If you are a business owner and it suddenly dawned on you: "What if you sell through distributors? It's convenient - they sell themselves, and I just supply the goods. " Stop. Breathe in. And let's honestly figure out what you're really going to get yourself into.
1. You lose control. Completely.
The distributor is not your seller. This is a business that has its own tasks, interests, plans, clients. And guess whose product it will promote first: yours or yours?
That's right. Definitely not yours.
You have no control over sales, no access to analytics, no influence on processes. You don't know:
- who is really your target audience;
- How the customer makes a decision
- at what stage of the transaction everything collapses;
- why applications are lost;
- and how much you're losing right now.
You will not even be able to distinguish where the problem is - in the product, in the price, in the offer, or simply in the indifference of the distributor. And if tomorrow he just stops selling your product? What are you going to do? Rewrite your strategy from scratch?
2. Marginality? Forget
Working with distributors is obviously minus 30-60% of the margin, especially if you are in B2B or complex B2C. Why? Because:
- they demand a discount "at the entrance";
- lay their mark-up;
- begin to extort marketing budgets, compensation, bonuses, shipping conditions and deferrals.
You work, you take risks, you produce, and the profits don't go to you. How do you like this business?
3. Brand is not yours, responsibility is yours
You are nobody at the distributor. Just another vendor in a long Excel dresser.
- Your standards are not being met.
- Your brand is not amplified.
- You don't manage customer experience.
- You don't even know what they promise on your behalf.
Now guess who will be to blame when the client is "thrown" or served through the ass? You again.
4. You're not building an asset. You feed someone else's
The main mistake is to think that distributors are "selling for you." No. They sell for themselves. And when you want to get out of this dance in a year, you will have nothing left: neither your funnel, nor your client base, nor scripts, nor a team. Only losses and disappointment.
Now you understand what you wanted to get into?
Now compare with the situation when you build your own sales system:
- You own the whole funnel.
- You know your client.
- You control every stage.
- You test, scale and control the result.
- You can sell the business tomorrow as a working mechanism - and not as a raw brand without distribution channels.
We talked about how to build and automate your sales department here: https://centerqod.com/blog/qod-blog-2/ai-in-the-quality-control-department-3
5. Zoom speed - imaginary
It seems as if the distributor is a cheat code to scale. He is already "in the market," he has connections, channels, team, clients. Let's sign the contract - and that's it, it's in the hat: sales will flow like a river, geography will expand, you will sit with a glass in your hand, and you yourself will drip money into the account.
Nonsense. Dangerous, expensive and very common.
What happens in practice:
- You spend weeks negotiating, agreeing on terms, shipping, training.
- Then you wait until they "deal with internal processes."
- Then you wait for them to "set up marketing."
- Then - while they "introduce the product into the portfolio and train the team."
- And then... waiting for more. Month. Two. Quarter. Year.
And all this time you are sitting without data, without results, without a funnel, without understanding where exactly everything is skidding.
As a result, you will not scale your business. You scale the illusion.
And the time that you could invest in your team and the normal process, you threw in the trash.
Now think: do you really think that the distributor is eager to sell your product just like you? No. He has dozens like you. And if you yourself do not build control, control, motivation and analytics, you will simply be forgotten after the first delivery.
You can only scale what you control
If you can't control, you can't scale. Everything else is a beautiful fairy tale.
Here's what real scaling gives:
- Step-by-step processes;
- Transparent analytics for each stage of the transaction;
- Clear funnels, scripts, CRM, speech analytics;
- Customized training system for sellers;
- AI that will tell you exactly where it is thin, where the client is lost, and what to do so that he does not leave.
Then you can safely hire 10, 50, 100 more people. And scale in the 3 of cities, 10 countries - even in 5 time zones.
So what to do?
Build a sales system at home. From scratch. Clearly. Without excess water.
We in management consulting do it for businesses like yours:
- Setting up funnels and processes;
- Building a team and implementing CRM;
- We connect speech analytics with AI (without fairy tales - with real numbers);
- We make sure that you do not run after employees, but manage the business as a mechanism.
The last question: do you really need a result or is it enough just to "seem" like a businessman?
Because distribution is the way to the swamp. And consulting is the way into the system.
Do you want to get out of this trap and start growing?
Leave a request, and we will show you how the real sales management model is built.
There are few places. And you don't have as much time as you think.
Decide. You can still pull out the situation.