---
title: "The Six Weaknesses of Distributor Training"
description: "Channels are the pathway connecting enterprises with consumers, and training is one of the most effective ways to enhance channel competitiveness and add value. However, distributor training currently suffers from six major weaknesses, including lack of overall planning, improper selection of training subjects, unclear positioning of training objects, lack of innovation in training content, inflexible training formats, and a tendency to emphasize form over substance."
author: "尚丰"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2015-01-25"
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# The Six Weaknesses of Distributor Training

> Channels are the pathway connecting enterprises with consumers, and training is one of the most effective ways to enhance channel competitiveness and add value. However, distributor training currently suffers from six major weaknesses, including lack of overall planning, improper selection of training subjects, unclear positioning of training objects, lack of innovation in training content, inflexible training formats, and a tendency to emphasize form over substance.

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Channels are the pathway connecting enterprises with consumers. Whether through distribution or direct sales models, most products move from production to consumption, thereby realizing their value. The smoothness and efficiency of channels have become issues of great concern to manufacturers. Enhancing the comprehensive competitiveness of channels has become a decisive issue for manufacturers' survival and development in competition. Training is one of the most effective ways to improve channel competitiveness and add value to channels.

Distributor training is a key component of channel training and an important guarantee for the realization of manufacturers' channel policies. The author has conducted marketing training for distributors at dozens of companies' distributor conferences, including multinational corporations like Intel and Samsung, as well as private and state-owned enterprises such as Kedi Group and Sunpu Solar. Although distributor training is increasingly valued and sought after by manufacturers, it is still in a chaotic and exploratory stage.

Overall, distributor training currently has the following six major weaknesses:

1. **Lack of overall planning in distributor training.** This is mainly manifested in blindly arranging training work and the disconnection between training plans and manufacturers' strategic development plans.

Typically, manufacturers arrange distributor conferences and decide to add a training session at the last minute, only a month before the event. Or, after seeing competitors arrange training and receiving positive feedback from distributors, they feel compelled to do the same to avoid falling behind. In fact, distributor training does not necessarily have to be scheduled during distributor conferences, nor is it limited to on-site training. Channel training should first be planned according to the manufacturer's strategic development plan, and then executed according to that plan. For example, before launching new products, arrange product and promotion training for distributors; before major holidays, arrange incentive and sales training; for newly joined distributors, provide corporate culture and channel policy training; for existing distributors, regularly provide improvement, execution, and loyalty training.

In short, distributor training should not be conducted for the sake of training itself; it also requires strategic planning.

2. **Deficiencies in the selection of training subjects.** This is mainly manifested in blindly choosing trainers or third-party training institutions, and the selection of training subjects does not match the development needs of distributors.

Some manufacturers, to save money, always send their own staff to train distributors; others choose trainers based on reputation or low cost; still others select training institutions based on size. All these are blind approaches. The correct selection of training subjects should align with the development needs of distributors.

For example, when explaining channel policies and corporate culture, it is best for the company's president to personally explain, as this is both persuasive and gives distributors a sense of closeness. For sales techniques, one or two outstanding distributor representatives can be invited to give speeches, which can serve as good demonstrations. If such excellent speakers cannot be found, external sales training instructors can be hired. For content such as execution, leadership, and marketing team management, which requires both theoretical support and practical guidance, good training skills are needed to explain knowledge in a simple and understandable way. In such cases, manufacturers should invite professional trainers. Although professional trainers cost much more than in-house training managers, the results are absolutely guaranteed.

3. **Unclear positioning of training objects.** This is mainly manifested in unclear positioning of training objects, leading to a lack of interest in the training content; positioning issues also mean that the intended training objects do not receive training, thus failing to achieve training goals.

Training objects refer to the trainees. In distributor training, the audience usually consists of distributors, but distributors are not all the same; they cannot be treated uniformly. For example, at Samsung's distributor conference, the trainees were provincial distributor general managers with annual revenues exceeding 100 million yuan, and my topic was "Enhancing Distributors' Competitive Landscape." At Intel's distributor conference, the trainees were mostly key sales elites from IT distributors, and my topic was "IT Retail Terminal Sales Techniques." The content that a distributor general manager with 100 million yuan in sales wants to hear is definitely different from what a sales elite wants. General managers are not interested in sales techniques, while sales elites have no interest in competitive landscape. Therefore, the selection of training objects is very important.

At the 2006 China IT Channel Forum organized by CBI, my presentation received praise from most attendees, but a small minority expressed opposing views. According to surveys, all channel personnel gave my training very high scores because the content was very practical and helpful for their work. The minority who disagreed were technical staff doing product technology introductions in the forum hall; they were more concerned about technical quality and relatively indifferent to solving sales problems for channel salespeople. This illustrates the differences arising from different training objects.

Therefore, to ensure the effectiveness of distributor training, it is necessary to strictly match training objects with training content, and not let training objects with different goals listen to the same content.

4. **Lack of innovation in training content selection.** The selection of training content cannot be updated in a timely manner according to the needs of relevant training objects. For example, limiting to product training while ignoring technical application training fails to meet the needs of relevant objects.

IT manufacturers especially make this mistake in distributor training. They often focus only on product technical training, explaining which generation of high-tech products is used, processing speed, memory, etc. However, distributors want to know more than that; they also want to know how to use methods in actual sales to make consumers understand these professional technical terms. In this regard, Intel has done very well. They specially invited me to refine the sales terminology for "dual-core" products into popular selling points, and recorded my training content on CDs for distribution to distributors nationwide.

5. **Inflexible training formats.** This is mainly manifested in using only fixed training methods, unable to flexibly change training formats according to market development and network technology updates.

Organizing all national distributors together costs at least millions, sometimes tens of millions. Moreover, training time is limited, and with rapid market changes, it is impossible to conduct new content training at any time. Therefore, choosing more convenient network training, satellite training, and other methods is a wise choice that keeps pace with the times.

The IT industry is one of the most technology-intensive industries, and network application is the first choice for the IT industry. Therefore, IT industry distributor training has become the first batch of pioneers to adopt online training, CD training, and satellite classroom training.

6. **Emphasis on form over substance in training concepts.** This is manifested in formalism in distributor training, believing that as long as good training subjects, objects, content, and formats are selected, training effectiveness is guaranteed. This conceptual issue leads to process control failures, causing the purpose of distributor training to be unfulfilled.

There is a saying: "Excited in class, impulsive after class, and motionless three months later." Although this satirizes some training courses as flashy but not substantial, it also reflects the embarrassment of training. Sometimes, it is not because the training course is bad, but because of the emphasis on formalism and neglect of post-training process control, resulting in failure to achieve training goals even with good teachers and courses.

I have a classic course called "Sales Skills and Strategy Enhancement Training," which received good feedback from trainees because I implemented strong training control. First, I send each trainee a test paper in the second week after training to help them review previously learned content. Additionally, I provide trainees with a very useful sales tool, guiding them to follow my sales tool step by step in their sales work. Trainees who diligently followed my sales tool achieved excellent results, while those who did not clearly knew it was their own ability issue rather than a problem with the training course.

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