Mixing Atomism & Holism in Sales

When the bleak sales numbers flash on screen during the team meeting, it screams only one thing. Who’s fault is it?

• Is it your small shopkeeper who did not agree to stock more?
• Your salesman who did not sell the right products?
• Was it the Sales manager who could not control the sales and productivity of the team?
• The sales head who could not deploy the right strategy?
• Or the boss who failed to hire the best resources that could bring the required results?

But… on Friday morning when the salesman met the shopkeeper, every shelf was so overstocked that the retailer had no option but to decline any new products.

Thursday, the salesman kept bickering to the sales manager about how they need to sell 10,000 units more of a product to meet the new target.

On Wednesday, the sales manager got an email from the sales head, asking to make the sales team work 2 hours more each day, to meet the sales numbers.

The day before that on Tuesday, the sales head was ordered by the business owner to dump more stock at every store to boost sales numbers.

And on Monday, the businessman woke up and read the news of his competition launching new, unique products at great price points.

So then, if everybody took action who failed?

It’s actually all of them, yet nobody in particular.

Each one drove an independent action, but no one thought of the next actions that needed to be taken.

Often the vastness of distribution does feel like Atomism, a principle that says everything is composed of indivisible components. So we try to deal with one thing/atom at a time.

Holism, on the other hand, focuses on the fact that everything is interdependent and should be treated as a whole to get the best understanding.

Yet in reality, distribution is a mix of both. Here’s how.

When the businessman found out about his competitor’s plan, before asking the sales head to dump stock, he could’ve quickly analyzed how markets have been performing, and where the real opportunities were present.

The sales head could’ve planned the strategy more efficiently with a Sales and Operational Planner, before asking the manager to make the team work for more hours.

Even the sales manager could’ve monitored the stock at the distributors with a tool for Auto-Replenishment to find the best opportunities to sell more stock, and could’ve used a solution like Sales Gamification to make selling more interesting for the sales teams.

The salesman could’ve literally been a superman. He could track products on every retail shelf with a Smart Merchandising tool. More than that, he could’ve known exactly which stores to visit when and what to sell to them, to bring maximum profitability.

And the shopkeeper, the biggest piece in the holism equation, could have also been included to win the retail game. Instead of sitting with overstocked inventories, he could’ve seen the current trends in the market on The Retailer App, to stock accordingly.

So sales go south, it’s not just a person to blame. It’s a system.

And if you’ve faced a situation like this, you need to build a better retail ecosystem. To know how, tap on the button below or talk to us at marketing@mobisy.com.