---
title: "The Way for Distributors and Professional Managers to Get Along"
description: "A distributor asked why a professional manager he trusted left after less than three months. This article analyzes the management issues in distributor enterprises, the reasons for the difficult relationship between distributors and professional managers, and offers advice on how both parties can work together harmoniously."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2014-08-12"
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# The Way for Distributors and Professional Managers to Get Along

> A distributor asked why a professional manager he trusted left after less than three months. This article analyzes the management issues in distributor enterprises, the reasons for the difficult relationship between distributors and professional managers, and offers advice on how both parties can work together harmoniously.

**Friendly Reminder: Click the blue text above “FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting” to learn more about marketing and distributor internal management.**

A few days ago, during a training session for a liquor distributor, the distributor posed a question: “Mr. Wang, how can I retain capable people (professional managers)? I trusted him very much, but he left after less than three months. I have never understood why.”

In fact, this situation is not uncommon in the industry. Distributors firing professional managers, and professional managers quitting on distributors, are frequent occurrences.

For distributors, talent has become a bottleneck for enterprise development. Many companies spare no expense in recruiting talent, yet face the dilemma of being eager for talent on one hand, and having no one available on the other.

Even when they finally find a good candidate, repeated pains keep coming: from methods to concepts, from execution to values, professional managers are at odds with the company's long-standing habits. As the company “discards the old and embraces the new,” the original compensation system becomes outdated, and any favoritism toward new or old employees can trigger dissatisfaction, causing morale to plummet...

What is wrong with professional managers? What is wrong with distributors? Why do so many partnerships crack? To discuss this issue, we must trace its roots, starting with the management problems that exist among distributors.

**Personnel Management Issues in Distributor Enterprises**

It is understood that more than 80% of distributors are family-owned or quasi-family businesses, and most of them are still in the traditional family business stage.

At the start of a distributor enterprise, the company is small, market competition is not fierce, and the owner and operator are the same person. Operating with relatives has obvious cost advantages. Small-scale operations generally do not have major management or cultural problems, and the need for professional managers is not urgent; there may even be emotional resistance.

Employees in distributor enterprises are mainly relatives and old employees who have grown with the company. These people indeed made significant contributions during the early days of the enterprise, but as the company continues to grow, because they rose from humble beginnings, the quality of employees is relatively low, making it increasingly difficult to adapt to the increasingly complex market environment.

When the enterprise reaches a certain scale, many problems will surface. The boss will find that his company cannot keep up with the overall pace of development, and he begins to raise requirements for managers. The original managers can no longer meet these requirements, making the introduction of professional managers an inevitable choice.

The biggest criticism of family businesses in personnel management is nepotism: they handle interpersonal relationships based on closeness rather than merit. This creates a distinction between “insiders” and “outsiders,” fostering a clan-like atmosphere of “brothers in arms, father and son on the battlefield.” Outsiders, to survive, may curry favor and form cliques, creating factions of “your group” and “my group.” Sometimes, to protect their own interests, they may gang up and resist managers, causing internal strife.

Therefore, family management is either highly cohesive with harmonious relationships, or internally divided with factional disputes.

**Analysis of the Difficult Relationship Between Distributors and Professional Managers**

The purpose of introducing professional managers is to improve employee quality, but psychologically, distributors generally have affection for old employees who have been through thick and thin with them. Compared to professional managers, they still trust old employees more. Therefore, when professional managers criticize or punish old employees, distributors inevitably have reservations, and when old employees exclude professional managers, the psychological balance tends to favor the old employees.

The “exclusivity” of old employees, coupled with the fact that family members of distributors often operate outside the system, such as bypassing the manager to complain about external hires, can manifest as “pillow talk,” complaints during family dinners, or while enjoying family time. This leads external hires to often lament, “I set my heart on the moon, but the moon shines on the ditch,” feeling they can never break into the family circle, that “even pouring out their hearts won't earn trust,” and they spend their days entangled in interpersonal relationships.

Management guru Peter Drucker said: “In family businesses, it is increasingly necessary to place non-family professionals in key positions, and these non-family professionals must be treated equally, enjoying ‘full civil rights’ in the company.”

The ultimate result of losing “full civil rights” is that professional managers come quietly and leave quietly.

The main reason professional managers cannot integrate into distributor enterprises is the implementation of a “professional manager + family surveillance” management model, which is basically the primary cause of professional manager turnover and the failure of distributor enterprises.

Many distributors, on one hand, want to introduce professional managers to improve management, but on the other hand, they do not trust outsiders and want to place their own people to monitor them.

Think about it: which professional manager is willing to be monitored, to have the monitor use their authority to make life difficult, and still work hard to carry out their duties?

Professional managers do not receive full trust, and the integration process requires a difficult journey. On one hand, distributor enterprises have high expectations for professional managers, hoping that as soon as they arrive, the company will undergo earth-shaking changes. On the other hand, distributors have a very short tolerance period for professional managers' performance, usually only one year. If they cannot turn things around within that period, their career will come to an end.

**Factors on the Professional Manager's Side:**

First, they bring trouble upon themselves. Professional managers are given treatment and power. As a result, the new manager makes three bold moves on taking office. Some succeed, but some do not, and end up burning their own eyebrows and beard.

Second, they lack a grassroots base. To demonstrate their so-called ability, professional managers, upon arriving at a new enterprise, immediately and without consideration, drastically “reform” any management system they perceive as wrong or outdated. They do not consider building a grassroots base, i.e., the existence of reform support, resulting in reform resistance outweighing support, leading to failure.

Third, they are out of touch with marketing reality. Professional managers do not combine with the company's actual situation and apply the routines of large enterprises, resulting in “small feet wearing big shoes.” For example, a distributor enterprise hired a marketing manager from a large company as its marketing director. The director copied everything from the big company, and as a result, the enterprise became a “Dong Shi imitating Xi Shi” (a metaphor for blind imitation with ludicrous effect), and the enterprise had no choice but to “execute Ma Su with tears” (a metaphor for punishing a trusted but failed subordinate).

Professional managers inevitably have troubles like the distributor in the example; unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way, and professional managers' troubles vary. Especially those who were invited with great effort by distributors, only to be dismissed with tears. Who is right and who is wrong seems not to matter; the key is how distributors should accept and how professional managers should integrate. Perhaps that is the crux of the problem.

**The Way for Distributors and Professional Managers to Get Along**

Once a distributor grows to a certain scale, as the enterprise continues to expand, the family management style must change. Relatives may be the most reliable people, but if they lack ability, they are the most dangerous people.

Distributors should further develop functions and adjust personnel. They should let some unsuitable people step down from management positions and hand over to more professional people. It is necessary to absorb talent suitable for their own enterprise, especially excellent management personnel, so that the distributor enterprise can receive advanced management concepts.

The employment mechanism should combine training internal employees with recruiting external backbone personnel, adhering to the principle of “recommending relatives without avoiding nepotism.”

The founding veterans of a distributor enterprise are often pragmatic entrepreneurs skilled in starting businesses. As long as they humbly learn modern management knowledge, most of them can also become competent managers of modern enterprises.

Therefore, to achieve sustainable operation, distributor enterprises must attach great importance to the training and education of old employees and increase the enterprise's human capital.

At the same time, family businesses should be good at using “borrowing” (taking what is useful from others) and vigorously select and recruit urgently needed and suitable external professional management talent, giving them a development platform to enhance the enterprise's competitiveness.

Distributors should adhere to Chairman Mao's words: “When selecting cadres, do not go by seniority, but focus on ability and level, dare to let new people take charge, and dare to introduce outstanding talent.”

Many entrepreneurs think they are good at business, so they bring their children along and directly place them as deputy general managers or managers, learning while doing.

However, due to differences in age, educational background, and concepts, working together often causes resistance from the children, and this approach often yields little or even backfires.

To strive for greater development, enterprises must introduce more outstanding external talent and use methods to dilute the family system to create an external environment for the enterprise, thereby enhancing cohesion and centripetal force.

**Management of professional managers should achieve the following:**

**Gradual authorization.** Power is also responsibility. For professional managers, when the enterprise gives them power, it is actually giving them the task of reform. If the enterprise does not fully understand the professional manager's working methods and means, and blindly and hastily authorizes, and the professional manager's methods and means do not fit the enterprise's reality, it often backfires.

**Slow down reform.** Give professional managers time to use their ideas to influence some employees and lay a good foundation for building a grassroots base. Creating a good atmosphere and helping external professional managers survive should be the responsibility of the distributor boss.

Whether an externally introduced professional manager can survive in the enterprise not only affects the enterprise's recruitment costs but also determines the future of the distributor enterprise. You can select 1-2 old employees as assistants to help him in various aspects.

**Resolute execution.** Transform the original purpose of introducing professional managers into actions. In particular, the top decision-maker should have contingency measures to prevent those who oppose the introduction of professional managers from obstructing their work.

**As for professional managers:**

First, maintain a good attitude.

Professional managers entering a distributor enterprise must have an adaptation process, and distributors also need a process of in-depth understanding of professional managers. This process is very important. Distributors and professional managers must not only understand each other but, more importantly, achieve value integration.

(Source: China Wine News)

Professional managers should seek change through adaptation, adapt to the enterprise, understand the corporate culture, and in this process, they must also change themselves.

Survival of the fittest; attitude is paramount.

Second, before stepping into the role, professional managers should first familiarize themselves with the internal and external working environment of the enterprise and participate in work in the form of consultants or advisors. The enterprise should first evaluate the value of the professional manager ideologically.

For harmonious coexistence between the enterprise and professional managers, attitude is the foundation, trust is the key, and mutual support is the driving force for sustained development.

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