---
title: "Management and Assessment Logic for Marketing Cadres at Different Levels"
description: "Several brand executives recently consulted me on how to assess marketing cadres, from salespeople to supervisors, managers, directors, and regional heads, aiming to establish an effective closed-loop mechanism that fosters mutual checks and balances, cohesion, and shared development. My initial reaction is that as companies grow, their existing organizational structures and assessment mechanisms may become mismatched, leading to gaps between management granularity and organizational capacity, which hinders strategic execution."
author: "高级研究员 海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2023-03-11"
language: "en"
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---

# Management and Assessment Logic for Marketing Cadres at Different Levels

> Several brand executives recently consulted me on how to assess marketing cadres, from salespeople to supervisors, managers, directors, and regional heads, aiming to establish an effective closed-loop mechanism that fosters mutual checks and balances, cohesion, and shared development. My initial reaction is that as companies grow, their existing organizational structures and assessment mechanisms may become mismatched, leading to gaps between management granularity and organizational capacity, which hinders strategic execution.

Recently, several brand executives consulted me on how to assess marketing cadres, from salespeople to supervisors, then managers, directors, and finally regional heads, and how to form an effective closed-loop mechanism that allows mutual checks and balances from the grassroots to the top, increases cohesion, and promotes shared development.
When I heard such consultations, my first reaction was that as companies develop, there is a mismatch between the existing organizational structure and the existing assessment mechanism, meaning there is a discrepancy between the requirements of management granularity and the organization's capacity to undertake it, resulting in the company's strategy being unable to effectively land at the tactical level.
The solution is to return to the basics and first sort out the management logic from the grassroots to senior executives in marketing. Today, let's discuss these logics; if the logic is different, the policies formulated are of no value.
**The Logic from Process-Based Assessment to Result-Based Assessment**
Different levels of marketing management have different functions assigned by the enterprise, and thus different assessment content. Many enterprises, in order to form a so-called "joint force," use the same assessment content from bottom to top (for example, uniformly assessing payment and shipment). This may be acceptable for small and micro enterprises, but it is absolutely not advisable for large and medium-sized enterprises.
For small and micro enterprises, the organizational structure is simple, with fewer personnel, making multi-level management impossible. With dozens of people, the purpose of consistent assessment is to solve survival issues, which is a last resort. If large and medium-sized enterprises continue to use this management assessment model, all levels cannot maximize their effectiveness, resulting in huge losses for the enterprise.
**1. What is process assessment?**
For example, grassroots salespeople mainly focus on work around outlets (development and maintenance), displays (point-of-sale visibility), visits (frequency and quality), and product movement (sampling and experience). That is, if I do these tasks well, I should receive my assessment salary. The assessment content focuses on subjective willingness (that is, if you are willing to do it, you can do it well). As for whether distributors ship goods or whether distributor inventory is sufficient, these are not related to the salesperson's assessment. Process assessment focuses on setting goals around better product reach to consumers.
The assessment of grassroots supervisors is also process-based, but the focus is on whether the results of the process meet standards, such as whether the team's visit count to outlets meets targets, whether the team's displays meet standards, etc. The assessment focuses on whether the overall team's efforts to better reach consumers with products are qualified.
**2. What is result assessment?**
For example, a provincial director must be accountable for their business results. The main responsibility of this position is to deploy troops and strategize the market; these rights and responsibilities are granted by the position. Therefore, they cannot be assessed on process, because the process indicators are usually set by them; they cannot be both the referee and the player. To check this level, one must verify the final business results: whether sales targets are met, whether profit targets are met, whether team performance has improved, and whether distributor cooperation (profitability) is stable.
In summary, the assessment logic from salesperson to supervisor, then manager, director, and finally regional head gradually evolves from process indicators to result indicators. From the perspective of a closed-loop assessment, senior executives are responsible for designing and breaking down actions to achieve company goals, while the grassroots are responsible for completing the executives' instructions. The standard for checking whether the design and breakdown are reasonable is the executives' results, and the standard for checking whether the design and breakdown actions can be completed is the grassroots' process.
**The Logic for Assessing Executive-Type Cadres vs. Business-Type Cadres**
Many enterprises have issues in their assessment processes: executive-type cadres are assessed with business elements (hoping they have a "sense of ownership" during execution, reducing costs and increasing efficiency), while business-type cadres are assessed with execution elements (being uneasy about some process management, proposing checks on execution requirements). Is this correct? The answer is that it is suitable for small and micro enterprises, but large and medium-sized enterprises should be cautious and pay attention to the proportion of assessment, especially not to confuse primary and secondary.
**1. What is an executive-type cadre?**
The core work of executive-type cadres is to standardize and implement the company's tactics. The core here is that the company has already designed the standardized actions for tactics, preferably a "foolproof" operational manual. Completing this work does not require much design thinking; it emphasizes execution. For example, the company's eight-step visit process, visual display manual, etc. Those who can do it well are good cadres.
**2. What is a business-type cadre?**
The core work of business-type cadres is to complete the brand owner's business indicators through executive-type cadres and distributor teams. Their operational mindset is not just as an "employee," but also responsible for the local market's operations. They can be understood as the "big contractor" for the market area under their jurisdiction, not only handling operational details but also being responsible for finance, personnel, etc. Some enterprises set up branch companies for better management.
**3. Differences in assessment details between the two**
The assessment content for executive-type cadres includes: a. Distribution achievement; b. Customer activity achievement rate (customer activity achievement rate = actual active households in the month / target households, where target households equal the sum of targets for corresponding salesperson positions and types, e.g., traditional salespeople 180, special channel salespeople 100, KA 100% active, etc.); c. Active customer SKUs (active customer SKU targets, e.g., provincial capitals 5, prefecture-level cities 4, county-level cities 3); d. Paid display inspection coverage rate (regular display coverage rate = actual inspected households / target households); e. Distributor inventory management (inventory checks, freshness, etc.); f. Average SKUs per order in the route; g. Number of effective active customers; h. Other specific follow-up items.
The assessment content for business-type cadres includes: a. Distributor payment and shipment, and distribution achievement; b. Operating profit achievement progress; c. Market expense investment and sales progress; d. Regional market share achievement; e. Analysis of distributor operations within the region; f. Other specific items related to phased business results.
We can clearly see the difference between the two: the former focuses on the operational process, while the latter focuses on business results. In daily assessment, the identification of items should not be black and white, but when the same item is assessed for both executive-type and business-type cadres, attention should be paid to the performance proportion. Without a focus, management work will become chaotic, thereby affecting the healthy development of the market.
**The Logic from Movement to Distribution to Sales to Layout Assessment**
This only involves the sales assessment logic from salesperson to supervisor, then manager, director, and finally regional head. My suggestion is: **Grassroots salespeople should focus on assessing movement**, that is, according to the company's basic actions designed for product movement, take Jinmailang Beverage as an example, quantify, index, and score the actions for product movement, and then constrain the salesperson's behavior. For example, in summer, giving a few points for organizing a refrigerator layer, giving a few points for making a cut-case display, etc. If these actions are done well, the product will move, so salesperson assessment should focus on movement actions. **Supervisors and managers should assess distribution**, that is, whether the movement actions they design are conducive to product movement. If they are conducive to movement, then terminal outlets will reorder cyclically, and the process of cyclic reordering is distribution. Distribution is the standard for checking movement; without movement, there is no distribution. **Regional and provincial heads should assess sales**, that is, by guiding direct subordinates' distribution to increase distributors' cyclic reordering; without distribution, there is no sales. **Regional heads should focus on sales layout**, that is, the density and service quality of regional teams and distributors, product strategy, channel strategy, consumer strategy, organizational strategy implementation, etc. The sales performance of each market is an important indicator for checking the regional head's layout capability.
In summary, many enterprises only focus on distribution and sales in sales assessment, ignoring movement and sales layout assessment, resulting in unsatisfactory outcomes. The reason is that the top-down sales assessment in the marketing team has not formed a closed loop.
**The Best Way to Close the Assessment Loop is Through Anchoring**
This is a method. Currently, I have provided specific anchoring implementation suggestions to several enterprises based on their own characteristics, and they have all received good results. In Chinese-style management, there is much human sentiment and social nuance. Many superiors will give so-called "help" to subordinates who are not competent, as long as it does not affect their own fundamental interests. The logic is simple: a superior has 4-6 subordinates, and if one performs poorly, the increment from others can compensate. This is also the survival space for those who are incompetent. The purpose of anchoring is to make up for team members' shortcomings through assessment bundling, using consistent interest demands to constrain each other, making superiors more concerned about subordinates' market operations and team management. This can effectively solve the problem of superiors not being able to "personally engage" in helping subordinates.
How to implement it specifically? I will give a simple suggestion: 20% of the regional head's KPI is used to assess anchoring indicators, with the assessment content being the three provincial heads with the worst half-year performance in their region, selecting two of them for assessment. The assessment cycle is half a year. During the half-year period, the two provincial heads being helped each account for 10% of their superior's KPI. The superior's performance pay for this KPI is: provincial head's monthly KPI score / 100 points * 10% * performance pay. By analogy, provincial heads anchor two regional managers, regional managers anchor two office managers, office managers anchor two supervisors, and supervisors anchor two salespeople or distributors. It should be noted here that the KPI proportion of the anchoring mechanism should not be one-size-fits-all. Regional heads are busy, so the proportion can be lower; the lower the level, the heavier the KPI proportion should be. For example, provincial heads' anchoring KPI can be 30%, regional managers 40%, and so on.
Forming an anchoring mechanism for the marketing team will make all assessments closer to the market, make the assessment between superiors and subordinates more tightly interlocked, and the assessment closed loop will continuously and stably cycle invisibly.


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