---
title: "The Self-Employed Approach to Staffing: The Root of Distributors' Failure to Grow"
description: "Because of a few capable people, a small success is achieved; because there are only these few capable people, the business cannot grow. This is the biggest challenge for distributor bosses before they transform from businesspeople into managers."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2016-04-22"
language: "en"
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---

# The Self-Employed Approach to Staffing: The Root of Distributors' Failure to Grow

> Because of a few capable people, a small success is achieved; because there are only these few capable people, the business cannot grow. This is the biggest challenge for distributor bosses before they transform from businesspeople into managers.

Because of a few capable people, a small success is achieved; because there are only these few capable people, the business cannot grow. This is the biggest challenge for distributor bosses before they transform from businesspeople into managers.

The Realm of Distributor Staffing
How large a distributor can become, or whether it has a future, is determined by the realm of the distributor's staffing philosophy.
From the perspective of staffing, there are four realms for bosses.

Realm One: Being a capable person yourself and fully leveraging your own abilities.
The boss is Sun Wukong, and employees are the imperial guards. Most grassroots distributors staff this way. The "capable people" they want to use are usually their own shadows. Unfortunately, employees who can be like the boss ultimately cannot be retained, and they can even be terrible employees.
If the boss remains at this realm, the enterprise may forever stay at the stage of a self-employed business.
A self-employed distributor may be profitable at a certain stage, but mainly earns money from their own hard work. They are both chairman and general manager, as well as purchaser, delivery person, salesperson, cashier, accountant, and even porter. After accounting for the wages paid for these "part-time" positions, does the distributor still have profit?
Such distributors often like to use their own abilities to highlight the incompetence of their employees, often saying "a bunch of idiots," mainly referring to their subordinates. Therefore, competing with employees for credit and ability is their basic characteristic.
Such a distributor may be a good businessperson, but not a manager, let alone an entrepreneur.

Realm Two: Having a group of capable people and letting them leverage their abilities.
With a group of capable people under them, the boss can confidently let them work, and the enterprise can reach a certain scale.
The emergence of capable people is half due to the boss's cultivation and half due to luck. In my view, having capable subordinates is truly a stroke of luck for distributors.
Because of a few capable people, a small success is achieved; because there are only these few capable people, the business cannot grow.
Because there are capable people, one sighs at their importance; because there are too few capable people, one sighs at the rarity of talent.
The key is: How did these capable people come about? How long did it take to cultivate them?
I know a boss who spent over ten years cultivating more than ten "iron-blooded warriors," and the company's scale ultimately stayed at the level of these dozen or so excellent salespeople. To expand scale, only by cultivating more capable people. Unfortunately, the success rate of cultivating capable people is too low and the cycle too long.
How do capable people come about?
In most cases, they are screened out through "waves washing the sand," where the gold is screened out, but the discarded sand is countless.
It is like "crossing the river by feeling the stones": a few cross the river, but most fall into it.
Because of capable people, small success is achieved; because of capable people, progress stops. Small and medium-sized distributors are mostly in this state.

Realm Three: Always achieving extraordinary results, regardless of capable people.
From a management perspective, the success of excellent employees is the employees' success, while the success of ordinary employees is the enterprise's success, or the boss's success.
Small and medium-sized distributors rely on capable people, while large-scale distributors build a platform to organize different people. This means the boss must completely transform from a businessperson into a manager.
How to build a platform?
There are two ways for qualitative change: one is from quantitative change to qualitative change, and the other is structural change producing qualitative change. The same carbon element, depending on its structural combination, can be graphite, diamond, or carbon-13.
The formation of a corporate talent team also has two ways:
One is the improvement of individual talent quality. This is very difficult, or something that takes a long time to achieve;
The second is a change in the combination of talent. Even for a company as strong as Lenovo, Liu Chuanzhi said his talent combination is like "the blind carrying the lame." Both the "blind" and the "lame" have defects, but their combination compensates for each other.
The historical "ever-victorious general" Qi Jiguang was able to win consistently not because he recruited soldiers more capable than the Ming army or the Japanese pirates. On the contrary, the Ming army had stronger individual capabilities than the Qi family army, but because the Ming army wanted to train soldiers to be "masters of all eighteen martial arts," they always lamented the rarity of talent. In contrast, the Qi family army was basically composed of farmers, but Qi Jiguang invented the "Mandarin Duck Formation," changing the combination of talent.
The primary feature of modern organizational methods is professional division of labor. After division, recombination produces management, and management requires designing organizational structures and processes. In organizational structures and processes, everyone can become a "standard part." Once people become part of an organization and process, they become dependent on the organization. Once people become "standard parts," training becomes relatively easy.
An ordinary person in a successful enterprise, as long as they are competent, is certainly talent. However, when they leave the enterprise, whether they are still talent may be a question mark.
When a distributor reaches the third realm, they can become a large enterprise. Such a distributor can no longer be called a merchant; they should be called an entrepreneur.
Unlike ordinary distributors who use their own abilities to contrast with employees' incompetence, entrepreneurs use employees' achievements to prove their own abilities.

Realm Four: Leveraging the leverage effect of organization and talent to let more people create miracles.
Leading or disruptive enterprises must have this ability, and smaller or later-starting enterprises also need it. Few bosses can achieve this, especially distributors, so I will not elaborate here.

The Staffing Levels of Distributors
If you find it difficult to break through the above staffing realms, is there still a chance to do better?
The answer is yes, and it depends on the distributor's staffing level.

Level One: The level of "commanding soldiers" – the manager level.
Liu Bang once casually discussed the merits of his generals with Han Xin, thinking they had differences.
The emperor asked Han Xin: "How many troops can I command?"
Han Xin said: "Your Majesty can command at most one hundred thousand."
The emperor said: "What about you?"
Han Xin replied: "The more, the better."
The emperor, already smiling falsely, asked: "If the more the better, why are you under my control?"
Han Xin said: "Your Majesty cannot command troops but is good at commanding generals. That is why I am under your command. Moreover, Your Majesty's ability is innate, not something people can achieve through effort."
For managing individuals or a small number of people, one can rely on insight, but for managing large organizations, professionalism is required.
Han Xin was a professional manager, well-versed in military strategy, so he could command troops "the more, the better." If Liu Bang lowered himself to the same level as Han Xin, he would be inferior to Han Xin, so he could "command at most one hundred thousand."
Liu Bei has always been highly regarded. Cao Cao said, "In the world, only you and I are heroes," but before the "Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage," why did he always lose battles? Because Liu Bei was not a talent for "commanding soldiers," while Zhuge Liang, as a "professional manager," was a rare talent for "commanding soldiers."
Many bosses do not trust others, only themselves, and if they always position themselves at the level of "commanding soldiers," it is difficult for the enterprise to grow large.
Some distributors have recruited professional managers, either misjudging them or not daring to give them important roles, but this does not prove that using professional managers is wrong, nor should it negate the value of professional managers.

Level Two: The level of "commanding generals" – the entrepreneur level.
Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, had a famous saying: "In planning strategies within a tent and deciding victory a thousand miles away, I am inferior to Zhang Liang; in stabilizing the country, comforting the people, providing supplies, and ensuring the grain route is never cut, I am inferior to Xiao He; in commanding a million troops, winning battles, and taking cities, I am inferior to Han Xin. These three are all outstanding talents. I can use them, which is why I have the world."
What does an entrepreneur do? An entrepreneur can do nothing, but must have professional talents to work for them.
If the boss is the chairman and hires a professional as general manager, then you are an entrepreneur. If you also serve as general manager, unless you are a genius, it is difficult to do both jobs well.
There is a saying in the industry about Haier: Zhang Ruimin dares to think, Yang Mianmian dares to act. Zhang Ruimin is the entrepreneur, Yang Mianmian is the manager.
If you are a good chairman and find the truly suitable manager, the enterprise can grow larger.
The boss may not understand the profession, but must understand how to use people.
The boss may not be able to grow the enterprise themselves, but there are always professional talents in the world who can.
Not all professional managers are suitable for you, but there is always a suitable one.
The first attempt to find professional talent may fail, just as Liu Bei spent a long time finding Zhuge Liang. As long as you search seriously, such people will exist.

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