Click 'Read Original' for details. Today, I want to share several questions that are frequently raised by sales friends. When we think about problems, we must focus on the essence to grasp the root of the problem and find the key points and true methods for solving them. 1. Why do consumers consume your product? We need to put ourselves in the consumer's shoes, see our own consumption psychology and behavior. Think carefully: under what circumstances do we generate consumption behavior? The premise of consumption is demand; this demand must exist because it is the motivation for consumption. But apart from demand, what other factors are related to our consumption? Some might say it's related to brand influence. But what if the product we consume is not a brand? In fact, brand is a result, something that is built; no product is born with a brand, but rather it is created through our efforts in the market. Others might say it's advertising, promotions, or friend recommendations that create the motivation to consume; when there is a consumption need, they remember this product. Still others say that product differentiation is large, attracting them at the time of purchase to try it. In short, it must be external factors (forces) that create influence. Whether you are a brand or not, only with influence can there be consumption power and sales power. So how to create influence? How to make consumers see, hear, and experience our product? Different enterprises have different resources and adopt different methods; different product categories and price positioning require different core influence methods. But at the very least, we must make the product stand out at the moment of consumption, have others recommend our product, or make consumers feel that your product is trendy and easy to choose. First, A = Attention. Do everything possible to make consumers notice our product and put it in front of them. Second, once consumers notice the product, its appearance, packaging, cost-effectiveness, and other features generate interest and impulse, creating purchase desire and leading to action. In summary, it is always external factors (forces) that create influence, giving consumers a certain awareness of the product, which then generates interest and forms purchase desire. This is the motivation for why consumers consume your product. 2. Why do consumers continue to consume your product? There must be internal factors here. The product satisfies the consumer's needs (Maslow's hierarchy) at one or more levels: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization. Consumers consume according to a hierarchy from low to high. In real life, multiple needs are integrated. In addition, they have a certain economic tolerance. Beyond appearance and cost-effectiveness, there is a key factor, perhaps a spiritual need such as face or value; your product must be relatively trendy. It might be popular among the masses or within their social circle. Sustained consumption must stem from popularity; without popularity, there can be no sustained consumption, nor can a true brand be created. How to create popularity? Popularity does not start on a large scale but must erupt from a certain point. Grasp the product positioning, target group, core channels, and breakthrough points. Use core leaders, core channel promotion, terminal promotion interception, and diversified market actions in small areas, then radiate to other regions. Liquor must first be drunk; a small group or region starts drinking it, a certain occasion or channel becomes popular first, and then there is an opportunity for large-scale popularity. To make your product continuously consumed, you must create popularity, starting with a breakthrough at one point. 3. Why do terminals sell your product? High profit? Good customer relations? Product is a brand? These are not the obvious reasons. From another angle, what is the real reason terminals do not accept your product? Some say poor customer relations, product profit cannot move terminals, or new products are uncertain. In the end, it all comes down to one word: "fear." Fear that it won't sell well, taking up their space, capital, and energy. So why are terminals willing to accept your product? They feel good about the product and the person, approve of the market operation methods, and believe the product can bring value—selling well and selling fast. These are the internal reasons terminals accept your product. So if we sell products only considering high profit and good customer relations, without thinking for the terminal about scenarios and solutions for how to sell the product quickly and well, then terminals will certainly not accept it. This is normal. If a terminal accepts your product, it is because of good customer relations, but how long can customer relations sustain sales? So terminals accept our product because they accept the product's solution and the salesperson; profit is just a basic motivation. How to create a plan for terminals to sell the product quickly is crucial. Promotional plans, market operation plans, helping stores with sell-through, creating market atmosphere to attract consumers, activities to bring traffic to stores—these are the core reasons terminals accept the product. 4. What is the real job of a salesperson? How can it help sales? Is it just distribution, boasting, visits, collecting basic information, terminal atmosphere, inventory, and ordering? That would be a big mistake. These are just basic actions and standard processes. What is the essence of a salesperson's job? It must be work that helps terminals generate sales, doing things that produce results, not just routine tasks. So many salespeople say, "I do everything, but the product just doesn't move." Yes, they work very hard, but they do not do effective work targeted at the market and terminals, and they lack real solutions. For example, a terminal owner thinks your product has high profit and good customer relations, and he also promotes your product, but he just doesn't know how to promote it. How do you teach the terminal the reasons and methods to promote? If consumers don't accept it, how do you help the terminal owner? Can you bring the terminal owner's regular customers over for a tasting event or consumer pull activities? We do things not for the terminal owner or the company, but for ourselves. If the product cannot surpass competitors, it cannot attract consumers' attention and stand out from the crowd. Routine tasks do not generate sales. Another example: I often see salespeople who, when the company requires at least five posters, only put up five. This is just routine, not to create sales, material area, or advertising atmosphere. Some salespeople like to visit terminals where the boss is easy to talk to, but these visits do not generate sales. Terminals that can generate sales, salespeople avoid after a few setbacks. 5. Why does your product sell less and less? Why does the market get smaller and smaller? Every day you are just selling goods, but why do you lose one terminal after another? Because the product moves slowly. If a product doesn't sell a case in three months, the terminal loses confidence and stops ordering the second and third time. You keep developing new stores, using policies, even sacrificing sales commissions to stimulate terminal orders, until there are no new outlets to develop. Then you go back to terminal owners hoping they will order again, but the owner gets angry, saying the product doesn't sell and you're increasing the policy, making the relationship worse. Salespeople change companies, but the same problem persists. It doesn't matter if there are few outlets or few regions; sustained product sales are the key. Based on the situation of terminal outlets, considering actual sales, influence, product fit, and competition, tackle them one by one, and make targeted series of activities to make the market more active. Only then will you avoid the dilemma of products becoming harder to sell and the market shrinking. 6. Why does the market not improve even after doing all the actions? Doing everything means doing nothing. Resources are too dispersed, making it hard to create impact and influence on consumers. Excluding small areas, in large areas, doing everything is equivalent to doing nothing. Here we need to talk about the concept of focus. Only by concentrating forces, creating characteristics and momentum, focusing and being extreme can you form highlights. Concentrate forces to prioritize locally, break through at a single point. In the marketing 4Ps—price, product, promotion, and place—it's a cone formed by 1P+3P that truly breaks the market. Not launching simultaneously; the market is hard to achieve, except when resources are very strong. Next, I will introduce seven aspects of focus.

  1. Product focus: Create a super single product, using the leading product as a breakthrough point to make consumers deeply impressed.
  2. Regional focus: Choose one region to explode and replicate.
  3. Promotion focus: Core store atmosphere, consumer tasting and experience pull activities.
  4. Channel focus: Based on product positioning and different markets, choose the main channel to maximize, making it deep, thorough, and explosive.
  5. Resource focus: Concentrate on limited regions and core outlets.
  6. Personnel focus: Let excellent talents focus on core outlets, concentrating on attacking a small area to achieve rapid sell-through.
  7. Consumer focus: Make selective and targeted actions toward opinion leader groups. So to make your market improve quickly, it is not about doing all actions, but doing them selectively and targeted. Focus on leading regions to create models, focus on leading channels for breakthroughs, focus on leading terminals for leadership, focus on leading consumer groups for marketing, focus on a single promotion method to create momentum, and focus on leading salespeople as examples. On October 23-24, during the Autumn Sugar and Wine Fair, New Distribution will host the "2018 FMCG City Distribution Logistics Conference." At that time, we will invite industry experts, FMCG warehousing and distribution specialists, and distributors who have transformed to unified warehousing and distribution platforms to discuss and answer questions around the theme "New Distribution, New City Distribution," exploring the future development trends of FMCG city distribution logistics and practical cases of distributor transformation to unified warehousing and distribution. We hope it will bring you different inspiration and thinking! The specific agenda is as follows: List of Participating Companies In no particular order Hunan Zonglan Diandan Network Technology Co., Ltd. Jingbang (Wuhan) International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd. Mengniu Dairy Qinghai Hanxiang E-commerce Co., Ltd. Unilever Service (Hefei) Co., Ltd. Shanghai Branch Huicong Hunan Xuan'ang Food Co., Ltd. Guangzhou Tongdaoren Information Technology Co., Ltd. Qingdao 888 Trading Co., Ltd. Uni-President Enterprises (China) Investment Co., Ltd. Hunan Province Zhongxiang Gongpei Logistics Co., Ltd. Shenglong Ingredients COSCO Shipping Logistics Warehousing and Distribution Co., Ltd. Guangxi Yongpai Liquor Industry Co., Ltd. Shangqiu Kangrong Trading Co., Ltd. Jinan Dingzhong Economic and Trade Co., Ltd. Liaoning Bimai Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. Kunming Xiongjia Trading Co., Ltd. Shaanxi Houheng Trading Co., Ltd. Guangzhou Dingwo Enterprise Information Consulting Co., Ltd. Shaodong Jiajiale Commercial Firm Boda Trading Industrial Bank Changsha Branch Wuhan Muchén Convenience Store Chain Co., Ltd. Fujian Fuxing Yuncang Logistics Co., Ltd. Guizhou Yilimi E-commerce Co., Ltd. Jiangxi Xiao Lao'er E-commerce Co., Ltd. Jinshan Koufu Shanxi Taihang Yuanjing Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Shanxi Dezhun Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Shaoyang Tongdeli Trading (Xiangbang Logistics) Huanfu Tongda Express City Distribution Beijing Xinjingxiang Food Co., Ltd. Wuhan Huizhong Tianhong Liquor Co., Ltd. Changsha Paide Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Chao'an Tuqiang Guizhou Yihe Bopin Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Jiangxi Kang'en Industrial Co., Ltd. Xiangtan County Yisuhe Town Yuhua Paper Store Luoyang Yuanlang Trading Co., Ltd. Tongchuan Yaozhou District Huayuan Supermarket Co., Ltd. Hunan Yongfu Jiujiu Trading Co., Ltd. Zhejiang Chengchengtong Logistics Co., Ltd. Chongqing Kaiguo Materials Trading Co., Ltd. Beijing Xianmaixianmai Data Technology Co., Ltd. Hanchuan Qixing Trading Co., Ltd. Tongxin Jiuzhiru Trading Co., Ltd. Guizhou Meiguo Guoguo Network Technology Co., Ltd. ...... Representatives of Distributor Transformation (Tentative) In no particular order Rong Jun, Chairman of Jiangsu Huashang City Distribution Network Co., Ltd. Wang Bo, Chairman of Hubei Yijiaren Logistics Co., Ltd. Jiang Shuming, General Manager of Sichuan Chengdu Xingrenxing Trading Co., Ltd. Liu Jichen, Chairman of Shandong Yunbang Warehousing and Logistics Co., Ltd. Tu Mingyu, Chairman of Chongqing Lingyu Consumer Goods Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Yang Su, Chairman of Guangzhou Zhongshan Wanrong Marketing Co., Ltd. Yuan Xia, Chairman of Sichuan Bajie Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Li Qiangyun, Co-founder of Hubei Pengdun Meiyitian Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Zhang Jianyong, Chairman of Henan Xuchang Jiulegou E-commerce Co., Ltd. Ma Haichao, Founder of Hebei Changyi Logistics Co., Ltd. Meng Yucun, General Manager of Hebei (Chengde) Wulian Yuncang Co., Ltd. Zhang Xun, Chairman of Xinjiang Urumqi Su'an Jinchi Logistics Co., Ltd. Zhang Hailing, Chairman of Jilin Sansheng Lian'gou Qiang Huitao, Founder of Hebei Dunjie Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Liao Lei, General Manager of Hunan Damei Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. ...... -END-