1 How should distributors deal with manufacturers' sales managers? Dealing with manufacturers' sales personnel is a daily routine for distributors, mainly involving the following basic matters: payments, expense settlements, market operations, and product quality. When handling these matters, distributors should adhere to several principles: base on facts, speak with data, and earn the money you deserve. After discussing the principles, let's talk about the attitude distributors should have: maintain equality and respect within work, and foster personal relationships outside work. It's best to assign a dedicated professional manager to liaise with the manufacturer's business team to enhance communication and smooth operations. 2 When selecting new products, which factors are most important for distributors? When selecting new products, among factors like quality, price, profit, brand, manufacturer support, and marketing strategy, which are most important? For distributors selecting new products, the influencing factors should be ranked as follows: Quality > Brand > Price > Marketing Strategy > Manufacturer Support > Profit. Stage| Bargaining Power| Product Selection Factors| Phenomenon| Distributor's Required Capabilities Brand| Distributor| Network/Product (Match)| Rise of large distributors| Collect payment + Deliver goods Channel| Enterprise| Trend/Model/Price Point (Resources)| Famous brands/Revival of regional liquor/Rise of super distributors| Market awareness (display + visual merchandising + pricing) Service awareness (quality + inventory exchange + customer relations) Organizational awareness (finance + warehousing + supervision + business segmentation by product/channel/region) Consumer Sovereignty| Consumer| Scenario segmentation (Demand)| Brand integration and differentiation/New price bands/New distribution| Marketing awareness (brand guidance + consumer leadership + promotional recommendations + scenario marketing + cultural heritage) At different stages of market development, the qualities distributors should possess also vary. 3 How to encourage repeat purchases after a customer's trial purchase? There are two key points: First, many factors influence a target consumer's first trial purchase; the key is to identify high-probability events and replicate the trial, while abandoning low-probability events. Second, the consumer's purchase channel is crucial. 4 What are the methods and techniques for product sell-through? Products in different channels require different sell-through methods and techniques. For example, core tobacco and liquor stores should focus on core consumer trials, core supermarkets on core consumer validation, core circles on core consumer consolidation, and core hotels on core consumer influence. 5 How can gifts effectively promote sales? First, let's correct a common misconception: Terminals do not stock up because of gifts; they only consider gifts if the product's price and profit can support it. Second, at the channel level, gifts serve to adjust the price system and maintain customer relationships. Finally, at the consumer level, promotional items should have a high winning rate, be easy to obtain, be seasonal, not exceed the product itself, and give consumers a sense of value. 6 For the same product, is price maintenance or volume more important? Of course, price maintenance is more important. If you can't maintain price, the channel won't sell your product. When dealing with the same product, between maintaining price and volume, always choose price maintenance! But how to maintain volume? Here are some methods for your consideration and reference. There are four ways to increase single-product sales volume: First, expand regional coverage. Originally, you might have worked with 10 distributors and a certain number of tobacco and liquor stores; now you should increase the number of terminals. Second, deepen terminal penetration. Within a system, how much of a terminal's annual sales of similar products does your product account for? Distributors should have actual data, reports, and data support. Therefore, terminal depth is crucial. Third, to prevent sales decline or even achieve growth, you must work on consumers. As long as consumer efforts are done well, product volume will inevitably increase. Fourth, extend the product life cycle. At different stages, redistribute the original price system. This is mainly achieved through price increases, policy rebate splits (display + heterogeneous gifts), and promotional refunds. 7 How can products from outside compete with strong local brands? First, position the agency product. What is the benchmark product for the agency product? What policies does the benchmark product have in the channel? What policies for consumers? How to compete with competitors for market share? Different products have different benchmarks, and different price points require different operational methods. Second, concentrate superior resources. To win with small against large, concentrate superior resources to invest in some terminals. Third, identify the target audience and continuously stir up consumers. Fourth, prepare terminal recommendation scripts. What should salespeople say at terminals to get them to accept the product? How to tell terminals to recommend the product to consumers? These are all scripts, and recommendation scripts are very important. If the script is not well-designed, sorry, no matter how much money you have or how good the salesperson's relationships are, it will be hard to distribute the product because the terminal owner doesn't know how to sell this batch of liquor! Fifth, the price system is of utmost importance, especially for new product operations. Remember not to give extra fees just because a terminal asks for more, as it affects the entire product's market. 8 How should other high-end products position themselves? In a market dominated by mainstream brands, how should other high-end products position themselves? What are good sell-through methods for high-end liquor? First, product positioning. Distributors rarely pick just one product; they usually pick a series of 3-4 products. You must find one product to benchmark against the market, while others serve as support and cost-sharing. Second, how to increase sell-through? When you decide to do a product, you must persist. First, investigate clearly whether the product's organizational and customer relationship systems are stable. Second, the distributor's sales team should be stable. Sell-through should come naturally; you must work on consumers because in the FMCG industry, only by capturing consumers do you have a chance. Relying solely on channel push is difficult. 9 How should distributors deal with issues like credit sales and price suppression? Let's start with credit sales. Why do credit sales occur? No matter what product you do, credit sales mean killing the product because goods bought on credit basically won't sell through. Credit sales occur due to a lack of scripts. Distributors don't tell salespeople how to sell; they just tell them the commission, product, and salary. Even if a good salesperson has customer relationships, those can't be used every time. Therefore, you must give salespeople two sets of scripts: one for entering terminals and one for getting terminals to sell the product. What to do when price suppression occurs? First, resolutely prevent it. If a box of product is 198 yuan, 10 boxes are 1980 yuan. Giving the terminal owner a discount of 80 yuan is a disguised form of lowering the supply price and disrupting the price system. Second, insist that price and promotions match. If the terminal owner insists on not paying the 80 yuan, then the free goods accompanying the shipment should be reduced; otherwise, it's a disguised price cut. Regarding new product promotions, basically no product can sell without promotion, so promotion is normal. But before promoting, clarify the purpose: to pressure terminal inventory? To get terminal displays? Generally, when setting the price system, display fees are considered brand investment and are linked to purchases. So without promotion, terminals won't stock up; thus, "no promotion, no sales" is price management. "Promotion but no sales" may have two reasons: First, terminals stock up only for display fees; Second, it indicates that product sell-through and gift work haven't been done well. The importance of a stable price system has been discussed. Generally, display fees can't compete with large enterprises, but you still need to maintain price stability. How? One word: grind! Let salespeople build customer relationships! Because increasing display fees will inflate costs and affect the price. Additionally, return to consumer pull activities. 10 How should distributors maintain their customers in the face of e-commerce impact? Let's look at this from several aspects. 1. Factors for terminals selling products: Channel profit or turnover speed. From a channel profit perspective, selling e-commerce products is no different from selling your products, so it's still a sell-through issue. If your product sells faster and turns over faster, customers will naturally continue to do your product. 2. In terms of channels, treat display fees as rent and profit, so visit frequency is important. 3. Protect the price of existing products, continuously redefine profit distribution + emotion. If it's a fast-moving product, prices must be adjusted continuously; price increases are a good measure for mid-to-low-end products. Source: Distributor Column -END-