---
title: "When Sales Won't Rise, or Rise Without Profit: How Can Sales Managers Effectively Boost Low Sales in Big Markets?"
description: "The most basic indicator for evaluating a market or manager is sales volume, but as we often say, sales are not everything, yet without sales, nothing is possible. This article categorizes sales into types like 'drug sales' (high volume, low price) and 'premium sales' (high volume, high price), and discusses how to generate, monitor, and avoid pitfalls in sales."
author: "方刚"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-08-10"
language: "en"
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# When Sales Won't Rise, or Rise Without Profit: How Can Sales Managers Effectively Boost Low Sales in Big Markets?

> The most basic indicator for evaluating a market or manager is sales volume, but as we often say, sales are not everything, yet without sales, nothing is possible. This article categorizes sales into types like 'drug sales' (high volume, low price) and 'premium sales' (high volume, high price), and discusses how to generate, monitor, and avoid pitfalls in sales.

The most basic indicator for evaluating a market or manager is sales volume, but as we often say, sales are not everything, yet without sales, nothing is possible!

1: Various Types of Sales
- Drug sales: high volume, low price.
- Waste sales: low volume, low price.
- Defective sales: low volume, high price.
- Premium sales: high volume, high price.

For example, in many manufacturers' base markets, sales are high, but profit contribution is low; these are drug markets. The typical characteristic of these markets is that a single product supports more than half of sales, and this remains unchanged for years or even a decade or more. Not only are products aging, but channels are also aging. The basic feature of product aging is long existence, low price, and low profit. The basic feature of channel aging is that major customers sit and sell, over-reliance on distribution, or overly flattened channels with many small and weak customers.

Waste markets are mostly remote new markets. If these markets cannot be developed with high-profile strategies, it's better not to develop them at all. Supplying low-price products to distant new markets is not only a waste of effort but also yields waste; even if the market is captured, at best it becomes a drug market.

Defective sales mostly occur in remote areas and are latent markets. Similar to being in enemy-occupied territory, the purpose of high-profile strategies is to cultivate consumers and accumulate market presence, watch for competitors' weaknesses, and seize opportunities to attack. In these markets, maintain a top-down layout, avoid the pitfall of small profits and quick turnover, accumulate market momentum to a certain level, and gradually penetrate from points to lines to surfaces. Once competitors show vulnerabilities, you can strike decisively, turning it into a base market and achieving premium sales.

Behind premium sales is an excellent base market. A base market is the company's stronghold, meant to provide support and blood transfusion. If a base market cannot supply blood but only sucks blood, the company's end is near.

2: How Do Sales Come About?
How do sales come about? In many training courses, answers vary: some say sales are sold, promoted, or brand-driven...

1: Sales are often cruel!
For frontline salespeople, sales are 'soaked' out. After blisters on feet, hands, and mouth, sales will surely come.

Visit every household and shop; when effort is exhausted, feet blister.

At each store, arrange products and displays, moving things around; hands blister.

Introduce products, policies, and promotions to each store owner repeatedly; mouth blisters.

For market managers, when sales have problems, they should be the first to 'soak', then lead the sales reps and customer team to collectively 'blister'. Promotional resources are important, but people are the foundation of sales; over-reliance on promotions is like drinking poison to quench thirst. Strengthen the foundation; only when people move does sales become safe.

2: Sales Formulas
Formula 1: Sales = Number of outlets.
This is a distribution rate formula: the more outlets, the higher the sales, a direct proportion. When sales have problems, self-check: Are sales concentrated in old outlets? Have old outlets been lost? Is new outlet development slow? Unlimited, unplanned distribution rates are also terrible. When setting distribution targets, consider the brand support of the product. Placing Moutai in roadside shops not only fails to generate sales but also damages the brand. Controlling the appropriate outlet distribution rate tests the marketing skills of a manager or even a company.

Formula 2: Sales = Number of outlets × Turnover rate.
The theory that sales are proportional to outlets must be based on turnover. If single stores cannot turn over, the more distribution, the greater the loss, because expired and near-expiry products increase, just like eating without digesting!

So, how to solve the turnover problem?
The best way to drive turnover is 'air force support'. Advertising, buy-one-get-one, price reductions, free samples, and tastings are conventional air force tactics. However, regional managers are often just infantry commanders and do not control air force resources. Therefore, consider: how to solve turnover without air force?

Facing this, many managers complain bitterly: lamenting the brand's power and the company's air combat capability. But they forget one thing: if air combat capability were sufficient, infantry could be omitted entirely.

Solving turnover with infantry is a tough and tiring job. Like brutal street fighting, it involves door-to-door selling, creating eye-catching displays, suppressing competitors, persuading store owners to push the product, negotiating stock-in stores, display stores, exclusive stores, and maintaining agreement stores according to standards.

Farmers know the natural law of spring planting and autumn harvest; there is no myth of planting in the morning and harvesting in the afternoon. After sowing seeds (distribution), you must water, weed, fertilize, catch insects, and loosen soil—a series of follow-up actions. The principle is that diligent people and diligent land yield results.

Formula 3: Sales = Number of outlets × Turnover rate × Number of products.
Once outlets and turnover are solved, the market tends to mature, and managers can relax.

But often things go contrary: either headquarters' sales targets chase you relentlessly, or competitors' pursuit keeps you on thin ice. In such markets, while outlets and turnover must not have problems, increasing the number of products is the only choice that is both offensive and defensive.

For a single store, one product is weak in both sales contribution and defense. Adding new products on top of existing ones not only creates new sales but also effectively blocks competitors.

The purpose of adding new products is to fill gaps, repairing price bands under brand planning and support to prevent blind spots and gaps.

The principle for adding new products is upward movement. Low-price attacks can hurt competitors but also harm yourself; harming others without benefiting yourself is a major taboo in marketing strategy. Therefore, when adding new products, consider filling gaps while following an upward price path, from terminal price, consumer pull, to channel profit, all should be a step above existing products.

Using product variety to drive sales is mostly applied in mature or semi-mature markets. Old products defend, new products attack, forming a wave-like rotation. Once this goose-wing product line is formed, if the market rhythm is well controlled, it often becomes a 'meat grinder' for competitors. In this formation, old products protect the market, new products launch wave after wave of attacks, and competitors are often at a loss.

However, you must control the rhythm and manage the channel and team well. Management is about integrity, new products are about surprise; integrity enables surprise, otherwise, too much surprise becomes abnormal and leads to self-inflicted chaos.

3: Sales Monitoring
How to view sales?
Sales are a result! Only when sales are achieved do we see the numbers, so we consider sales a result indicator.

If marketing management stays only at this level, it often falls into the helplessness of 'post-mortem examination'.

Regional manager sales information self-check:
1: As of today, the monthly total, by region, by product, by customer sales achievement data, compared with the same period last year.
2: As of today, the annual total, by region, by product, by customer sales achievement data, compared with last year.
3: As of today, the current month's regional total, by region, by product, by customer sales achievement data. Compare the progress difference with headquarters' overall data.

Managing sales clearly avoids losing battles in confusion. Market success or failure is not about winning or losing, but about clearly knowing the reasons for failure. Data tracking is an important part of market management. After obtaining this data, regional managers must have data analysis and perception capabilities, predict market changes through analysis, and avoid the tragedy of post-mortem examination.

4: Sales Traps
Sales are a treasure; bosses love managers who create premium sales, so the traditional practice of whipping the fast ox is often fully displayed. Thus, sales performance takes up most of the assessment.

Sales overdraft is a dangerous game; excessive sales chasing is like killing the goose for the golden egg. For sales (the egg), the market (the goose) is exhausted.

Let's look at some common unspoken rules that market managers use to achieve sales targets.
1: Pressuring customers. That is, pressing customers to order more, robbing Peter to pay Paul. Overt pressure: near month-end, when sales are not on track, offer policy temptations to get customers to pay and ship more, or even just place orders without shipping. Covert pressure: use personal relationships and other tricks to ask customers to 'help a brother out'.
2: Pressuring terminals. Use the excuse of 'the wolf is coming' (competitors) to apply for promotions and push large quantities to terminals, regardless of whether terminals will accept goods next month after big-tier pressure. The key is that long-term promotional stimulation causes terminal price chaos and sluggish response.
3: Cross-region dumping.
And so on...

How to avoid sales traps?
1: Have a clear understanding of various types of sales.
2: Monitor changes in outlet numbers and competitors, focus on outlet management quality, and master the richness and replacement of product variety.
3: Establish a sales tracking and early warning system to detect and handle issues in advance.
4: Classify market management; different markets have different assessment focuses.
5: Distinguish process indicators from result indicators, ensure assessment and tracking are in place, and avoid over-chasing a single indicator or one-size-fits-all assessment.

Sales traps are mostly caused by lazy management that emphasizes results over process and sales over market. Overdrafting sales leads to increasingly tiring management. You should firmly believe that good process leads to good results, do every bit of market work well, practice the 'basic skills' of marketing, start from the basics like horse stance, forget about sales and focus on the market, and sales traps will naturally disappear.

**Editor's PS:** The editor has selected 1,067 quality articles from nearly 1,900 published on this official account, divided into 14 categories and 57 knowledge points, systematically organizing frontline marketing management content into a library for easy learning. From market to customer, covering practical combat and management, all are dry goods. Follow the official account and reply with the number '1' to browse and view related content.


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