Terminal work has focused on sales, and the terminal tactics of various companies have become increasingly homogenized, which is an important reason for the decline in terminal effectiveness. The existing terminal operation model has reached its limit; only innovation can break through and bring prospects. Terminal innovation must return to the basic principles of marketing: customer centricity.

  1. Terminal work should shift from terminal sales to customer management Marketing is about creating customers, and terminal work is the means to put this concept into action. The terminal has two major functions: achieving product sales and owning customers. Some companies have achieved the first but have not discovered or utilized the second. Successful terminal work not only sells more products but also develops relationships with customers and builds a large customer base. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, said, "Customer loyalty is the true source of a company's profits. You cannot rely solely on flashy sales tactics or expensive advertising to bring strangers into the store and have them never return. It is satisfied, loyal customers who have created Walmart's impressive economic benefits." It is also by having customers who are willing to buy and use your products that the terminal achieves good sales, forming a virtuous cycle.
  2. Start terminal work by creating customers. Some companies start terminal work from entering the store, focusing on distribution and promotion. Others start by cultivating customers, doing terminal work from outside the store. Wherever there are customers, that is your terminal. Find the customers, and you find your terminal. In the central plains, winter is the off-season for ice cream, but a distributor in one region created a small peak season by selling ice cream in winter. Why? He went to hot pot restaurants to sell ice cream. He told those eating hot pot that after eating hot pot, having an ice cream is refreshing. He found customers in the hot pot restaurant and thus discovered a new terminal. While many milk powder companies were fighting fiercely at retail terminals to achieve sales, some foreign milk powder brands had already done the work ahead. They gave milk powder free to hospitals, and hospitals recommended it to new mothers. As a result, when these mothers returned home from the hospital, the first milk powder they considered buying was the one they had seen in the hospital. Advice to companies: Investigate your customers and see where they gather. Wherever customers concentrate their activities, that is your terminal.
  3. Pursue customer share. AC Nielsen's survey last year found that from Monday to Friday, the average transaction value in domestic supermarkets was 29 yuan, while in foreign hypermarkets it was 75 yuan; the gap was even larger on weekends, with domestic supermarkets at 35 yuan and foreign hypermarkets at 149 yuan. The reasons for the low average transaction value in domestic stores are multifaceted, one being that salespeople have not yet learned how to tap into customer needs and sell more products to customers. When you go to KFC to buy a burger, the server will also ask, "Would you like a pack of fries?" This increases the average transaction value. Existing customers are the best customers. Terminal sales should shift from market share to customer share, learning how to sell more products to your existing customers. A long time ago, I gave a training session to distributors of Skyworth Group. A county-level distributor shared a case: A hotel owner came to his store to buy a TV and a washing machine. Just as he was about to pay, the distributor returned and immediately gave the customer a discount. When he heard that the appliances were for the daughter's dowry, he immediately gave the customer a water dispenser as a gift. The customer was very moved and immediately bought an additional refrigerator. The customer said the hotel was about to purchase a batch of TVs and freezers. A few days later, the customer bought tens of thousands of yuan of products from him. This is a "super shopping guide story" with Chinese characteristics. I have noticed a new trend in terminal sales: salespeople are beginning to use cross-selling, up-selling, and solution-based selling methods to better meet customer needs while increasing the average transaction value. For example, Haier Group proposed "selling home appliances as a complete set." Understanding customer needs and selling more products to customers requires not only improving the sales skills of store staff but also the ability of the company to recombine products according to customer needs, which poses a challenge to the company's marketing management system.
  4. Do terminal work after the sale, mining customer lifetime value. After selling a product to a customer at the terminal, is the sale over? No. I believe the word "sales" contains four meanings: persuading customers to buy the product; making customers satisfied during use; satisfied customers returning to buy again; and recommending you to new customers. In this way, your customer base grows, and sales increase naturally. The "customer lifetime value theory" popular in Western business circles tells us that from accepting your brand to refusing to buy it again is the customer lifecycle. The total profit a customer contributes by purchasing your products during the lifecycle is the customer lifetime value. Sales work should not focus only on closing this transaction but also on mining the customer's lifetime value. Previously, during a training for a milk powder company's distributors, I calculated an account for the distributors. The product is suitable for infants aged 0 to 4. Each infant consumes 8 bags of milk powder per month, so over 4 years, they consume 400 bags. This is the goal of terminal sales: to have customers buy our milk powder for 4 years. The customer lifetime value theory proposes new standards for evaluating sales work: customer retention rate and customer share. The quality of sales work is not only measured by how many products you sell and how much sales volume you achieve, but also by the customer retention rate, which is the length of time you maintain business relationships with customers. As Warren Anderson, a former president of 3M, said, evaluating sales power is not only about sales volume but also about whether your interactions with customers are growing in a planned way; customer share is the proportion of your products in the total products purchased by customers. Personally, I believe the existing terminal sales model has reached its limit and it is difficult to significantly increase product sales. Shifting from terminal sales to customer management, focusing on cultivating customers and mining their lifetime value, will bring you more opportunities.
  5. Terminal upgrade requires new marketing theory guidance and new marketing tools Existing terminal work models, characterized by terminal vividness and terminal interception, focus on sales. Whoever invests more in the terminal and has stronger promotions may become the winner. This is also one reason why terminal work has fallen into difficulty. If we continue doing this, will the terminal go into a dead end? Shifting the focus of terminal work from terminal sales to customer management requires providing marketing personnel with new marketing theories and tools, such as customer lifetime value theory and customer loyalty marketing. Customer organization: Using customer membership systems, customer files, and other means to organize individual customers and build a company's customer team. Customer activation: Using customer clubs and other means to provide a platform for communication, attract customers to participate in marketing activities, and improve customer retention. Customer communication: Using internal publications and other means to convey company information to customers, deepen their understanding of corporate culture and brand philosophy, and enhance their understanding of the company. Value-added services: Organizing customers becomes the company's most important wealth. A health products company in Beijing established a customer club through a membership system with over 100,000 members. The company's annual revenue from organizing member travel exceeds its revenue from selling health products. Customer relationship marketing methods will guide us on how to maintain closer relationships with customers. Cross-selling methods allow us to sell more products to the same customer. Using word-of-mouth marketing, turn the terminal into a brand promotion front, so customers bring you more customers. Replace terminal product sales plans with customer loyalty marketing plans. And so on. Loyal customers are a money tree. A U.S. survey shows that a 5% increase in repeat customers increases profits by 25%. 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, Market Visit and Inspection, Baijiu, Beer, Sales Increase, Agency Products, Channel Crossing, KA, Terminal Vividness, New Market, Market Operation, Learning, Book Recommendations, Inventory Management, New Salespeople, Consumer Promotion, Execution, Old Products, Expired Product Handling, Model Market, Investment Attraction, New Media, Distributor Development, Performance Appraisal, Assessment, Annual Planning, Shopping Guide, Morning Meeting, Display, Transformation, Inventory Pressure, Holidays, Distributor Cost Control, Channel Operation, Marketing Theory and Laws, Brand Truth, Order Meeting, Team Management, Training, Debriefing, Debriefing Report.