---
title: "What Else Can You Do in the Off-Season?"
description: "Life must go on, and whether you're a best-selling brand or not, the off-season is tough. Here are some strategies to make the off-season under the financial crisis more bearable: 1. Keep marketing staff active; 2. Maintain promotional activities; 3. Clean up unqualified dealers; 4. Launch new products quickly; 5. Hold meetings and training; 6. Send back-office staff to the market."
author: "唐江华"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-11-27"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/what-else-can-you-do-in-the-off-season-a0419c80/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/what-else-can-you-do-in-the-off-season-a0419c80.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/uv5lQhGEBXIDAmAkRGGfHw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E6%B7%A1%E5%AD%A3%E8%BF%98%E6%9C%89%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E6%8B%9B-a0419c80.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/what-else-can-you-do-in-the-off-season-a0419c80/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# What Else Can You Do in the Off-Season?

> Life must go on, and whether you're a best-selling brand or not, the off-season is tough. Here are some strategies to make the off-season under the financial crisis more bearable: 1. Keep marketing staff active; 2. Maintain promotional activities; 3. Clean up unqualified dealers; 4. Launch new products quickly; 5. Hold meetings and training; 6. Send back-office staff to the market.

Life must go on, and whether you're a best-selling brand or not, the off-season is tough. Are there any tricks to make this off-season under the financial crisis more comfortable?
**1. Keep Marketing Staff Active**
There's only the thought of an off-season, not an off-season market! This is a phrase experts use to fool manufacturers. The off-season is the off-season. If the baijiu industry truly had no off-season, industry sales revenue would definitely increase by at least one-third, if not double. We admit the off-season doesn't mean you have to take a break. Even the health wine industry can't afford to rest in the current competitive environment, let alone the traditional baijiu industry.
In the off-season, there are fewer tasks and sales decline, but these shouldn't become excuses for marketing staff to slack off or do less. Complacency is the biggest enemy of market decline. Therefore, when the off-season arrives, we advocate that marketing staff should not rest but rather tighten their belts, seek opportunities to sell wine, do solid groundwork, hone their skills, and participate in learning to improve their business capabilities.
The biggest difference between off-season and peak-season work is that off-season efforts don't show immediate sales increases, testing employees' psychological endurance and requiring long-term strategic vision from both teams and individuals. In the peak season, you see direct sales growth, employees feel a sense of achievement, and bonuses are tied to performance, so income is higher and motivation is naturally high. Companies also don't monitor whether employees are working as closely. In my view, assessing a salesperson's competence is more telling in the off-season, revealing their true market skills.
Therefore, the most important thing for companies in the off-season is to train the team's real skills and build momentum for the peak season.
**2. Keep Promotions Active**
Should you do promotions in the off-season? Absolutely! Some manufacturers think that since it's the off-season, promotions won't boost sales, so why bother wasting resources? That's a misunderstanding of the market and consumer psychology. Not only should you do promotions, but you should also focus on how they can leverage and help the off-season market. How should off-season promotions be done? What principles apply?
1. Focus on novelty rather than excessive intensity. Many companies believe that without heavy discounts, they can't entice channels and consumers. This is a misconception. Consumers are now accustomed to promotions influencing their decisions. If one product offers no benefit and another does, they'll easily switch, especially at the point of purchase. This is why terminal interception works and why promotions are essential.
Understanding consumer psychology, we see that promotions don't need to be huge; they just need to be novel and make consumers feel they're getting a bargain compared to usual. For example, if a 500ml bottle sells for 68 yuan and a 125ml bottle for 10 yuan, you might raise the 500ml price to 75 yuan and offer a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Is that a big discount? Not really, but consumers still feel they benefit because it's cheaper than buying separately. And the manufacturer hasn't increased the discount at all.
2. Focus on interactive consumer promotions. Unless you need to free up cash flow, avoid channel-stuffing promotions in the off-season. Instead, concentrate on consumer promotions. This is a basic principle for both best-selling and non-best-selling brands.
Of course, limited promotions for core channels should be done, but with purpose and strategy, to achieve effective sales, retain core channel partners, and cultivate distribution resources for the peak season.
3. Price increases are also a form of promotion. When we say promotion, we usually think of gifts or discounts, but that's conventional thinking. True promotion experts like to use one or two products for price-increase promotions in the off-season. Some might question: if you can't sell in the off-season, won't a price increase make it worse? That's a misunderstanding. For best-selling products, an off-season price increase helps establish a new price system with consumers and channels, laying the groundwork for a successful peak-season increase. For non-best-selling products, an off-season increase has even less impact since they're not selling anyway, but as the peak season approaches and your new positioning takes shape, you'll have more room to maneuver. So, I prefer implementing price-increase promotions in the off-season, but the key is to control the increase and manage inventory.
If you don't promote in the off-season, the market goes quiet. Consumers and channels need constant stirring; the more you stir, the deeper the impression, and the more they'll remember you when the peak season comes, making sales growth natural.
Look at the most competitive supermarkets—they're all running daily activities. "Weekly themes, daily promotions" is a vivid description of hypermarket competition, and the baijiu industry should learn from that.
**3. Clean Up Unqualified Dealers Without Mercy**
In the off-season, quickly clean up unqualified dealers and replace them decisively. You have several months to deal with them: handle returns, issue fines or warnings, and revoke licenses. If you delay these tasks to the peak season, it will affect sales, and you might lose the market without knowing why.
In the off-season, sales are limited, and dealers can't move much product. If you cancel their status now, they'll see little profit loss and just complain for a few days. In the peak season, sales are substantial, so canceling them would be like cutting their flesh—they'd fight you tooth and nail. Therefore, canceling dealers in the off-season is also a way to avoid market chaos from escalating conflicts, providing a buffer period for both sides.
**4. Launch New Products Quickly**
Launching new products in the off-season gives them a solid foundation and prepares for peak-season volume. No product can become an instant hit; most need time to become familiar with channels and consumers before gradually selling well. Off-season launches are for this preparation, allowing time to build familiarity.
Additionally, off-season launches allow ample negotiation time to find excellent dealers. Since off-season sales are low, if a dealer is willing to take your product, it shows they've thought it through, not acting impulsively, leading to better cooperation.
Of course, off-season launches also address sales and payment collection, helping companies through cash flow difficulties.
**5. Hold Meetings and Mobilization Sessions**
In the off-season, there's less to do, and dealers and employees aren't busy. Use this time to gather dealers for meetings, discuss market issues, and seek new solutions. At least the following can be effectively addressed:
1. Resolve market issues: Invite relevant headquarters department heads to help dealers coordinate with various functions and streamline market problems.
2. Facilitate cross-regional exchanges: Take dealers to visit markets that are performing well to build confidence.
3. Bring in external experts to train dealers, improving their theoretical market knowledge. This also makes them more receptive to advanced market methods proposed by the manufacturer, as experts are more trusted and understood.
4. As the off-season ends and peak season approaches, hold mobilization meetings for dealers and employees, conveying the manufacturer's peak-season strategy, presenting reward and penalty plans, clarifying operational thinking, and boosting morale.
Off-season meetings and training can become routine, giving dealers something to look forward to, opportunities for growth, and keeping them aligned with the manufacturer's pace.
**6. Send Back-Office Staff to the Market**
Back-office and frontline staff are often at odds. Frontline staff are used to freedom and don't understand the frustrations of office work; back-office staff are used to working in isolation and don't appreciate the hardships of the field. If you use the off-season to bring back-office staff to the front lines, letting them hear about market difficulties firsthand, they'll be quicker and more understanding when processing expense reports, distributing goods, and addressing dealer complaints. This also fosters better relationships, and the bonds built in the market are more lasting and genuine.
After implementing this strategy, we saw remarkable results. Complaints disappeared, issues with slow financial reimbursements and ignored dealer complaints vanished, and the finance department even volunteered to accept penalties if they failed to process expense write-offs within two months. Frontline staff also came to understand the challenges of office work, stopped being temperamental, and no longer believed only they contributed to the company's success.
There's much to do in the off-season, and many strategies to employ. We need to approach the off-season with a calm mindset—neither overconfident, artificially inflating sales with channel stuffing, nor self-deprecating, thinking there's nothing to do and resting on our laurels. We should arrange off-season work based on our actual situation, focusing on fundamentals and winning hearts. That way, we'll achieve unexpected success when the peak season arrives!
**-END-**
Selected Content
**Click the title below to read directly:**
[Line Sales Representative Practical Operation Guide (with full PPT download attached)]


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671