During market research and visits, the author encountered many distributors and found that they almost all share a common confusion: employees are hard to manage, recruitment is difficult, and retention is poor. They have tried many methods, such as increasing salaries, adding benefits, partnership systems, and so on, but with little effect. So how can this dilemma be broken? Below is an interview between the author and a major distributor, hoping to bring some inspiration:
Distributor Interview:
Author: "Hello, Mr. Song, nice to meet you!"
Mr. Song: "Hello, let's exchange ideas and learn from each other."
Author: "How long have you been in the food distribution business?"
Mr. Song: "I started as a distributor in 1996, and it's been 22 years now."
Author: "What product categories do you mainly handle now? How is business?"
Mr. Song: "We mainly focus on snack foods, operating across all channels. Business is decent, with annual sales around 300 million yuan."
Author: "How many employees do you currently have?"
Mr. Song: "Currently, excluding logistics and promotional staff, we have 26 marketing personnel."
Author: "For a long time, the difficulty of hiring has been a common headache for distributor clients: can't recruit, can't retain, weak execution, low enthusiasm, and passive slackness in daily work. Does your company face this confusion? How do you solve it?"
Mr. Song smiled, turned his head to look at the four characters "People-Oriented" (以人为本) framed exquisitely on the wall, and said: "These four characters were written by a famous calligrapher from Beijing, and they are also the principle our company has always upheld. In the early days when we started business, the scale was small, and most of the people we used were our own relatives and friends. We discussed things together, and there was no management issue. But as the company grew and we needed more people, problems began to emerge. As you just said, every company faces the problem of recruiting and retaining people. Everyone wants experienced hands, wants employees to create performance immediately, wants to keep excellent people in their own company, and also wants to poach better people from other companies. Everyone thinks this way, so they all do it: constantly poaching from other businesses, constantly raising salaries and benefits, using more favorable interests to lure so-called experienced hands to work for them."
Author smiled: "Those salespeople must be lucky, watching the fight from the sidelines, doing the same work but with rising income."
Mr. Song: "Yes, but this creates a bigger problem: the salespeople's hearts are unsettled. They are unstable in any company, always hoping the next one will offer a higher price, ready to jump ship at any time. If their minds are not on work, performance naturally suffers, and ultimately the company loses."
Author: "So how did you adjust to this situation?"
Mr. Song: "In the early stage, we were also confused and tried many methods, such as raising salaries and benefits, but the effects were not obvious. Later, we calmed down and analyzed: what do salespeople really need? Is it just to earn a few hundred or thousand more yuan? If everyone wants experienced hands, when will newcomers grow? How can we firmly bind people's hearts to the company?"
Mr. Song took a gentle sip of tea: "After analysis, we believed that what salespeople want is not just more money in the short term, but the future—ten years, twenty years later, what can they do when they are old? Can they still run sales? So, they need a career, a cause that allows them to develop, even get rich. For their career, they can endure hardship and learn, because it's for themselves."
Author: "So you made reforms?"
Mr. Song: "Yes, our company made a brand-new reform, which can also be called an innovation. We announced that any marketing personnel who join our company will sign a five-year labor contract. During those five years, they work for us. After the contract expires, we will no longer employ them, but instead assist them in starting their own businesses, that is, becoming distributors and bosses."
Author: "Start a business???"
Mr. Song: "Yes, that means they only work for us for five years. After five years, whether they are willing to start a business or not, we will no longer use them. If they want to start a business, we will provide all-round support, such as capital investment, introducing quality products and manufacturers for cooperation, helping them expand sales channels, etc., and support them in achieving their own careers."
Author: "Can it be understood this way: on one hand, employees work for you, and on the other hand, they learn business experience here. After five years, they graduate, either eliminated or successful."
Mr. Song smiled: "Yes, because we think that although all companies hope employees have an owner's mindset, fundamentally that is impossible. Bosses are bosses, and workers are workers. Workers can never 100% think for the company and the boss. There is only one way to solve it: let them work for themselves and treat themselves as bosses."
Author: "So what is the effect after the reform?"
Mr. Song: "Obviously, employees have hope and goals, so their work enthusiasm naturally increases. Since then, my employees hardly need supervision. They voluntarily work overtime every day to run the market, and maintain excellent customer relationships. Because they know that everything they do today is to lay the foundation for starting their own business in five years. Not only that, after completing their own work, they also proactively assist other departments in doing what they can, because that is what they will need in the future, and they must learn. Therefore, our company's overall operational efficiency has more than doubled, because each person works as two or even three."
Mr. Song: "Of course, the company still needs strict rules and regulations, and all employees must work within their authority. Without rules, nothing can be accomplished."
Author: "But there is a question: aren't you indirectly cultivating competitors?"
Mr. Song: "How could that be? We always believe that people are kind and know gratitude. They work for me, I pay them, and at the same time, I teach them business and help them start their own businesses. You know how many people who want to start a business fail because they lack funds, platforms, and corresponding resource allocation. But here it's different: as long as they come to work here, when they need to start a business, I will match them with everything. If they lack money, I will provide it (of course, my investment is in the form of shares, the only difference being that they can buy back my shares at any time, so I don't really lose anything). If they can't contact manufacturers, I will introduce them. If they lack distribution channels, I can help develop them. In this way, they also understand that almost everything they have is given by me. Would they still compete with me? No, instead they will follow my lead."
Mr. Song: "Up to now, I have cultivated 17 distributors here, and almost all of them have become top bosses in the area. We are not competitors, but cooperate with each other, share information and resources, and form a close group. With greater strength, we have a say with manufacturers and retail outlets. This relatively reduces operational risks and increases benefits. At the same time, because of our company's talent cultivation mechanism, many excellent talents with ability and dreams are willing to work for our company. Even if I offer slightly lower salaries than other peers, they still come, and we no longer worry about recruitment. This multi-win situation, why not do it?" After saying this, Mr. Song winked at me, with a smile that carried a bit of cunning but more pride.
For an enterprise, the most important things are cohesion and execution. Where does cohesion come from? It is employees' loyalty to the company. Being a wise boss is very important; you cannot just rely on squeezing employees to add value to the company, but rather make employees feel that all their hard work is meaningful. Execution, on the other hand, requires employees to have goals and work proactively and voluntarily. Only when employees have goals to strive for can they work harder, and the company can develop and progress. In this regard, Mr. Song has given us a good reference.
Li Ka-shing said: "If today, without so many people working for me, even if I had three heads and six arms, I couldn't handle so many things. So the key to achieving success is to have people who can help you and are willing to work with you. That is my philosophy."
Source: Winning Marketing Power (赢销力)
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