Roshu: How to establish a strong channel distribution network

Building a strong channel, with a team of excellent channel partners, most manufacturers in the market competition to achieve the most goals. After all, we are still in a "channel for the King" era. It takes a lot of time, manpower and funds to support this network expansion simply by relying on the enterprise's own channel construction. And channel business, can rely on its own sales network advantage, can for upstream product manufacturers quickly open the market, and the formation of sales. With the help of channel business to expand the market, whether it is just starting small enterprises, or has a certain scale of large and medium-sized enterprises, can be practical.

But as far as the present situation is concerned, a lot of enterprise's channel construction is passable, for example, the channel dealer own sales network is not wide, the market develops the strength to be weaker; the channel business manages many similar brands, promotes the energy and the key point is difficult to control; Channel business's regional market operation Idea and The marketing idea of the channel trader is backward, cannot compete for the regional market and deal with competitor's market offensive and so on.

Channel construction is directly related to the manufacturer's product sales and capital withdrawal time, to channel sales model of the main manufacturers, once the channel problems, light impact on sales and market share, market competitiveness, heavy to trigger enterprise bankruptcy. The importance of channel construction in enterprise management is evident.

So, as a manufacturer, how to build a good channel business team to help themselves seize and consolidate regional markets or the national market? I make the following suggestions on my own point of view.

1, Clear Channel business responsibilities, rights and obligations.

The goal is to allow everyone to perform their duties correctly in the work process, clear the meaning of the role of the channel business is to let the channel to know their position in the Channel network and play the role of the popular saying is to understand what they should do, this point in the Channel Investment agent distribution contract will be mentioned. Clear the role between manufacturers and distributors, can prevent some of the things, such as return and return goods and after-sales service, shop support, advertising personnel distribution and capital allocation, business category, site support, decoration cost allocation. It is noteworthy that the purchase volume, market development, terminal image, advertising, channel training, exhibition promotion, after-sales service, such as these responsibilities can be refined as far as possible to prevent future performance in the process of implementation without standard reference, temporary mind a hot on the horse lacks the new policy of deep thinking.

2, the establishment of channel docking process, to guide the channel between the operators and the docking operation steps.

Channel vendors in cooperation with the manufacturers and produced sales, this time with the manufacturers of the docking relationship began to occur, including purchase volume, type, the amount of transfer, logistics and distribution, butt responsible, market image layout, marketing activities, after-sales service, invoicing and other content, All of these collaborative content needs to have a clear guide step to demonstrate to the Channel business reference use. That is, we often use some of the flowchart and form. These forms can not only standardize the cooperative process, but also provide the vendors with analysis and statistical data, as a channel analysis of important basic data.

3, through training, demonstration market operation and guide to get started.

Many channel business is the first contact with the manufacturer's products, for product features and selling points, cooperation between the manufacturer's culture and brand, cooperation conditions and regulations, the status of product market awareness, etc. are not very clear, even if it is long-term engaged in the same industry products, not necessarily all of the products and partners. Therefore, it is very necessary to carry out some training in the initial stage of the channel business cooperation. Some manufacturers even in the process of training also involved in management, marketing and other aspects to enhance the channel's own marketing management capabilities, generally this training in the initial period of more, and in cooperation with some manufacturers in view of the cost of the problem is rarely used. In fact, training should be a continuous process, the author recommends that at least 3 training sessions be held at the beginning of the year, in the early stage, at the end of each session, the initial product and market knowledge can be instilled, in the middle and late stage mainly in marketing methods and management experience Exchange, if the cost can take regional training and network video conferencing. Through training, not only the channel to the product, competition, cooperation manufacturers have a certain understanding, but also through the aggregation of ways to unify the enterprise market operation concept of indoctrination, set up channels advertised to instigate the competition between the channels.

4. Communication, communication, understanding and understanding.

As the saying goes, people are wise, self-knowledge is clear. Familiar with your channel business, you can do it at any time according to the channel business individuals, local development of coping strategies. Sun Tzu said in the Art of War, "the Enemy, Win," is also this meaning.

Some manufacturers in the initial stage of cooperation, will only take into account the channel to join the funds, the first purchase of the franchisee, the sales capacity of the franchisee, considering the establishment of channel cooperation, in addition to through the docking of return to contact the channel business, rarely know the status of the channel. Such a state cannot expand the regional market. The previous article said, the channel merchant is the manufacturer product moves toward the market link one of, therefore, this link any link has the question, then this one supply chain link will appear disjointed or breaks, causes the product to reach the demand consumer hand.

Understand the channel business, understand the local market, understand the local competitors, understand the local consumers, not only can help manufacturers to develop personalized marketing strategy, but also effectively help channel Shangligen, development, growth. The general practice is through the salesman to call to ask sales or send a business support for the regional Development channel, at the end of the year to engage in a dealer conference, recognition of the high performance of the channel business. In fact, these are not the real needs of channel operators. The channel business needs is the manufacturer can really value each other, gives the other side actual help. For example, in-depth communication with the channel to understand the business, competition, demand situation, to the first-line sales terminal to understand consumer purchase, competitor's operating methods, through the channel of personal and local understanding of the current situation, formulate regional marketing strategy, to help channel developers to develop regional markets.

5, set up a set of performance evaluation program

We now see the Channel Business performance appraisal scheme, most of which are based on sales as a hard index evaluation, and in the initial stage of the channel business cooperation, due to the performance of the symptoms can not be achieved, most of the performance assessment provisions gradually become dead, can not be implemented and implemented. Once this trend is formed, the management of channel operators is difficult to control. Therefore, when setting up the channel business performance appraisal, can be "carrot and stick", that is, to assess the rigid palliative, but also can not be ignored, such as the number of channel network expansion, the personnel involved, the first wide intensity, the terminal image construction, the number of returns, the company's policy coordination, the timeliness of transfer of funds, the number of customer complaints The hard index and soft index distribution as a percentage of scientific evaluation, such performance appraisal method is more scientific and reasonable than simple sales index, easy to obtain recognition and implementation. Some FMCG companies such as Procter and Gamble have used such a performance appraisal model. In addition, the author also suggested that when doing sales assessment, it is better to set less, also can not be set more. Because there is no retreat can not be completed, the performance system is bound to be unable to implement.

6, pay attention to subculture construction, enhance the cultural cohesion of manufacturers.

The construction of Channel business culture is also a kind of cultural construction, compared with the whole culture construction of enterprises, the construction of Channel culture and department culture can be called as a kind of subculture construction. Channel business culture construction mainly to channel business information sharing, supplemented by Channel Business Association. This can be combined with incentive mechanism and promotion mechanism. such as quarterly sales incentive activities, the annual Star channel rating, vendors to collect the channels of sales experience sharing Conference, channel business information, such as the latest fast-seeding. In this way, a positive and high cultural atmosphere is established between the channel and channel merchants and the vendors.

Of course, in the end, the manufacturer's own brand building should not stop, as the saying goes, "crooked", to obtain a strong channel resources, with the support of channel operators, the standardization of the enterprise itself is also necessary. Big brands can have a strong appeal, one of the reasons is because the channel to join the company can easily use the manufacturer's brand to open up the market, and manufacturers mature market operation guidelines. For the lack of brand appeal is weaker than the manufacturers, to achieve a step-by-step brand manufacturers will require a step-by-step time accumulation, as long as the attitude of the impetuous and quick success, through such as several suggestions, gradually accumulated channels of resources and market experience, but also from a small tree grow into a towering tree.