As a salesperson in a company, when the annual sales plan for the next year is handed down at the end of each year, the boss often says, "You just need to achieve this target; I don't care about anything else." What do we sense from this statement about these bosses' mindset? They focus only on sales results, and they consider the process of sales work to be unimportant. This mindset is based on the premise of a seller's market, shaped by their past experiences of building their fortunes. In today's market, with product diversification and increasingly fierce competition, what consequences might this mindset bring?

  1. Salespeople become idle, market management and maintenance are neglected, and their focus shifts to pressuring stock and chasing payments, leading to malicious overdrawing of regional markets and irreversible damage to the company.
  2. Salespeople or distributors, in order to meet sales targets, may cause a large number of channel conflicts and cross-regional dumping.
  3. To achieve sales, products may be sold at low prices, even resulting in price inversion, until eventually no one is willing to sell the product.
  4. Lack of market information or delayed reporting makes the company's marketing efforts lag, preventing timely adjustments to competitive situations.
  5. ... In summary, focusing only on results prevents the company from controlling the entire marketing process. A good sales volume in a region during a certain period might be due to diligent work over the previous months, while a good sales volume in another period might lead to a long-term decline in sales. Because sales results are lagging, the process and the immediate results are not necessarily directly linked. Modern marketing concepts hold that marketing management emphasizes the process; what kind of process produces what kind of result. A good process will certainly lead to a good result, even if it may not come quickly, but a bad process will definitely lead to a bad result, and that result will come quickly. In fact, process management for salespeople is essentially a matter of how to implement execution—how to ensure the company's strategies and tactics are carried out from top to bottom. Relying on the self-discipline of all salespeople is unrealistic. Of course, some salespeople can work with self-discipline, but most salespeople think about how to do less work and get more money. This issue is even more critical for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) because they cannot afford to keep idle personnel; they must have "one person per position," making the best use of each person. Since process management for salespeople is so important, how should companies manage the sales process? We can manage the work process of salespeople through the following aspects: 1. People are the foundation of execution Many people say that recruitment has nothing to do with the sales process; they are two separate things. On the surface, that might seem correct, but let's analyze it: if the quality of the salesperson we recruit differs greatly from the company's requirements, do you think they can execute the company's requirements well? For example, if we want to recruit a beverage salesperson with sales experience, but we end up hiring someone who has only worked with engineering machinery, can they execute the company's policies well without relevant training mechanisms and time? For SMEs, finding the right person to do the job is more important than training someone to do the job, because the company does not have much time and money to train salespeople; when you bring someone in, they should be able to contribute. 2. Specific goals are the direction Decompose sales targets by person: every salesperson must clearly know their own sales target, not just as a team. For example, if a company has three salespeople in Hangzhou, the sales target should be assigned to each individual, not calculated as a regional total, to avoid the phenomenon of "eating from the same big pot." Decompose sales targets by time: salespeople should not only know their sales targets but also break down a longer-term sales target into shorter time periods, such as monthly targets into weekly targets. This way, they can check their progress within each short period, which helps them arrange their work and prevents the situation of having nothing to do at the beginning of the month and being overwhelmed at the end. Additionally, there are other ways to decompose targets, such as by channel or by customer, with the purpose of helping salespeople understand how to actually achieve the sales target. This ensures a continuous, stable performance achievement, not a temporary target achieved by pressuring stock. 3. Work plans improve process management Target decomposition only tells salespeople what to do; work plans tell them how to do it. Salespeople should develop work plans based on the decomposed targets. The purpose of work plans is twofold: first, to ensure that salespeople complete their own work on time; second, to let managers know what salespeople will do in specific time periods. By comparing work plans with work reports, managers can see how well salespeople execute. Generally, salespeople whose work plans align with actual work tend to have stronger execution. 4. Work reports are tools Process management for salespeople cannot rely solely on personal feelings; management tools must be used. Currently, in FMCG companies, most deep distribution companies use the "Seven Fixes" (fixed person, fixed area, fixed point, fixed line, fixed period, fixed time, fixed standard), and frontline salespeople use "one map and two forms" (route map, customer information form, and purchase-sales-inventory record form). The Seven Fixes stabilize the work content and time of frontline salespeople, and filling out the two forms daily reduces the possibility of falsification, while also facilitating managers' random inspections. However, for SMEs, due to limited company resources, this deep distribution model that requires a lot of manpower is not feasible, so this process management model is difficult to apply in SMEs. In SMEs, a salesperson typically manages a prefecture-level city, and the smallest area is a county-level city, with relatively large areas, making such fine-grained management difficult to achieve. As a result, some companies design a large number of forms for process management, such as daily reports, weekly reports, monthly reports, competitor information forms, inventory forms, customer information forms, etc., causing salespeople to spend a lot of work time filling out forms, and actual sales work is not effectively carried out. Moreover, such a large number of forms easily become formalistic, and eventually, they turn into fake forms, with information made up by salespeople sitting at home. Therefore, we must not overcorrect and go from one extreme to another. Management tools should be used appropriately to maximize their effectiveness. For SMEs, three forms are sufficient for daily use: first, the customer information form, which should be filled out in detail during the first visit and updated and supplemented in a timely manner in subsequent work; second, the purchase-sales-inventory management form, which should reflect the ordering situation of all customers visited that day, the product sales situation from the last visit to this visit, and the current inventory situation, so that the company can grasp product sales information in a timely manner; third, the competitive brand information form, which does not need to be filled out daily, generally once a week, to enable management to understand market dynamics and improve market responsiveness. All tools serve management. Companies in different environments, periods, resources, and human structures will use different management tools. For SMEs, when using these tools, they should consider whether they can be used, whether they will be used, and whether they are easy to use. Only when salespeople can use them, are willing to use them, and can use them for inspection are such tools suitable. 5. Performance appraisal is the guarantee If there are work requirements but no assessment for that work, the work cannot be done well. Relying on the self-discipline of salespeople is unrealistic. Therefore, the performance appraisal indicators a company uses directly affect the actual work situation of salespeople. If the company only assesses sales volume, salespeople will only focus on how much product is sold and how to pressure more stock onto distributors, without considering the sales expenses incurred during the process. If the company assesses sales volume and profit, salespeople will consider sales volume and expenses, but not the layout of sales outlets... Process management for salespeople should not only assess hard indicators related to sales, but also soft indicators such as the number of customer visits and customer relationship quality. Of course, daily work of salespeople should also be assessed, such as the timeliness and authenticity of daily reports. By setting detailed assessment indicators, the work efficiency and execution of salespeople can be improved. When setting assessment indicators, companies should not only consider whether the indicators are reasonable but also consider how to assess them after setting, whether they can be assessed, and what the assessment standards are. Some companies set an assessment indicator for distribution rate, requiring salespeople to achieve a certain percentage of distribution within a period. However, in the actual assessment process, they do not consider how to calculate that percentage, so the indicator becomes a mere formality. If such performance appraisal indicators appear, they have no assessment significance. Therefore, companies must consider the operability of performance appraisal to achieve its purpose. 6. Audit and monitoring Although we can use various tools and means from recruitment to process to assessment for process management, "as the law rises, so does the crime." Salespeople always have policies and countermeasures. Salespeople do not work in an office; no matter how strict the management measures, someone will always find loopholes. Therefore, companies should conduct real-time process audits on salespeople's work, making them feel that there is a pair of eyes watching them at all times, keeping them on their toes. Many companies now use a model of setting up sales supervisors to audit the work process of salespeople and strengthen management. However, sales supervisors usually manage large areas, making it difficult to effectively manage the process. This process audit is more important for the direct superiors of salespeople, who are familiar with their work areas, customers, and processes, and thus the effect is best. Therefore, process audits should be primarily conducted by the direct superiors, supplemented by the company's sales supervisors. Through the above six management measures, companies can basically achieve comprehensive process management for salespeople, and work efficiency can be effectively improved. Of course, this does not mean that it can completely eliminate "muddling through" in the work process, but through this management model, companies can reduce the probability of such situations as much as possible. As a company, it is necessary to carefully consider what means to use in sales process management, to what extent these means are implemented, which tools to use, and whether these means and tools can be effectively executed in specific operations. -END- Content Selection Reply with the following keywords to categorize and read related articles: Sales Supervisor, Second-Tier Management, Regional Manager, Distributor Management, New Channels, City Manager, Competition, 2015, Manufacturer-Dealer Game, Product Slow Sales, Terminal Visit Management, Route Management, Deep Distribution, Internal Management, Sales Skills, Profit Improvement, Recruitment, Distribution, Daily Management, Team Motivation, Trade Promotion, Sales Misconceptions, New Product Launch, Township Market, New Product Pricing, Sales Target Achievement, Closing Deals, Market Visit Inspection, Baijiu, Beer, Sales Increase, Agency Products, Cross-Regional Dumping, KA, Terminal Visualization, New Market, Market Operation, Learning, Book Recommendations, Inventory Management, New Salespeople, Consumer Promotion, Execution, Old Products, Expired Product Handling, Model Market, Investment Promotion, New Media, Distributor Development, Performance Appraisal, Assessment, Annual Planning, Shopping Guide, Morning Meeting, Display, Transformation, Pressure Stock, Holidays, Distributor Cost Control, Channel Operation, Marketing Theory and Laws, Brand Truth, Order Meeting, Team Management, Training, Debriefing, Debriefing Report.