiences of other outstanding distributors in the same industry, and drinking tea with business owners not in this industry. Attend more industry-related conferences and more downstream retail conferences. For FMCG distributors, learning ability is vitality, competitiveness, and money-making ability. To change the difficult situation, first be good at learning. I list a few points:
1. Industry knowledge and trends: Distributors can learn and understand industry knowledge and trends, including market demand, product technology, supply chain management, etc.
2. Operational management skills: Learning and improving operational management skills can help distributors manage business and resources more effectively.
3. Marketing strategies: Learning marketing strategies can help distributors develop effective market promotion and brand building strategies.
4. Innovation and entrepreneurial thinking: Learning innovative and entrepreneurial thinking can help distributors continuously explore new business opportunities and development directions.
5. Industry exchange and networking: Actively participating in industry exchanges and building effective business networks is also an important way to enhance money-making ability.
In general, continuous learning and growth are key to improving competitiveness and achieving business success. Distributors should go out, attend industry seminars, join industry associations, and exchange with industry experts and peers. On the one hand, they can enhance their understanding and learning of the industry, gain valuable experience and insights; on the other hand, they can obtain more partners and business opportunities. Only through continuous learning and improving their knowledge, skills, and ways of thinking can they better understand and respond to market challenges, improve business levels, and enhance money-making ability. Therefore, from October 9 to 11, the highly anticipated Fifth China FMCG Conference and First China FMCG Distributor Conference will kick off as scheduled. At the same time, this is also the first China FMCG Distributor Conference in the industry. We will invite 15 national benchmark distributors and related executives to share themes, interpreting the current distributor business from all angles, including enterprise growth paths, challenges and opportunities, operational practice, tax risks, etc. At the same time, we will jointly launch the industry's first "2022-2023 China FMCG Distributor Operating Conditions Survey Report" with Zhupu Data, which is well worth your visit to the scene to find out!