---
title: "Money is Hard to Earn, People are Hard to Manage! This is a Common Ailment of FMCG Enterprises!"
description: "Distributor bosses often lament: money is hard to earn, and people are hard to manage. Indeed, over the past decade or so in the FMCG industry, many companies have exhausted their product innovation capabilities, leading to severe product homogenization and price wars. This has triggered a chain reaction: declining distributor profits, shrinking team incomes, and unstable staffing that degrades service quality. Strong brands survive on brand power, but new and weak brands struggle. A few years ago, Jinmailang's four-in-one model caused a stir in the FMCG circle, suggesting that the more decentralized the distribution rights, the stronger the initiative and market competitiveness. Many companies have since explored partner models to decentralize distribution rights, and some have found sustainable survival methods in the highly competitive FMCG industry. This article discusses partner recruitment."
author: "高级研究员 海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2023-08-18"
language: "en"
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---

# Money is Hard to Earn, People are Hard to Manage! This is a Common Ailment of FMCG Enterprises!

> Distributor bosses often lament: money is hard to earn, and people are hard to manage. Indeed, over the past decade or so in the FMCG industry, many companies have exhausted their product innovation capabilities, leading to severe product homogenization and price wars. This has triggered a chain reaction: declining distributor profits, shrinking team incomes, and unstable staffing that degrades service quality. Strong brands survive on brand power, but new and weak brands struggle. A few years ago, Jinmailang's four-in-one model caused a stir in the FMCG circle, suggesting that the more decentralized the distribution rights, the stronger the initiative and market competitiveness. Many companies have since explored partner models to decentralize distribution rights, and some have found sustainable survival methods in the highly competitive FMCG industry. This article discusses partner recruitment.

Distributor bosses often say: money is hard to earn, and people are hard to manage.
Indeed, over the past decade or so in the FMCG industry, many companies have exhausted their product innovation capabilities. Many new products are similar or even seriously plagiarized, leading to increasingly severe product homogenization, making price wars inevitable. This triggers a chain reaction: distributor operating profits gradually decline, internal team incomes shrink, and unstable staffing degrades service quality at retail points. Strong brands can survive on brand power, but new and weak brands can only struggle.
A few years ago, Jinmailang's four-in-one model caused a stir in the FMCG circle, believing that: **the more decentralized the distribution rights, the stronger the initiative of personnel, and the stronger the market competitiveness.** So many companies began to explore how to decentralize distribution rights through partner models (some call it the small boss model, others the big boss model). Many manufacturers have indeed found ways to survive in the extremely competitive FMCG industry. Today, we discuss partner recruitment.
**Clarify Roles and Responsibilities at All Levels**
Clarifying roles and responsibilities at all levels is the prerequisite for recruiting partners. The logic is simple: brand owners must first understand what roles are needed to succeed in their business, develop detailed personnel screening criteria, and then the recruitment team can execute.
For regional FMCG business, besides the distributor partner, essential roles include frontline operators and frontline managers. Let's define these two roles.
**1. Roles and Responsibilities of Management Partners**
a. Contract the regional distribution of the brand owner's market, recruit distributors and frontline operators, and cover terminal outlets for sales.
b. Lead regional operations, calculate regional population/outlets based on sales targets, and set monthly and quarterly goals.
c. Allocate tasks and market resources to frontline personnel, and use promotions and expense support to achieve goals.
d. Use systematic tools for management, set standard checks, incentives, and track performance indicators.
e. Responsible for frontline personnel's income/expense advances and distributor settlements according to profit distribution principles.
f. Clarify three key work items: performance indicators, process indicators, and management indicators.
g. Collaborate with brand owner's management to plan future market operations and business development.
**2. Roles and Responsibilities of Frontline Operator Partners**
a. Follow outlet visit standards and superior task assignments, responsible for outlet development and visits.
b. Utilize display management and sales terminals, enjoy sales profit sharing and incentive allowances.
c. Use the system daily for store visits to achieve process and performance indicators.
d. Clarify four key work items: new outlet addition, store visits, display management, and product sell-through.
Summary: With the above definitions and clear direction, recruitment team operations become easier. Details should be combined with actual conditions to ensure partners meet the brand owner's expectations.
**Essential Personal Qualities for Partners**
The core principle of partner recruitment is an entrepreneurial mindset; all necessary conditions should revolve around entrepreneurship. What kind of people are suitable for entrepreneurship? What conditions must they have? These should be clearly defined.
For example, Uni-President's previous "big package" model failed partly because it recruited people with an employee mindset, thinking they could rely on the company. I have summarized the following points for reference.
**1. Willing to endure hardship:** Dare to face market changes and unknowns, have a sense of responsibility, not be timid or retreat.
**2. Under pressure:** Want to earn more money, around 30-40 years old, have a family, children in school, have dreams for the future, no longer want to be constrained by a small circle, want to be their own boss.
**3. FMCG professional:** Professional matching is important. First, partners work together; without relevant experience, they must not be accepted. Second, marketing experience is core; those from logistics departments like marketing or operations are not ideal.
**4. Ambitious to grow:** Dare to be first, first come first served, have the idea and determination to replace regional big distributors.
**5. Systematic and able to manage people:** Manage expenses and performance output, have business thinking, use digital tools to manage the business, and lead the sales team well.
**6. Have small capital and can calculate:** Willing to invest capital for market operations, able to account for related expenses and income.
**Standard Profile of Entrepreneurial Partners**
**1. Unsuccessful brand owner marketing personnel**
We all know that in the workplace, both emotional intelligence and IQ are needed for promotion and salary increases. In short, you need good performance and good interpersonal skills. Of course, some excel in one area, like being very good at interpersonal skills or having excellent performance, and they can also get promoted. The rest settle at the grassroots or grassroots management level, becoming "clappers." Some of these are our core targets for recruiting management partners. Those with good performance but poor interpersonal skills are the first choice; those with poor performance but good interpersonal skills should never be chosen.
**2. Distributor's professional managers**
Large trading companies with annual sales over 100 million yuan, operating multiple brands, with basically complete management systems, have general managers and brand managers for each product. Their brand managers are ideal entrepreneurial partners.
First, they are familiar with the distributor's operating system; second, they work closely with frontline staff and know the market well; third, their income is generally not high, many not reaching 10,000 yuan per month, and they have entrepreneurial thoughts but fear losses. So if you ignite their entrepreneurial passion, they will be ideal partners.
**3. Those already starting a business but struggling to sustain it**
Many professional managers leave companies to start their own businesses, going from blind confidence to being slapped by the market. These painful experiences have accumulated valuable failure lessons, but they are unwilling to accept failure and always seek entrepreneurial paths. These are also ideal partners for brand owners; with resources and support, they will surely do better.
**4. Strong brand sales team leaders**
Essentially, grassroots sales team leaders are not much different from newly hired sales supervisors. They may just lack an opportunity. They perform well, manage quality wholesale and distribution customers well, and are ideal partners for brand owners. They know how to sell, understand key account management, have relatively low salaries, and hope to break through quickly, making them easier to satisfy in terms of income.
Summary: The above FMCG professionals are ideal partners for brand management. As the saying goes, "a thousand troops are easy to get, but a general is hard to find." When brand owners recruit partners, if they first secure ideal management partners, subsequent work will go smoothly.
**How to Persuade Partners to Join**
When brand owners launch a good model or product, it's not like waving a flag and having thousands come. You need to persuade partners to join. At this time, you must put yourself in their shoes, fully understand their concerns, and address them one by one. During communication, maintain sincerity, be honest, and try hard to persuade, because some good projects can only be understood through deep participation, and success is often within reach.
Below are some pain points of entrepreneurs; if solved, partners can be recruited quickly.
**Pain Point 1: Capital**
For FMCG entrepreneurs, the biggest pressure is capital. They need to pay for goods, rent warehouses, and pay salaries for finance or warehouse staff. Without sufficient capital, even strong brands won't cooperate.
Solution: Capital, warehouses, warehouse keepers, finance, etc., are usually available at distributors. Consider bringing distributors in as partners and just allocate profits properly.
**Pain Point 2: Team**
Building a team, especially recruiting frontline operators, is also a major pressure. Without the right people, the chance of failure is high. Also, product delivery in FMCG is a challenge; it's best if salespeople join with vehicles for efficient distribution, otherwise it becomes even harder.
Solution: Brand owners should calculate product profit structures, provide some practical guarantees for team recruitment, such as social insurance, vehicle subsidies, market operation rewards, etc., to ensure minimum living needs, allowing them to act freely and devote themselves fully.
**Pain Point 3: Communication**
In actual entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs are lonely. There is no suitable person to discuss next market steps. Brand owners' middle and senior management are often "bureaucratic," visiting the market briefly, having "sympathy" communication, saying correct but useless words, then eating, drinking, and leaving. Entrepreneurs have to passively entertain, and real market problems or difficulties are still handled by themselves.
Solution: When brand owners recruit partners, they must require company personnel to travel and visit the market, work with the entrepreneurial team, at least one week per month. They must establish the correct concept: the entrepreneurial team is not a subordinate distributor but a partner, and brand owner personnel are part of it.
Summary: To persuade partners, first understand why they didn't start a business before, what conditions prevented them. Their difficulties are not isolated but common to a group. Solve them in practice, open their hearts, and recruitment becomes easier.
**Final Thoughts**
Fifteen years ago, grassroots FMCG workers were mainly post-70s and post-80s. They came from an era of material scarcity, were hardworking and dedicated. Distributors could be said to "manage" the team, with common requirements like no rest if sales targets weren't met, voluntary overtime, and fines or dismissal for disobedience.
Five years ago, grassroots workers were mainly post-85s and post-90s. They lived in an era of relative material abundance, with initial spiritual needs. Distributors could be said to "negotiate" with the team. This generation has individuality; simple command-style requirements don't work. More communication is needed to open their hearts for efficient work.
Now, grassroots workers are mainly post-95s and post-00s. They live in an era of material abundance, mostly only children, with strong individuality, believing in self-determination. "Management" and "negotiation" both fail; the only way is to let them be their own bosses as "partners."
So from the perspective of human needs and team management, **the "partner" model is inevitable in the industry. Brand owners should prepare early, build strong channel power in regional markets, and start laying out partner models in distribution areas now, beginning to recruit partners.**


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