---
title: "Sales Not Improving? Look Beyond Symptoms to Root Causes"
description: "When all work is done but sales do not improve, the cause must lie in the work itself. To boost sales, focus on five key aspects: correct direction, thorough execution, proper timing, systematic approach, and sustained effort."
author: "杨永华"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-06-13"
language: "en"
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---

# Sales Not Improving? Look Beyond Symptoms to Root Causes

> When all work is done but sales do not improve, the cause must lie in the work itself. To boost sales, focus on five key aspects: correct direction, thorough execution, proper timing, systematic approach, and sustained effort.

All the work has been done, yet sales have not improved. We assert that the cause must be in the work itself. To improve sales, the following five aspects must be grasped:

**Correct Work Direction**
Case: A instant noodle company, in order to boost its sales and meet the utilization rate of its newly expanded equipment in July, mobilized its entire sales team to develop new markets, a so-called "breakout on all fronts." As a result, performance declined for several consecutive months. Not only did the new equipment fail to reach utilization, but even the original production lines could not operate. More seriously, the old markets were left unattended, leading to significant losses, and the company never recovered.
As is well known, July is the slowest season for the instant noodle industry. Old distributors begin to shift their business focus, investing their main energy in seasonal products like beer and beverages. Yet this company positioned its marketing direction on new market development, concentrating all human, material, and financial resources on ineffective work. How could sales improve?
Direction is greater than method—this is an indisputable fact. In reality, we often see the phenomenon of "going south by driving north." Marketing managers, relying on "slap-on-the-forehead" decisions, set a "tone" for subordinates and let them find methods around the so-called direction. Then, after formulating a seemingly perfect work plan, they plunge into the "battlefield" to fight desperately. The result is self-evident.
To improve sales, **first find the work direction that leads to sales growth, then find methods around that direction—that is, first do the right things, then do things right.** If the work direction is wrong, all work is ineffective, and sales will certainly not improve.

**Work Must Be Done Thoroughly, Not Just Done**
Case: When we conducted a marketing diagnosis for an FMCG company, we attended their monthly marketing meeting. We found that their work assignments were very detailed and comprehensive. It could be said that they even taught every salesperson how to walk out the door! After the meeting, the marketing director confided to us: "I assign work to the sales staff every month, and they run to complete all the assigned tasks. Why can't sales improve?"
Later, during market visits, we found that the sales staff were indeed busy and tired, but to complete all the work assigned at the beginning of the month, they were rushing around, exhausted. Most of the work was done perfunctorily, let alone solidly and thoroughly. Ask yourself: if all work is done as a "half-finished project" or even a "shoddy project," can sales improve?
In the past 20 years, whoever did it first was the winner. The problem is that now all companies are doing it, so it comes down to who does it thoroughly and well. It doesn't matter how much you do; what matters is to what extent you do it.
Intensified market competition means that one part of effort yields no harvest, and ten parts of effort yield only one part of harvest. Similarly, facing homogenized competition, the winner's rule is: **It's not how much you do, but how much you do thoroughly.** Marketing work, especially frontline work, faces not so much skill challenges as psychological ones. Because frontline marketing is monotonous and boring, people work in a "three-point-one-line" pattern (i.e., the line connecting hotel, customer, and market). This simple repetitive work easily wears down willpower, consumes passion, and leads to job burnout. It easily breeds perfunctory work attitudes and low morale, which in turn leads to: doing things but not thoroughly, just going through the motions to pass the time.
Therefore, to improve sales, it's not about how much work you do, but how much you do thoroughly, because the work that drives sales growth is measured not by quantity but by thoroughness.

**Work Must Seize the Right Timing, Doing the Right Thing at the Right Time**
Case: An instant noodle company, to boost sales, developed and launched a fairly good new product in April. The promotion plan and execution were impeccable, but the result was a heavy loss. Why? The reason is simple: wrong timing—they didn't do the right thing at the right time. April is the first month of the high-temperature season and the first month of declining instant noodle consumption. New products are slow to be accepted by consumers, and heavy stocking at distribution points creates the first impression that the product doesn't sell well. Coupled with quality issues during high temperatures, no new product can succeed.
"Getting up early but arriving late at the market" happens often. **Seizing the right timing is the basic premise for doing any work well.** If you can't effectively combine the right method with the right timing, all efforts may become futile.

**Systematic Work Is Needed to Improve Sales**
Case: A food company had dominated the market in Province A for years, but sales remained stuck between 8-10 million yuan. Every time, the manager in charge said, "I've done everything, but there's no sales. What can I do?" But later, a weak company's sales broke through 18 million yuan in just three months, becoming the leading product in Province A. Why?
The answer was found in our subsequent market research: The company that had long dominated Province A relied on its product advantages, but its clients stuck to old products and refused to promote new ones. The sales staff were sleeping on the job, and promotional expenses were intercepted by clients. The latecomer weak company, on the other hand, relied on the hard work of its products, clients, and sales staff, combined with clever promotional strategies, and won easily with a "drunken fist" approach.
Therefore, marketing is composed of many elements, and marketing work itself is a system. **Sales improvement is the result of the systematic effect of marketing work, not the result of focusing on a single "point." It must be done as a "surface."**
Companies often only look at themselves and ignore competitors and changes in the competitive environment, working behind closed doors. This static, wishful marketing thinking makes it hard to "compete" with dynamic competitors and environments. Moreover, focusing only on one link or element of marketing, such as investing all expenses in distributors while ignoring second-tier distributors and retailers, leads to inventory not being continuously distributed, so sales cannot improve sustainably. Focusing only on push in the channel while ignoring pull on consumers leads to "intestinal blockage" in the channel, and sales cannot improve. Focusing only on "air bombing" while ignoring ground "offensives" also results in a "famous but not substantial" empty shell.

**Sales Improvement Is the Result of Accumulated Market Work and a Continuous Process**
Case: When I presided over a regional market sales analysis meeting for a food company, the reports showed that Market A had sales of around 150,000 yuan from February to May, but from June to August, sales remained above 500,000 yuan. In contrast, Market B had monthly sales above 400,000 yuan from February to May, but from June to August, monthly sales dropped to less than 100,000 yuan. I was puzzled. I asked the two market managers to share their experiences and lessons. The salesperson in charge of Market A said: "From February to May, we almost didn't invest in promotional expenses; we only focused on product promotion and outlet development. In June, we launched a round of promotions for a concentrated breakthrough, and sales have been rising steadily since." The salesperson in charge of Market B said: "From February to May, I applied for promotional expenses from the company, and each month we increased the promotional intensity, and sales were good. But in June, due to promotions making product prices transparent, plus dumping and price-cutting, sales outlets refused to accept goods, and sales kept declining."
Clearly, if you don't effectively and consistently work on improving sales, and instead adopt a "surprise attack" approach, it's hard to make sales improvement a continuous process. There will inevitably be a peak followed by a trough.
In reality, many companies focus only on the current month, "squeezing toothpaste" month by month. Or they treat sales improvement as a numbers game, not focusing on the main work of improving sales, not arranging work around sales improvement, and hoping sales will naturally rise. Ask yourself: What have you done for sales improvement? If the answer is no, what reason do you have to say your sales will grow? Some companies only talk about sales in terms of the current period, only about how to complete current sales, not viewing sales improvement as a continuous process. Worse, some companies use price wars or "buying sales with money" as short-term behaviors for current sales. After that period, where will your sales come from? Will they continue to improve? If you don't find the key points for improving sales, don't continuously inject "energy" into sales improvement, and only release all market "energy" for sales improvement, this is like pulling up seedlings to help them grow. The market seedling will eventually be pulled to death!
It can be said that sales improvement is a result of marketing work accumulating market energy and then releasing it. **Sales improvement is a continuous work process. Only by continuously injecting "energy" into the market to improve sales can sales continue to rise.**

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