---
title: "Seven Steps to Developing a New Market"
description: "The article outlines a seven-step approach to developing new markets, emphasizing preparation, market research, customer selection, and follow-through. Drawing on five years of experience at Jinjian Rice, the author provides practical tactics for each step, from pre-departure preparation to post-launch details."
author: "易季忠"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-04-21"
language: "en"
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# Seven Steps to Developing a New Market

> The article outlines a seven-step approach to developing new markets, emphasizing preparation, market research, customer selection, and follow-through. Drawing on five years of experience at Jinjian Rice, the author provides practical tactics for each step, from pre-departure preparation to post-launch details.

As the art of war says, "Plan before you act." For every endeavor, preparation ensures success, and lack of preparation leads to failure. The same applies to developing new markets. Each new market development requires clear strategies and tactical details. Below, I will discuss new market development with my colleagues, drawing on practical situations I encountered during five years in marketing at Jinjian Rice.

New market development can be summarized into the following seven steps:

**Step 1: Before departure, achieve the "five familiarities."**
1. Be familiar with the company's current position in the industry.
2. Be familiar with the company's products, especially their advantages, consumption methods, storage methods, and all other product knowledge.
3. Be familiar with the processing technology.
4. Be familiar with the company's marketing culture and policies.
5. Be familiar with all available customer resources in the new market that the company already has, including old business partners and customers who have proactively called to seek cooperation.

Being familiar with the company's industry position directly determines your mindset and confidence when visiting customers. For example, our company is the first grain stock in China and the first brand of Chinese rice, which gives us full confidence when negotiating with customers. Being familiar with the products, especially their advantages, consumption methods, storage methods, and processing technology, helps us avoid speaking like a layman during negotiations. If the customer is a layman, they will see us as experts; if they are an insider, they will recognize our expertise. This makes it easy for us to be accepted and gives customers a sense of security in cooperating with us. Being familiar with the company's marketing culture and policies helps us know our concession limits during negotiations and lets customers feel the standardization and continuity of our marketing policies. Being familiar with the available customer resources in the new market, including old business partners and proactive callers, is actually preparation for finding customers. In November 2000, when I developed the Henan market, I successfully developed Luoyang, Pingdingshan, Zhengzhou, and Puyang markets in just one week. My colleagues in the refined rice company thought I was amazing, but actually, before going to Henan, I had thoroughly collected information on customers with business ties to our company, including raw material suppliers and equipment suppliers, and specifically instructed the phone operators to note any customers from Henan who called proactively. So when I arrived in Henan, I was able to visit customers with a clear purpose, which is why I was so fast.

**Step 2: Upon arriving in the new market, conduct one "survey" and three "determinations."**
Conducting a thorough market survey is a necessary and primary step in developing a new market. The survey process is also a process of getting a feel for the market. Through the survey, you can fully understand the competitive landscape, market potential, and sales forecasts, thereby discovering market opportunities and finding breakthroughs.

The three "determinations" are:
- First, based on the market survey, analyze and determine the position and advantages of our company's products and marketing policies in the industry, and find a breakthrough. In 2000, when the refined rice factory had just started production, I was responsible for developing the Wuhan market. Upon arriving in Wuhan, I followed the traditional habit and plunged into the grain wholesale market, but I couldn't find an agent. Later, through analysis, I found that our product price point couldn't match ordinary rice. So I changed my thinking: why should I insist on selling our product as rice? Why not sell it as food? So I proposed the concept of "Don't sell our rice as rice, but as food." This broadened my customer search significantly. At first, some people found this concept amusing, but it greatly influenced the thinking of our refined rice company in developing customers. This is why even now, few of our agents are in the grain and oil business. In March 2001, when I took over the Jiangxi market, there was only one distributor. After arriving in Jiangxi, I found through surveys that Jiangxi itself produces high-quality rice, even better than Hunan's. It was indeed difficult to sell rice in Jiangxi. However, through analysis and comparison, I found that our 5kg plastic packaging was our advantage and selling point. Competitors' packaging was mainly woven bags with low-end designs. So when developing customers, I emphasized the prospects and profit margins of 5kg small-packaged rice, which impressed many customers. By July 2001, we had grown to 12 distributors. Also, although I wasn't responsible for noodle sales at the time, I noticed that our noodles had a good market in Jiangxi (high repurchase rate and sufficient profit margins for retailers). So sometimes when a distributor was initially unwilling to do rice, I would first introduce noodles to them. After they tasted success with noodles, it was easier to get them to take on rice. I cite these two examples to illustrate the necessity and importance of survey and analysis in developing new markets.
- Second, based on market needs, preliminarily determine the channel distribution model to be chosen: regional exclusive agency or multi-agency, direct sales or agency. This is crucial as it directly determines which type of customers we will visit later.
- Third, preliminarily determine the "blacklist" of customers to visit. In addition to the customer list collected before departure, the main methods to determine the customer "blacklist" are: 1. In supermarkets, look for popular brands related to but different from our products, note their phone numbers, and find their regional agents. 2. Inquire about well-known suppliers through supermarket purchasing staff. 3. Conduct multi-faceted investigations to find successful agents in the circle.

**Step 3: Preparation before visiting customers:**
1. Samples and relevant promotional materials.
2. Determine the travel route and make a phone appointment in advance to ensure punctual arrival.
3. A "Market Promotion Plan."
4. Organize language: determine the main content of the conversation with the customer during the initial visit. Below is the main content I typically cover during initial customer visits: 1. Company overview and industry position, production scale and capacity, quality assurance and stability system. This mainly gives customers two reassurances: first, they can cooperate with us long-term without worrying that the company will collapse after building up the product; second, we have sufficient supply guarantees. 2. Our main target markets and market prospect analysis. 3. Our proposed market promotion plan. 4. Our zero-risk after-sales service guarantee system. 5. Profit system. 6. Our basic requirements for distributors, especially emphasizing payment before delivery.
5. Determine negotiation bottom lines, such as the maximum concessions on payment terms, promotional support, and returns.

**Step 4: During customer visits, how to "impress" the customer:**
1. Introduce a practical investment and financial plan tailored for the customer. This includes investment risk analysis—zero risk; profitability analysis—sufficient profit margin guarantee; and long-term brand operability analysis—rice currently has no national brand, so once you secure the agency for the first brand, the benefits will be endless. In 2000, when I was developing markets, the agent in Xiangfan, Hubei, was originally in the rubber business, and the agent in Loudi was selling kitchenware at Qiaonan Market. Why did they all start doing Jinjian rice? It was mainly because the practical investment and financial plan I developed for them impressed them. Also, when I first arrived in the Beijing market last year, I was unfamiliar with the place. I visited many customers, but either they lacked capital strength or their existing channels had problems. Finally, it was the practical investment and financial plan that impressed the current distributor—Beijing Wanbang Food Company. They were originally in health products and had never done rice. As the company boss joked, "Many companies want us to be their agents, so why did I choose you? It's because of your 'Investment and Financial Plan.'"
2. Use a moderate level of persuasiveness and affinity in tone and content. Moderation is key here. If you speak too plainly or in a low tone, you won't ignite the customer's entrepreneurial passion. As mentioned above, if you start by saying that supply is often unstable or quality often has problems, you'll scare customers away. But if you exaggerate too much, it will cause trouble later.
3. Provide good after-sales service commitments.

**Step 5: "Invitation" before signing:** After preliminarily selecting some interested distributors, inviting customers to visit the company is an important means to facilitate cooperation. I believe every customer who visits our company will gain much more confidence in cooperating with us.

**Step 6: Establishment of the distributor:** Choose the most suitable, not necessarily the largest, customer from the interested distributors as our partner.

**Step 7: "Details" before launch:** After officially confirming the partner, start acting as a "salesperson" and "logistics officer" for the distributor in terms of ordering, product selection, price system determination, and distribution channel determination, to fulfill the commitments made during negotiations.

Through the above steps, new market development is basically completed. However, market development is only the first step in marketing; the work ahead is more arduous and great. But I believe: only with a good beginning can there be brilliance later!

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