Based on years of experience, for small and medium-sized enterprises that sell through distributors, especially for products with low brand awareness, choosing the right distributor that aligns with the company's development philosophy, products, and sales policies can be said to be the most important first step toward success! Distributor enthusiasm and efficient communication skills basically achieve half of product sales success! So how can you enhance distributor enthusiasm and maintain efficient communication? The author believes that when visiting clients, details of communication determine success or failure! How do you communicate with clients? What content should you communicate to move the client's heart for distribution? And prompt the client to be willing to spend more effort on your product's growth? Now, based on the three parts of the client visit process—before, during, and after—the author summarizes the details as follows for your reference!

  1. Before Visiting Clients: Generally speaking, the author always advocates fighting a "prepared and planned" battle, not doing things without a plan or direction! Before visiting clients, there are two main parts of work:
  1. Preparation and project initiation: As the saying goes, "Preparedness ensures success." The same applies to sales. In addition to necessities, you should also understand and pay attention to two points: 1) Familiarize yourself with and master company resources: Resources are your advantageous weapon to balance the company and clients. If you know nothing when facing client questions during a visit, you will not only make a fool of yourself but also damage the company's image, putting your work in a deadlock and making progress difficult! At the same time, your position in the company determines the amount of resources you have! Therefore, recent product sales, prices and promotions, product selling points and features, and sales policies are things you must understand! 2) Clarify visit objectives and formulate a feasible plan: The main objectives of visiting clients include collecting payments, handling complaints and building relationships, suggesting product structure adjustments to increase product categories, formulating promotion plans, and taking orders. Once objectives are clear, how to plan to achieve them and act with purpose is the essence of sales.
  2. Collect market information to know yourself and the enemy: 1) Collect information on your own products: For example, before a visit, you generally need to understand the representative retail terminals and second-tier wholesale market product information in the client's market, comprehensively analyze the 4Ps (product, price, place, and promotion), understand promotional activities and promotions, product displays and terminal image, and then evaluate the current product sales status to formulate the next sales and promotion plan! 2) Collect competitor information: When researching the market, you also need to understand competitor products, prices, sales channels, promotions and promotions, terminal displays, etc., to analyze the competitor's current situation and achieve the goal of knowing yourself and the enemy! 3) Collect potential client information: If the company plans to adjust clients, you can learn about potential clients through retail terminals and wholesale markets to make reserves! In managing this content, the author requires that items 1) and 2) be filled in the "Market Dynamics Survey Form," and item 3) be filled in the "Client Information Form" to reflect and assess the business personnel's work ability!
  1. During Visiting Clients: Through the above pre-visit project initiation, information collection, and market understanding, you already have a certain grasp of the market, have summarized the client's market, and formulated a preliminary work plan! But is your judgment of the market accurate? Will the client recognize your plan and be willing to work with you to implement it? Therefore, you should also jointly understand and analyze the following issues with the client to have a solid foundation, enhance the persuasiveness of the product, and stimulate the client's confidence in operating the product!
  1. Product price analysis: For fast-moving consumer goods and circulation-type products, the market often sees thin profits for second-tier distributors or even losses when selling more, mainly due to chaotic price systems! Because for most small and medium-sized enterprises, when operating a potential market, they often set up multiple distributors, especially in the early market stage. It is acceptable to let it be chaotic first and then govern later? But in reality, small and medium-sized enterprises rarely consider the profits of second-tier distributors and only maintain good cooperative relationships with distributors! As a result, after the market matures, they do not regulate the market, especially price behavior, leading to a chaotic price system! Therefore, when visiting clients, you should focus on analyzing product prices from the following aspects: 1) Analyze prices among different clients in the same market, mainly to see whether each client sells according to the company's guiding price policy and how much they exceed the guiding price. 2) Analyze prices for the same client at different times, mainly to understand price changes and analyze whether the client has the business behavior of "low-price sales to boost volume, relying on volume to obtain rebates to maintain turnover." 3) Analyze the purchase price and retail price of the same product: When the author worked in a food company, it was found that different clients in the same market had different prices, so understanding the client's markup rate and gross profit is very important, laying the groundwork for future new product pricing and promotions. 4) Understand the competitor's price system: Understand the competitor's purchase price, retail price, etc., analyze and compare with our product prices, and lay the groundwork for the company's sales policy formulation. The author incorporated all this content into the "Market Dynamics Survey Form" for management!
  2. Client inventory analysis: Understanding inventory when visiting clients is very important (even in normal times, you should develop the habit of regularly checking client inventory)! The author believes that client inventory should be analyzed from several aspects: 1) Analyze the ratio of inventory quantity to the client's usual sales of our products: Obviously, if the ratio is too small, it indicates that the product is selling well and may face stockouts or shortages; if the ratio is too large, it indicates that the product is not selling well and may face sluggish sales. You should discuss promotion methods with the client. At the same time, if it is a new product just launched, the first three months can only reflect the product's distribution status, not the quality of sales. Please note this! 2) Analyze the ratio of our product inventory to the client's total inventory: This analysis can reveal the client's business confidence and capital investment. Simply put, if the ratio of our product inventory to the client's total inventory is too large, it indicates that the client has strong business confidence and values the promotion of our products. If it is a mature product, it further indicates that our product is the main source of profit for the client's business! At the same time, it also reflects the client's usual "cash flow" situation; if the ratio is too small, it indicates that the client underestimates our products. If it is a mature product, it further indicates that the product is not selling well and has not created ideal profits for the client. Therefore, you should proactively negotiate with the client to find ways to improve product sales! 3) Analyze the production dates of inventory products: For the same batch of products, if the production date is recent, it indicates that the product is selling well; otherwise, it is poor. At the same time, you can also see which products are the main promoted products in the client's market and which are cultivable products, laying the groundwork for future product promotion and new product entry. 4) Analyze whether there have been significant recent changes in inventory quantity, variety, etc.: These can reflect the client's recent sales dynamics. The author also designed these figures into the "Client Visit Form" to assess business work and facilitate analysis of the client's sales status.
  3. Client's current sales status: Through understanding the client's product inventory and terminal market, you can preliminarily analyze the client's sales status: 1) Determine which of our products are main promoted products, which are sluggish, and which need cultivation. 2) Do main promoted products need deep distribution? How to build main promoted products into brand products? How to transform products needing cultivation into main promoted products? How to handle sluggish products? 3) Does the client's terminal image need improvement? Do supermarket displays need improvement? Are company resources all used as planned for terminal promotion? All these are reflected in the "Client Visit Form" to help senior management decide whether to do local market promotion, transform potential markets into key markets, and key markets into model markets!
  4. Client's account status: Generally speaking, many market clients have support such as initial stock or credit terms when cooperating (more severe in southern markets). Therefore, when visiting clients, you should clarify the client's accounts, promotion settlements, expense support, etc., and settle historical issues! If the client still has outstanding debts that cannot be collected in time, it is recommended to obtain written confirmation from the client!
  5. Analyze promotion policies: For enterprises where circulation products account for a large volume, you should analyze whether the company's promotion policies are implemented, whether second-tier distributors know the company's recent promotions, and whether clients have intercepted promotion policies. For terminal product promotions, you should also check promotional DMs, photos of end caps, product delivery amounts during the promotion, and actual sales after the promotion. If the delivery amount and actual sales are too large, you should also summarize the reasons and lay the groundwork for post-promotion expense settlement!
  6. Request product orders: Through understanding the client's product inventory, sales status, and product classification (best-selling, cultivable, and sluggish products), discuss the next product promotion plan and obtain the client's confirmation, suggest the client place an order, and request the order!
  1. After Visiting Clients: When the author managed a marketing team in an enterprise, it was often found that many business managers, after visiting clients, filled out and submitted the "Client Visit Form" and "Market Dynamics Overview Form" and then seemed to have nothing to do. Better business managers would proactively communicate with their superiors about the market and client status! The author was very puzzled. The author believes that "the quality of after-sales service determines whether product sales can be sustained, and obtaining product orders is only the first step in completing sales!" Therefore, the author has always believed that: 1) Continuously motivating the client's sales confidence is very important, so it is even more necessary to communicate the company's dynamics, development vision, product development plans, and sales policies to clients. This is something you should never forget. 2) Communication of sales information: During management, the author often heard many business managers telling clients about sales, such as how much a client in a certain market sold this month to stimulate the client. The author believes that this is only one-tenth correct. What clients really care about is how to obtain methods for continuous product profitability. Teaching them to fish is more important! Rather than showing the results of sales in a certain market! Therefore, the author suggests: It is more important to communicate to clients the promotion methods for certain products in a certain market, promotional methods, and methods for handling sluggish products. If necessary, fax it to the client in writing. This way, the client will think you are helping them make money and will enhance their sales enthusiasm! 3) Communication of competitor information: On one hand, clients with a strong sense of responsibility often tell you about competitors' promotional methods, displays, terminal image building, new product launches, and promotion methods in the market. Of course, this requires the client to trust you! On the other hand, you can feed back to the client the competitor's current situation, promotional promotions in a certain market, personnel changes, and product quality (ensuring it is true), to know yourself and the enemy, and work with the client to overcome competitors and improve sales!

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