The Choice Of Agent Business Must Be Clear.

When choosing agents, enterprises must first choose the right direction, that is to say, the choice of sales orientation is consistent with the customers' direction of the products to be sold.

Only in this way can we establish a truly effective channel system, otherwise it will cost people nothing and nothing.

A company specializing in the production and sale of hotel rooms and ancillary office telephones. The product is located in the market segments of hotel rooms telephone and subsidiary office phones. Customer orientation can be very clear, that is, hotel customers.

This enterprise has carried out rigorous and serious argumentation in the channel planning of the product's initial market entry.

At that time, the first way to think of the channel direction is the hotel supplies, especially the hotel room supplies dealers, because the customer direction is exactly consistent with the product series.

But many people immediately put forward their objection that the telephone is a communication and electronic product. They need strong professional knowledge in sales, and there are a series of technical services before, after sale, after sale and after sale. If they are handed over to some hotel supplies suppliers who lack knowledge and skills in this area, how can they ensure a strong market promotion and sales? How can they ensure excellent service in combination with the professional characteristics of the products?

Therefore, they put forward the idea of giving products to hotel supplies distributors in order to keep the same direction of sales, but it is very convenient for sale, which is beneficial to our eyes.

It is better to give professional distributors who are familiar with communication and electronic products, and then motivate them to sell to hotels. They may have more stamina and more in line with the long-term interests of enterprise operation, channel construction and development.

After argumentation, we gradually found that the second way of thinking is more reasonable, because the human resources structure of the enterprise was mainly the technology and production personnel, and there was no experienced marketing personnel, so the problem of viewing the problem inevitably led to the direction of emphasizing technology, major and sales.

Moreover, because of the positioning of technological departmentalism, the concerns of channel technology are more important than the concerns of market expansion and sales. Therefore, it is not surprising that the choice of channels is based on professional skills rather than sales considerations.

Then, when it was demonstrated at this time, there was a lack of systematic analysis and superficiality.

In fact, the two channels have their own weaknesses.

For hotel supplies dealers, the professional technical knowledge of the telephone is its weakness; for the distributors of communication products, its sales to the hotel customers is its weakness.

For the weakness of the two, we might as well analyze, for the hotel supplies dealer, its weakness in the lack of professional and technical knowledge of the telephone communication products is precisely the advantage that the enterprise has. If we integrate the strengths of the two sides, we will become a strong alliance, and produce the two core strengths of the marketing operation which is strong in professional technology and strong in channel sales.

As for distributors of communication products, their professional and technical advantages are self-evident, but their marketing orientation is not limited to the hotel market, so the strength of sales is not for the positioning products.

Combined with these channels, the result is the same strength, the superposition is still only a strong, can not form a combination of technology and sales double strong.

Through this analysis, we can easily find that the former option of channel planning is fully consistent with the requirement of complementary complementarity in marketing, and the latter option lacks complementarity. Once integrated, there will inevitably be a short board in the "barrel effect".

Later practice proved that the enterprise chose the wrong agent because it did not analyze it scientifically and deeply. When the agent system of the whole country chose the enterprise that distributes communication products as the main body of the channel, the problem of sales emerged.

Because the civil and office oriented distributors of communication products, on the one hand, take many modes of selling on the one hand. On the other hand, because of the strangeness of the hotel segmentation market, the sales work of the whole channel almost starts from zero, and there is no corresponding marketing resources to borrow.

And because the sales direction is completely inconsistent, the vast majority of agents are faced with the need to make good sales in different market directions. They must redeploy the corresponding manpower, material and financial resources, which is a great burden for the smaller channel providers.

Because manufacturers are less aware of marketing and lack of corresponding marketing support, they can simply exert pressure on agents. As a result, many agents are finally unable to bear and break off the agency relationship with the manufacturer. After a long time, the agent channel system that is hard to establish is collapsed.

Later, the company decided to change its mind, and began to choose agents from the hotel supplies distributors, especially the dealers in the guest rooms, to reconstruct the channels.

After the channel is rebuilt, it effectively utilizes its own professional and technological advantages, strengthens the training and technical guidance for agents, and strengthens the comprehensive technical service matching before, after sale and after sale, provides the technical support for agents to follow up the whole process, enables agents to concentrate on the market, and achieves the real meaning of complementary marketing and integrated marketing.

Although the construction of new channel is only three years short, and many competitors joined in it, the company has taken the first place in today's market segments and supplemented by the correct channel selection and marketing strategy. The market share has reached more than seventy percent.

When the company concerned recalls the construction process of the agent channel, it still has no intention to say that the first step in the wrong direction of the agent's choice is that it can be adjusted and adjusted at the same time.

Now I think of it, I still have a cold sweat from time to time.