Many distributors, after reaching a certain sales volume, find themselves stuck for a long time, even a lifetime, unable to break through their current situation. Why is that? Is it the product? Or management? What restricts the further development of distributors?

Distributors care most about profit, and every distributor is thinking about how to sustain and grow their business, and continue to be profitable. However, reality is harsh: most distributors face the challenge of stagnant sales growth.

Many distributors struggle their entire lives to break through 100 million yuan in sales. So why is distributor sales growth slow, hard to break through, and never reaching 100 million? What are the reasons?

"Management loopholes, poor team execution, lack of good brands, or bad sales models." Perhaps every distributor has a different answer. When we don't do well, we must reflect: Why am I not doing well? What factors are affecting my performance?

01 Human Factors: The Ceiling of Bosses and Executives

Many distributors fail to grow big and strong, not because of products, teams, or market expansion, but because of the boss. The boss determines the company: what kind of boss makes what kind of enterprise, and how much capability determines how much business. The boss is like a ceiling; the height of the ceiling determines the scale of your business and the height of your employees. The boss's learning and speed of change determine the scale of enterprise development. If sales haven't reached 100 million, the boss definitely has a problem.

Another important reason is the ceiling of the executive team. In China, there are two prominent phenomena in business:

First, using "family soldiers." For the boss, family soldiers have three advantages: they are trustworthy, less likely to leave, and cost less. Now, half of distributors still use family management systems, which is detrimental to future development.

Second, old faces. In many distributors' core management teams, there are always old faces. No new people have joined the team for 3-5 years. Interestingly, when problems arise, these old faces often point out problems, while new people discover innovative and change-oriented methods. Old faces always find problems when answering questions, and the issues they raise are alarming; they transmit too much negative energy. Newcomers are different: to prove themselves, they constantly seek methods and opportunities to drive sales growth. Therefore, when hiring, bosses should bring in more talent, avoid absolute family management, and let fresh blood become the driving force for the company's development.

02 Product Factors: How to Pick Gold from Old Products?

There is a method called the "featured product determination method." We all know that all products selling well in the market follow two rules: the first is "first," and the second is "unique." "First" refers to brand: the first brand in each category usually has the largest market sales, and almost all distributors with sales over 100 million have first-tier brands. Brand is the distributor's weapon; the weapon determines your future. "Unique" means the product is not a brand but has distinctive features that still attract consumers. Every consumer has consumption beliefs, which come from "first" and "unique."

When selecting products, distributors must ask themselves two questions: First, "Does the product I represent have unique characteristics?" Second, "Can it make consumers remember you among many?"

The so-called product characteristics can be summarized into four features:

First, uniqueness of raw material function; Second, uniqueness of core technology; Third, distinct packaging standards; Fourth, distinct product shape.

To make your product stand out and be remembered and recognized by consumers, it must possess at least one of these points. Therefore, most manufacturers should also upgrade and innovate from these aspects.

When choosing featured products, distributors often fall into several misconceptions:

The first misconception is "fake selling points." A tractor with a BMW logo is still a tractor. There are many so-called "youth small wines" in the market, with slogans like "I am ***, *****" etc. Although they use such slogans, do the products really have these selling points?

The second misconception is "the selling point doesn't evoke the product itself." No matter how well the product is promoted, if the slogan doesn't make consumers think of the product, it's the most failed. In most cases, consumers buy not the product itself but the selling point and feeling.

The third misconception is "copying the selling points of first-tier brands."

The fourth misconception is "quality doesn't support the selling point." There is almost no such thing as good and cheap in the market. If you want BMW brand with QQ price, it's almost impossible.

03 Market Capacity and Competitive Landscape: Category Space Determines Development Scale

What is market capacity? I once met a distributor in Henan who started business in 2006, representing only two small brands, and never saw improvement. This year, he represented a well-known brand of vermicelli. In the first month, he shipped a truckload and quickly exceeded 100,000 yuan. Due to brand influence, the product was quickly accepted by the market. He confidently said, "At this rate, I will break through 1 million in a year." But in the following months, his product turnover slowed down, and sales became difficult.

As we all know, the category space for vermicelli is very small. When distributors choose products, they must consider whether to choose a large or small category. You will notice a phenomenon: many distributors of alcoholic beverages have sales reaching tens of millions. So category space determines your market scale.

The second point is the competitive landscape. As mentioned earlier, if market capacity is small, sales won't increase. But it's not true that large market capacity guarantees sales. Take cocktails, for example: this category has been very hot in recent years, but competition is also fierce. Fewer and fewer companies can survive and develop sustainably; most face severe growth bottlenecks due to following trends and imitation. Secondly, you also need to consider whether the category you represent aligns with current trends.

04 Mechanism Factors: The More Employees Believe in You, the More Successful You Are

A distributor once told me, "In my company, there are 8 employees, but the 8 of them together are not as good as me alone." The reason for this is actually a problem with the company's mechanism. Many distributors complain every day: business is stagnant, employees lack motivation, labor costs are rising, but output is decreasing.

Here, I'll share an interesting example. We've all watched "Journey to the West." In it, Sun Wukong caused havoc in Heaven and defeated all the heavenly soldiers and generals. But during the journey to the West, he faced the biggest difficulty: he couldn't defeat many demons and often had to request support from Heaven. The most incredible thing is that these demons were pets of the heavenly soldiers and generals, and the gods eventually had to come down to subdue them. Think about it: it's contradictory. Sun Wukong could defeat gods but not demons, and gods eventually had to subdue demons. Why?

These heavenly soldiers and generals are like employees working for the Jade Emperor, while the demons below are like entrepreneurs, being their own bosses. Of course, they are different from employees. Generally, in distributors that don't grow big, employees think, "We are working for the boss. We've struggled with the company for ten years, started the business with the boss, and now the boss drives a BMW and lives in a villa, while we still earn a base salary of 2,000 yuan." They wonder if it's worth it.

On the contrary, some distributors make employees feel that they are starting their own business, working for themselves. For example, in Xinxiang, Henan, there is a distributor who represents many first-tier brands. Last year, his sales reached 120 million yuan. As his business grew, he made significant changes: he made his accounts public every month, including purchase prices, gross profit per product, and profits, and divided the business into departments with contracting, adopting an employee shareholding system, and rewarding employees with a proportion of profits. Now, his company is no longer his sole concern; every employee treats it as their own, and sales growth is accelerating. So, good mechanisms create good employees and ultimately build good enterprises.

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