The regional manager practiced hard and cultivated intensively, and finally mastered the sales network until the day when his wings hardened-solo! Who knows that there are unexpected events, and wholesalers who used to be like a family collectively "defected". Is it because people have ulterior motives, or because they don't know good or bad, they fall into a misunderstanding? Gu works for T Beer Company and is responsible for beer sales in a prefecture-level city. He started as an ordinary salesman, and it took him two years to be promoted to the regional manager of this area. In the past two years, he has traveled to almost every township in this prefecture-level city and knows the geographical situation of this area like the back of his hand. More importantly, after two years of beer sales experience, he is confident that he has a strong wholesale network from the city to the county to the township. He is so confident because of his reasons: first, almost all wholesalers engaged in wholesale sales of fast-moving consumer goods in this prefecture-level city have dealt with him and had business dealings; Secondly, most of the dealers, the second batch of merchants and even the third batch of merchants in the region are very happy about a beer he is responsible for managing. Wholesalers not only make money by distributing beer, but also make money from the lower network. Wholesalers generally trust and respect him. In view of the above reasons, Gu is full of ambition and is no longer satisfied with being a professional manager with a fixed monthly salary. He thinks he should do something for himself with such a good connection. After some preliminary preparations, his new company soon opened and obtained the agency right of another famous beer in the province in this area. With the network that used to make T beer, the new beer will soon be fully listed in this area. Gu is confident that the full listing of new beer is only the first step with his previous prestige and relationship. Next, he will completely pull these networks, only make new beer, not T beer, and beat T beer. Three months have passed, and the results are surprising: the second batch of online merchants complain about the high price of new beer, the thin profit of dealers, the rapid change of promotion policies, and the insufficient market investment. Finally, this network, which once made Gu very confident and proud, not only failed to bring him the expected income, but betrayed him collectively, and the sales of new beer on the network stagnated. When I saw him again, he was exhausted. Why did this network that once made a professional manager very confident leave him? The answer lies in five words: management and maintenance. As a professional manager, establishing contacts is only a foundation and a beginning. If you want to keep this network loyal to you and use it to play a value-added role, you must constantly repair this network, that is, manage and maintain it. Otherwise, no matter how good the net is, it will become tattered and worthless with the wind and rain. 1. Protecting channel interests includes three meanings: First, making the channel profitable. Wholesalers are willing to do business with you mainly because they think your products are profitable. If one day he finds that there is no money to sell your products, he will definitely leave you sooner or later. Therefore, it is a prerequisite to ensure that the channel has benefits to earn. The second is to make your products bring more benefits to the channel than competitors. Because the market competition is fierce now, similar products often have many competitors, and mercenary is the essence of the channel. Which product has high income, the channel will definitely put more energy into selling this product. The concept of "income" is used here instead of "profit", because income is multifaceted, including not only profit, but also network, reputation, extra income and so on. For example, although the profit of single product brought by Coca-Cola companies to the channel is very low, and some even don't make money, the channel still enjoys it, because although Coca-Cola doesn't make money, it can bring lower-level contacts to wholesalers and get goods. The third is to strictly control the grabbing of goods. Because grabbing goods is the biggest headache for wholesalers, the consequence of grabbing goods is the collapse of the price system, and everyone has no money to earn. The biggest reason for Gu's failure is that he forgot that pursuing interests is the essence of channels. He failed to protect the interests of the channel, so the channel betrayed him. 2. Any network is dynamic, not static. In order to keep this network healthy and full of vitality, we must constantly repair this network, eliminate some members who have deteriorated or failed to keep up with the trend, and add some new members, so as to keep the whole network alive. The so-called complaints are mainly aimed at three kinds of members in the network: one is lack of loyalty to the company and does not agree with the company's cultural concept. If you promote it today, you will make your products. If you don't promote it tomorrow, you won't do it. Some even distribute the products of your main competitors. Second, he can't keep up with the development of the company. The market has developed and the company has developed, but his ideas are still stuck in the past, or funds, personnel, management and distribution can't keep up, and he is always out of touch with the market and the company, which hinders the further development of the company. Third, we should follow the example of resolutely eliminating the troublemakers in the channels who often rob goods and reduce prices and refuse to mend their ways. At the beginning, Dong Mingzhu of Gree was able to resist all kinds of pressures and resolutely refused to deliver goods to a large family, which should be out of this consideration. The so-called recruitment refers to those network members who do not belong to you at present, but agree with your company's philosophy and culture and yearn for your company. Self-growth is very good, capital, personnel, distribution and other aspects are relatively strong, honest management. If they join, it will be of great help to your sales and network promotion in this area. For these members, enterprises should welcome and actively strive for their participation. One of the reasons for Gu's failure is that he completely relied on his original network and did not make channel transformation in time. 3. Channel innovation Channel innovation is different from channel innovation. Channel innovation only absorbs new members in the channel, and channel innovation includes two aspects: on the one hand, it refers to opening up completely different channels and achieving the effect of "there is no way to recover". Huiyuan Juice, for example, has quietly opened up a restaurant sales channel when other juices are competing for the first place, thus becoming the leader in today's catering juice and beverage market. On the other hand, it refers to changing the old channel model and creating a new channel model that is more suitable for market development. The most representative is Gree Electric, which originally implemented a provincial distribution system. Later, with the increasingly fierce market competition, various disadvantages of this model began to appear. During the period of 1997, Gree implemented the channel reform, initiated an innovative model, and established a sales branch in Gree Electric in cooperation with distributors in various provinces, which firmly tied the interests of manufacturers and distributors together and greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of channels. In addition, home appliance manufacturers directly supply home appliance super terminals such as Gome and Suning, and mobile phone manufacturers directly cooperate with mobile phone chain retail giants Zhongyu and Hengbo. In a word, the market is changing rapidly, and there are many new situations anytime and anywhere. Only by adjusting their channel models and making innovations in time according to market changes can manufacturers be in an invincible position in the fierce market competition. 4. Channel integration Channel integration includes two meanings: First, channel integration means flattening channels, which is a trend. The original long-chain channel model is no longer suitable for market competition, because the channel is too long and there are too many intermediate links, and the price of products loses competitiveness after reaching the terminal; Secondly, there are too many intermediate links, which naturally dilute the profits of channel members and make the channel lose power; Finally, the channel is too long, the information feedback is slow and easy to be distorted. Channel flattening, on the one hand, it is necessary to remove some intermediate links in the channel, such as removing the second batch of suppliers and distributing them directly to the terminal by the general distributor, thus shortening the channel; On the other hand, at the same level, new channel members are added to flatten the channel, thus realizing the deep coverage of the channel. Second, the center of gravity of the channel moves down. In the past, the operation of FMCG market was basically to find a general agent at the prefecture level. The scope of the general agent includes the urban area and the counties under its jurisdiction. The products first arrive at the warehouse of the general agent, and then are distributed to the following counties by the general agent. Most of the energy and resources of the manufacturers are also put on the general agent, who then carries out secondary distribution. The disadvantages of this approach are: first, the second batch of merchants at the county level are not profitable enough, their enthusiasm is not high, and they will not try their best to help you make the market; Secondly, resources, especially some gifts, are placed in the general agent, so it is difficult to ensure the fair and reasonable use of the general agent for secondary distribution; Thirdly, the general agent sometimes intercepts the company's resources, especially when there are promotional activities, which makes it difficult to implement the promotional activities; Finally, factory salesmen or managers spend most of their time in urban areas, not knowing the situation of the first-line market, and the market response is slow. The shift of channel focus is to get rid of prefecture-level total distribution, intensively cultivate the whole market and implement multi-dealer system in a prefecture-level city. Each dealer is only responsible for an area as large as a county or a district. The advantages of this are: first, each dealer is only responsible for a small market, thus achieving comprehensive and in-depth coverage of the market and greatly improving the level of distribution services; Secondly, the total distribution at the prefecture and city levels is removed, which increases the profits of channels, makes them more motivated and has more room to operate the market; Thirdly, the resources of manufacturers, especially promotional activities, can be truly implemented to enhance the combat effectiveness of the first-line market; Finally, after market segmentation, factory personnel should also go to the first-line market to fight side by side with dealers to increase market responsiveness. In short, many large companies adopt this channel model because flattening and shifting focus can bring so many benefits. For example, the practice of PepsiCo in a prefecture-level city: according to the radiation capacity and scope, distribution capacity and reputation, five original first-class wholesalers are selected as regional distribution centers to become close partners of manufacturers, whose income mainly depends on rebates rather than price differences, and manufacturers can provide more resource support, such as logistics distribution capacity, sales staff training, computer and communication facilities. The remaining and original 200 secondary wholesalers have all been converted into quasi-primary wholesalers, enjoying all sales services and resource support of the original primary wholesalers except direct supply. This has greatly improved the enthusiasm of these two original businesses and the deep coverage of their products. 5. Help customers grow in the market for several years. I feel that sometimes helping customers make money is not the first priority. The first priority should be to help the customer grow, because any product or company can help him make money. The difference is that only a few big companies and far-sighted companies can help him grow. Many customers do wholesale, in addition to making money, or after earning a certain amount of money, they all have a strong desire to grow and develop. In addition to his own efforts, he really wants outside help. At this time, if a professional manager (mainly a company) lends a helping hand to help him grow, he will be grateful. The loyalty brought by this gratitude will greatly exceed the loyalty brought by you helping him make money, and it will last for a long time. Helping customers grow can not only bring loyalty to the company, but also harmonize customer relationships and increase sales. Helping customers grow includes many aspects: management, such as Procter & Gamble and Unilever often help customers improve their inventory management level, Pepsi helps customers train salesmen to improve their visiting efficiency and increase sales, and Midea pays excellent dealers to go abroad for MBA courses. There are technical aspects, such as installing inventory management software or financial management software for customers to improve efficiency; There is also hardware construction, such as giving or lending delivery trucks to customers and helping customers acquire modern office equipment such as fax machines and computers. In short, the result of helping customers grow is a win-win situation. The faster the customer grows, the greater the promotion to the company and the higher the loyalty. More and more farsighted companies are beginning to pay attention to investing in this field. A typical example is Procter & Gamble, in which 199 invested 1 100 million yuan for the information system construction and vehicle configuration of dealers, gradually realizing the primary modernization of dealers' operations and the primary e-commerce between dealers and Procter & Gamble, and between dealers and their downstream customers; By 2003, its Distributor Management System (DMS) and Procter & Gamble completed the preliminary data link. This means that P&G and its distributors will soon establish a complete supply chain cooperation and control system. At the same time, P&G has also set up a multi-department working group to provide comprehensive professional guidance for dealers, comprehensively improve their management level and operational efficiency, and enhance their competitiveness. Through this series of measures, dealers and Procter & Gamble have undergone profound changes, dealers have grown up, distribution management and operation have been modernized, and market competitiveness and loyalty to Procter & Gamble have been comprehensively enhanced.