“You
don’t get paid for the Hour. You get paid for the value you bring
to the Hour”. (Jim
Rohn)
We
all know that sales and marketing in today’s world are not merely
constrained to making cold calls and selling products. It’s a
constantly revolving field that needs 360 degree approach towards
achieving the goals. On Macro Level: Passion for Sales,
Creativity and Systematic approach can lead to Effective
Sales.
In
this article, I would like to throw light on Micro Parameters related
to “Systematic steps of
essential sales”. For the
sake of simplicity, the actions are classified into Long Term
activities, Monthly, Weekly and Daily Activities (Refer Fig 1.1). Any
Sales admin tool
which helps to record such activities, Customized ERP
and its analysis will bring operational
efficiency, create competitive advantage and reduce cost of
operations as well. The
steps are divided in Activities and Analysis.
Long
Term Activities
☛ Territory
Planning: One of the most important aspect is Territory Planning.
We need to
divide
geography in Beats, Head Quarter, Area, Region and Zones. Names may
differ but essence remains the same. Persons should be identified for
each territory and made owner of their territory. Benchmarks in terms
of Number of Dealers, Retailers, Institutional customers should be
defined.
☛ SKU
wise Stockist wise targets:
This
action will lead to plot “What to sell & Where to sell”. It
is an important parameter as Certain focus products or New SKU’s
need to be given more weight age in sales. This may differ from one
geography to another. Indirectly this will help in setting a
standard of right product sales at right place.
☛ Retailer
Count wise targets for Field Staff: Number of Retailers /
Institutional clients / New clients to be met shall be defined. This
will enable us to spread our reach and sales will not be dependent on
any particular retailer.
☛ Productive
Retailers: Only retailer visits will add no value if they are not
giving orders. There should be some marketing efforts to be improve
the percentage of productive retailers.
☛Productive
SKU:
Defining how many different SKU’s we
plan to book on daily basis will also help us to spread our
offerings. More number of active SKU will result in more chances of
growth.
Monthly
Activities:
☛Tour
Program (TP) submission:
Pre planning of
the coming month in the form of TP will drive sales person to plan
visits to all of his territories and be prepared for it before time.
At times it appears to be very basic or old terminology, but we can
always ask to ourselves that have we effectively used this old tool
ever?
☛Review of
Retailer List:
A monthly review
of retailer list will give a time to time count of active/Inactive
and sleeping retailers. The sales person can take measures to
leverage the same.
☛Circulation
of Target Sheet for upcoming Month:
A simple but
missed most of the time activity. We may have Targets defined
somewhere, but are we circulating the same to Field Executive before
start of month? Are we taking their view on what's their plan on How
to achieve it.
Daily
Activities :
☛Timely
alerts:
System should be
designed to assist Field executive (FE) and not to monitor
him. Useful
Alerts should be planned covering different KPI’s and delivered to
Field person to help him meet his next goals/targets. It is an
important factor to keep him motivated.
☛Station
to be visited:
Information
related to his day working like station to be visited, Retailers
pending to Visit, Non productive Retailers, Any new Retailers etc
will not only keep him up to date but will also help him in making
the day productive.
☛Stockist
Interaction:
Stockist
/ dealer is a vital link in FMCG sales. Effective communication
should be done with each Stockist where field working is taking place
for today and yesterday should be done from HO or Regional office.
Secondary sales for orders booked yesterday should be confirmed and
scope of Primary sales to be identified for short stocks. It
can be increased through
FMCG software for sales
☛AM-SO mid
day interaction:
Managers know
the importance of Mid day interaction with their team, but the
problem is that they do not have information at right time so that
they can have meaningful discussions on daily basis. System should
support Managers with this vital missing link,
Analysis:
A timely
Analysis of the above mentioned activities is vital for the whole
process to become productive. This will help in identifying the gaps
in the business process and bringing required improvement for the
benefit of everyone in the organization.
☛Monthly
review based on KPI’s:
A monthly review
with each Field executive in presence of his Manager is of huge
importance in sales. Various KPI’s should be discussed,
achievements should be appreciated and shortcomings should be
discussed for ways of overcoming them. Target compliance, Products
sold / missed, Productive call averages, Tour program compliance etc
can be managed by MR Reporting software
as well as should be discussed and training need should be
identified. Required training should be provided on the spot so that
doubts can be clarified on immediate basis. Important feedback about
market intelligence should be gathered and passed to product
management team and other relevant persons.
☛Weekly
review:
A weekly review
on lines similar to monthly review but to be conducted by First line
Manager in field itself will also be of great benefit. In this review
current month can be discussed and steps required to improve current
month can be taken well in time.
Daily
review for some specific KPI’s:
There are
certain KPI’s which are too important to be ignored till Monthly
review. We should discuss certain KPI in a way which encourages self
analysis by field executive. Executives who booked orders for good
value, spread ed product range and spread ed productive
retailers should be appreciated and others should be encouraged for a
better tomorrow. At the same time, the message should be loud and
clear that inefficiencies will lead to a win win situation and
inefficiencies are neither welcome nor ignored.
Conclusion:
As we know that
only taking the gym memberships does not improve your health but what
improves it is
the constant efforts towards making days productive. What I mean to
say is that a system in place to identify sales activities will be
the first step in the positive direction. The operational efficiency
will improve with the participation of the people in the system.
Atul
Daga is an expert in
conventional Retail and Engineering industries CRM. He has done his
MBA from Cardiff University, United kingdom. (U.K.). As Business
Development & Business Intelligence Manager at
Advanz101 Systems, he actively engages himself with some high valued
clients in knowledge process outsourcing domain. Atul likes DJ’ing
as a hobby. He can be reached at atul@advanz101.com
