HR needs to understand strategy, need to understand business, especially need to understand sales, combined with a case I recently encountered, talk about the contradiction between direct sales and ** (distribution) of the sales team often faced by the general generation or manufacturers.
The most recent case I have encountered is such a situation:
1.It is a manufacturer of medical devices, and its products have a certain degree of innovation.
2.In the early days, I found a lot of sales with industry experience, and when I managed the sales team, I only focused on performance, and I grew savagely, and the performance was still good for a while.
3.Recently, due to the lack of timely launch of new products and the increase in competitive pressure of old products, the growth of sales performance has been sluggish, and even some regions are declining.
After careful analysis, the problem was revealed:
1.The fact that new products have not been launched in time and the competitive pressure of old products has increased is only an objective reason, and the deep-seated reasons lie in other aspects.
2.In the early days, there was a lack of layout, and the market coverage was relatively low, and only relied on the original relationship between the sales staff and some of the best merchants to sell.
3.Management only emphasizes performance and results, and does not plan according to strategy, resulting in sales staff only focusing on immediate interests, focusing on a single sales, and ignoring the laying of first-class business network channels.
4.The lack of effective management of salespeople leads to salespeople inheriting the original habit of doing first-class sales, and driven by some future interests, to spend more time on the business relationship of the end customer.
5.Due to the trend of interests, such as the product cost of 30,000, the ex-factory price of 60,000, and the guide price of 160,000, the gross profit of the manufacturer is only 30,000, as well as the cost of R & D personnel, the gross profit of the first merchant is 100,000, in addition to the cost of business relations, all are sales, it can be seen that the first business can give the benefits of sales is much higher than that of the manufacturer, resulting in more salespeople from the first business to obtain improper benefits, or be confused or induced by the interests of the first business sales staff.
6.There is also a lack of long-term trust and cooperative relations between manufacturers and most provincial and municipal general agents, and the general generation will not specifically run the manufacturer's products, but will only add products to the packaging project.
The underlying logic behind it:
1.Due to the relatively single product of the manufacturer, the long research and development cycle of new products, and the long service life of the product, there is no repurchase in the short term, resulting in the manufacturer can not pay the cost of maintaining the terminal relationship for a long time. In this case, the manufacturer has almost no choice but to use the **merchant** product.
2.The relationship and resources of each salesperson are limited, and if the single product is just a one-shot deal, when the relationship and resources are used up, it will naturally not be able to generate new sales. In this case, sales will tend to be the same as the merchant, privately using other products to maintain his original relationship and resources, rather than trying to continue to promote the manufacturer's products.
Solutions to this type of problem:
1.The sales staff of the manufacturer should focus on laying the best business channels and increasing the market coverage, and deeply bind the long-term interests of the manufacturer, the sales staff and the best business in the region.
2.Strengthen the management of sales personnel, so that they can train more first-class business personnel, instead of running the terminal by themselves.
3.The salespeople who establish contact with the first-class businessmen and the academic personnel who go to the terminal to assist the sales are separated, and they cannot be the same person, so as to reduce the chance of the salespeople and the first-class businessmen being embarrassed.
4.Enable more newcomers, for the manufacturer is more important for the maintenance of the first system and academic promotion, business and terminal sales follow-up should be done by the first business, and the newcomer does not have the experience and ideas of privately obtaining improper benefits.
In short, in some industries, manufacturers should try not to sell directly, but also to prevent sales personnel from direct selling, on the one hand, to improve the efficiency of personnel use and sales, on the other hand, to reduce the legal risks brought about by maintaining terminal business relationships.
I have met direct selling and ** together, there is only one successful case, but also a friend of mine, he has been in the manufacturer for many years, more loyal to the manufacturer, he makes more money while doing direct selling, and also uses the relationship obtained by direct selling, information and business exchange, prompting the first business and his in-depth cooperation to produce more sales performance, but there is only one such case.
Of course, if the manufacturer's products are rich enough, direct sales is also a good choice. When doing model projects, it is also necessary to do direct sales at a loss and establish benchmarks.
Sales management