subject: Understanding Sales [print this page] Sales are the core of factually all business endeavours, industries such as Telecommunication, Manufacturing, Food and Beverage e.t.c. all need the service of salesmen to grow their business. However, this article aims at giving the necessary prerequisite of being a sales guru.
Sale is a professional endeavour which should not be seen as an unskilled or semi-skilled labour. Salesmen are not hawkers who go about the street just trying to make sure the goods on display are sold. The disparity between a professional salesman and hawker is evident because a hawker unlike a professional salesman doesn't access his performance regularly and has no imputed effort on the growth of the business. He believes selling is by chance and when sales come his way in a day, it's by luck. However a salesman would never reason that way. He is mindful of the fact that he his obliged to grow the business.
Also, unlike a professional sales person a hawker has an informal reporting style. Reporting to a hawker is not key all as far as the figures are coming in, but to a salesman this is an aberration of the sales profession. In order to have sound minds to man the distribution aspect of the business most organisations love to engage the service of graduate in their sales force. Secondary school certificate holders can also be hired in a sales force as guerrilla marketers (foot soldiers) to be supervised by the graduates.
KEY FACTS IN SALES:
1. Direct Distribution DD (Also known as Retailing) is the key to success in sales. When any company does this, it means they have gotten things right.
2. The 3As in Sales and Marketing are: Availability, acceptability and affordability. This third one has to do with pricing. Price of all the marketing mix is key.
3. Sales are expected to be grown Vertically & Horizontally. Vertical growth via BA (Business Associate) incentives and good BA Management, Horizontally by encouraging the B.As to open more outlets, more sub-dealers & B.As to drive sales.
4. Under pricing is unethical in the sales profession. When it happens, it is either the products where stolen, hijacked or it's a counterfeit or adulterated (fake). Then the company can go all out to combat the miscreants legally and otherwise.
5. Guerrilla Marketing: Has to do with using foot soldiers for sales. They can enter into all the nook and corner to drive home sales for the company and also target can be given to them to enhance performance.
6. Channel opening: Opening of new channels for sales is important to grow the business.
7. Reporting: Reporting by staff is very important on B.As and staff daily sales activities. Reporting is usually done on an excel work sheet.
8. Good advertisement/jingle can be carried out to create awareness thereby, creating an enabling environment for sales. A good and effective marketing communication department can be created to see to this.
9. Route to Market Strategy: End to end management in the distribution train would make sure that the product gets to the grassroots.
10. Living in best practise: A good sales man should portray an act of discipline always.
TIPS FOR TARGET ACHEIVEMENT: In any sale or marketing department the concept of targeting can not the overruled. The reason is simply because people needed to be driven by something. A set goal must be there for achievement of the company's objective or else people would be in there comfort zone expecting things to be on auto pilot. Some companies in order, to ensure that targets are achieved attach some percentage of staff salary on performance. Companies on the other hand should be considerate when setting targets by not making them unreasonable and unrealistic. However, it should be noted that targeting is part of sales and both cannot dwell isolation. I would now like to discuss tips to achieving targets.
1. Call plan/Call for order: A marketer especially those in the financial sector, first in the morning is expected to draw a call plan of where and those to visit and the close of the day's business do a report on how the outing went. For those in sales, first in the morning customers are to be called to place orders. These orders are to give an insight on the figure to be expected at the end of the day.
2 Relationship management: in my article titled: understanding customer relation in sales. I stressed the importance of relationship management where people buy from you not because your price is good but because they like your person.
3 80/20 Rule: An appraisal of Darwin's theory of Survival of the fittest. Only those customers who can give you, your target should be held unto because they constitute the 80 and those who cannot constitute the 20. The 80/20 Strategic thinking recognised, achieving more with less.
