In February, the marketing management department of a well-known company, in order to better manage frontline sales personnel and enable them to create higher value for the company, planned to introduce a telecom GPS positioning system to be installed on each salesperson's smartphone, tracking and locating their daily itineraries. After confirming the authenticity of this information with a marketing executive of the company, I predicted that the company would rapidly lose a large number of salespeople within a period of time, and that newly recruited staff would also be reluctant to join the company.

As expected, when I recently returned to Beijing from a business trip and met this executive again, asking about recent business conditions, he looked distressed. Nearly 30% of excellent employees had already left, and about another 30% had explicitly or implicitly indicated they would leave. He asked me why this was happening. Shouldn't salespeople be managed?

I answered him with three reasons:

Trust Management must first be built on mutual trust. Installing a GPS positioning system on salespeople's phones and monitoring their market visits in real time is telling them that the company no longer trusts them, hence the monitoring. As the ancient saying goes: "If you suspect someone, don't use them; if you use them, don't suspect them." Since the fundamental trust is gone, why should employees stay? And if the company no longer trusts its employees, HR should simply dismiss them directly, rather than "disgusting" them with such tactics to force them to leave.

Security Everyone wants to feel safe and not have their privacy spied on. The most indispensable tool for modern people is the mobile phone, carried everywhere. Installing GPS on the phone means the salesperson becomes an open terminal, with their entire itinerary fully exposed to the company. Perhaps the company thinks it only monitors during working hours and doesn't interfere outside, but for salespeople, it's like having eyes watching them at all times, severely lacking a sense of security. Just like in the movie "I Want to Be Good with You," surveillance and tracking ultimately lead to the breakup of a loving couple.

Freedom Sales is not rigid and monotonous; it is more about freedom and spontaneity. Even routine visits can encounter "unexpected situations," such as terminal customers calling urgently for products, consumer complaints, etc., which need to be handled at any time. However, in the system's visit route, there may be significant deviations from the planned path, leading to procedures of questioning, explanation, and verification, exhausting the salesperson physically and mentally. Perhaps the company's reason is to ultimately monitor that salespeople don't do things unrelated to work during working hours. Actually, it's unnecessary. Sales is a result-oriented job with sales performance as the ultimate assessment indicator. If you overemphasize process detail monitoring, you deviate from the essence of sales. Also, while you require salespeople to be 100% dedicated during working hours, have you considered paying overtime when you ask them to work extra hours?

The sales executive was silent for a moment and then asked me how to solve it.

My suggestion was: turn management into motivation.

Originally, the company's incentive mechanism was the passive "hierarchical incentive mechanism" popular years ago, which could no longer meet the needs of current sales personnel. What should be done now is to fully stimulate the individual sales potential of salespeople, ignite their sales passion, and make each salesperson an autonomous marketing entity. How to build an autonomous marketing entity?

Step 1: Change supervision to guidance Replace the original supervision system, fully trust sales personnel, and have office sales supervisors and directors step out of their closed offices, go to the frontline, visit terminals with salespeople, understand terminal conditions, help salespeople solve practical problems, and guide them on how to serve terminals.

Step 2: Fully delegate authority to the frontline Within the broad policy framework, fully trust and authorize frontline sales personnel. Let them adjust and execute display, promotion, publicity, and storefront changes based on the actual situation of each store, without a one-size-fits-all approach. Report daily, summarize weekly, and make sales data and cost-effectiveness ratios public.

Step 3: Encourage independent entrepreneurship No one knows the regional situation better than frontline employees. Therefore, the company can consider encouraging some loyal, thoughtful, passionate, and entrepreneurial frontline employees to become the company's distributors, providing support in capital, logistics, and expenses.

The process of employees successfully starting their own businesses is the process of the company's sales growth. Throughout the process, the company's trust and care are fully demonstrated, stimulating employees' sales enthusiasm (who wouldn't strive for their own career?), while not infringing on employees' personal privacy and security. This is true sales management.

Reply with the following keywords to categorize and read related professional articles: Sales Supervisor, Second-Tier Management, Regional Manager, Distributor Management, New Channels, City Manager, Competition, 2015, Manufacturer-Dealer Game, Product Slow Sales, Terminal Visit Management, Route Management, Deep Distribution, Internal Management, Sales Skills, Profit Improvement, Recruitment, Distribution, Daily Management, Team Motivation, Trade Promotion, Sales Misconceptions, New Product Launch, Township Market, New Product Pricing, Sales Target Achievement, Closing Deals, Market Visit Inspection, Baijiu, Beer, Sales Increase, Agency Products, Cross-Region Sales, KA, Terminal Visualization, New Market, Market Operation, Learning, Book Recommendations, Inventory Management, New Salespeople, Consumer Promotion, Execution, Old Products, Expired Product Handling, Model Market, Investment Promotion, New Media, Distributor Development, Performance Appraisal, Assessment, Annual Planning, Shopping Guide, Morning Meeting, Display, Transformation, Stock Pressure, Holidays, Distributor Cost Control, Channel Operation, Marketing Theory and Laws, Brand Truth, Order Meeting, Team Management, Training, Debriefing, Debriefing Report.

Reply with number 1 to enter the library category browsing;