Being a promoter is not just a job, but a challenging career and a life experience. As someone who has been deeply involved in the frontline kitchenware market, I have consciously or unconsciously compared and analyzed various types of promoters. I have found that for most well-performing brands or companies, their terminal promoters have a significant gap with those of average brands in terms of product knowledge, promotional skills, promotional concepts, and promotional mindset. Based on years of practical experience, I believe that to become an excellent promoter and score the 'final goal,' the most fundamental thing is to 'learn to fight in the midst of war.' 1. Learn, Learn, and Learn Again When I first took charge of market management in the Beijing region, I heard from salespeople at the Beijing Marketing Center that a promoter at a certain store sold more than 700 range hoods in a single month at its peak. No one could match her mastery of the product. She could open any brand's range hood, listen to it two or three times, and determine its approximate noise level, power, and impeller speed. After patting the machine a few times, she could tell the thickness of the steel plate used. At first, I couldn't believe it. After witnessing it firsthand, the promoter revealed the secret: before this, she had worked for a range hood company for a year doing dynamic balance and noise testing, which laid the foundation for her knowledge. After becoming a promoter, she enhanced and researched this knowledge, and even took time to visit her former unit to consult with experienced masters. After months of study and practice, she finally mastered some of the regular patterns. Imagine, if our promoters could learn like this, what consumer question could stump them? Learning, especially in this era of rapidly changing products, is the decisive foundation. Product knowledge is the engine, communication knowledge is the car key, market knowledge is the steering wheel, and corporate culture knowledge is the lubricant. Only with the car key, engine, steering wheel, and lubricant can a promoter drive the 'brand train' and deliver products to thousands of households. 2. Strengthen Market Concepts and Don't Miss Any Brand Contact Point When it comes to market concepts, many promoters say, 'Isn't it just treating customers as gods?' In a broad sense, 'customers' are not only the actual consumers who buy our products. Last New Year's Day, I was on a business trip in Shenzhen and went to Huaqiang Road to check the competitive situation. Just as I was about to look at a competitor's new product, a promoter immediately came over and enthusiastically introduced it to me. Before leaving, I casually asked, 'Do you know I'm not here to buy?' She smiled sweetly and asked back, 'What do you think?' I told her honestly that I was visiting the market. She said, 'Actually, from the moment you came in, I guessed you weren't here to buy, and I guessed you might be from a manufacturer.' 'If so, why did you introduce it so enthusiastically?' She smiled again and said, 'For everyone who enters our brand contact point, no matter who they are, they are our customers. That's my principle as a promoter. Because for a customer, missing one promotion is not just losing a successful transaction, but more importantly, losing a good opportunity for word-of-mouth publicity. Perhaps this customer is the first buyer in a new residential community, or a influential housewife in the community, or a procurement manager of a real estate group, or a structural designer of a decoration company. Whether they buy now or not, once they want to buy or someone in their circle wants to buy, they will definitely think of our brand. Through this, I can train my eloquence, communication skills, and selling ability. If they are competitors or peers, I can also use the opportunity to improve myself, and maybe even gain some inspiration and market information from them.' Later, I found out that this promoter was a university graduate who came to Shenzhen to work. After arriving, she couldn't find a job due to high expectations, so she repositioned herself and decided to start from the grassroots. I think such a promoter will soon become an excellent marketing talent. Besides prospective and potential customers, if our promoters also treat mall managers, salespeople, promotion supervisors, and even competitors' promotion colleagues as customers, it will create a team effect. One recommendation from them is worth a thousand of our words; one hint from them is stronger than many of our sales pitches. To win their benign competition and cooperation, we need a broad market concept. Although it's difficult, the rewards are worth it. 3. Shape a Promotional Mindset How to sell combs to monks? How to sell ice to Eskimos? When the trainer asked this in a training class, someone said, 'Well, if not, I just won't sell!' In reality, in today's increasingly competitive market, many products are not easier to sell than combs or ice! What promoters need is the mindset of selling combs to monks and ice to Eskimos! This kind of tempering is not achieved overnight; it requires persistence.

  1. Do things right first, and develop the subconscious of selling yourself before selling the product.
  2. Break through the nine-dot limitation and train your thinking to see the mountain from outside. I remember in a professional sales training, the trainer gave us a test: connect nine points on a plane with four continuous straight lines that are end-to-end (the left side is the problem, the right side is the answer). During the training, most of us fell into a fixed mindset, trying to connect the lines within the boundary of the nine points, and ended up in a dead end. Only when we stepped out of the mountain to see the mountain did we realize we were in the mountain and couldn't see its true face. In daily promotion, if we have more of this awareness, we will find a huge market space. 3. Learn to Be a Mindful Observer of Life. I once met a promoter who always believed that being a promoter is a very challenging job. He designed his own sales statistics reports, including daily, weekly, and monthly reports. Through these reports, he could know a lot of information and data: how many units of each model of his brand were sold in a day? How many of a single model were sold in a month? When is the peak shipping period in a month? When is the peak shipping period in a week? When is the peak shipping period in a day? What are the competitors' sales volumes? What are the best-selling models? What are the slow-moving ones? What are the reasons? What are the volume-driving models of his own brand? What are the profit models? What are the positioning models? What are the corresponding models of competitors? Because of his attentiveness, this promoter's work was outstanding. 4. Perseverance and the Will to Keep Going. The biggest fear in promotion is lack of persistence. Only through accumulation of quantitative changes can there be qualitative changes; at the same time, we must have a clear understanding and detailed segmentation of our goals. Of course, goals are not only reflected in sales volume, but also in more work content that reflects goals, such as terminal visualization, brand image, data reporting, timely information, stable customer relationships, and coexistence with competitors. These are all reflected through the promoter's usual trivial and ordinary work. How to do these detailed tasks well, deeply, and thoroughly is something every promoter should seriously consider. 4. Position Professional Quality and Cultivate Self-Management Awareness
  3. Find the right career positioning: work for yourself. Being a promoter is trivial and monotonous. Without a correct career positioning, it's easy to become weary. The key is to realize the three levels of career positioning: making a living, seeking a career, and pursuing a cause, which produce different effects. Making a living only supports the family, seeking a career leads to small savings, and pursuing a cause allows one to enjoy the pleasures of life and work. Of course, the early quantitative accumulation is essential. 2. Cultivate professional language: dare to speak, be able to speak, and speak well; pay attention to professional image: dare to do, be able to do, and do skillfully. Daring to speak and do is the basic condition for an excellent promoter; being able to speak and do is a necessary condition; speaking well and doing skillfully is a sufficient condition. How to combine your product with competitors' products in speech? How to sell your product in combination with competitors' products? How to turn product shortcomings into non-shortcomings? How to make consumers who don't recognize the product accept its advantages? As the saying goes: third-rate promoters never understand what customers want, and selling products depends entirely on luck; second-rate promoters know what customers want, but unfortunately what they sell often doesn't meet customer requirements; first-rate promoters not only always sell products to customers, but also make customers firmly believe that this is what they want. 3. Plan Your Career Path: From survival to improvement. As a promoter, you should seriously plan your career. On one hand, realize that a tall building rises from the ground, and you must do the basic work well. Only after being tempered in ordinary positions can you 'become immortal.' At the same time, you must also realize that you cannot be content with ordinary work; you must be proactive, and every day you should stimulate your passion and subconscious, achieve more results, and develop upward. Only by not being mediocre can you achieve what others cannot. 4. Self-Management, Starting from Details. As a promoter, can you strictly follow the mall's work schedule? Or arrive five minutes early to do the terminal '6S' work? Can you stay a few minutes late after work to do the 'daily clear' work? Can you insist on making various statistical reports in a timely manner: promotion logs, weekly reports, monthly information summaries, user registration forms, promotion activity registration forms, inventory forms, etc.? During work, can you avoid chatting and joking with other promoters? The difference in self-management and quality among promoters is actually reflected in these details. -END-