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Carpe Diem! 3 Hacks to Help FMCG Sales Folks Become More Productive
by Harshit Bora
Imagine a typical month for your rockstar salesman: Let’s assume on average he covers 80% of his journey plan of 45 stores daily and 60% of his calls are productive (visits where he gets orders).
So that’s 45 shops daily x 80% covered x 60% productive x 26 days in a month = ~ 560 orders received from a potential 1170 orders or 48% of potential!
What if I told you your brand could be hitting 100% of its potential?
Here are three proven ways this can happen:
Use alerts for reporting managers on your SFA tool to increase the productive outlet’s coverage
Here’s how this can be done with Bizom, a sales force automation (SFA) and insights tool:
- If there are 100 outlets assigned for a salesman of which 20 are not visited, then those 20 outlets become a task for his manager on Bizom.
- If for a salesman there are 100 outlets assigned and 80 are visited, out of which 30 are not productive, then again, the unproductive outlets are listed as tasks for his manager.
In short, till an outlet is visited or becomes productive, it will remain a task for the manager on the SFA tool. It will be removed from his task list when he sends his team to the outlet and gets an order. Companies can thus drive sales productivity by designing suitable KPIs and rewards around these tasks.
Display brand collateral at stores to increase recall
Brands usually provide different types of material to be distributed/put up in the outlet. Displaying such product collateral increases brand recall and makes consumers aware that the product is available at the store. So even though they may not be planning to buy the particular product/category that day the brand name would be lodged in the subconscious mind and this can eventually increase the sale of the product at that outlet.
But surprisingly salesman often fails to pass on such collateral to retailers. This is a valuable marketing opportunity wasted because many outlet owners I have interacted with as part of my beat visits have said if the brands provide them with banners/ posters/pop-up material they will allow that to be put up at their store.
With Bizom, brands can use activity forms to track this activity. This may not immediately boost sales but in the long run, will help build brand recall and demand by utilizing what is essentially free/inexpensive advertising.
Use Bizom’s telecaller module to back up the field force
Attrition among the sales force is one of the highest in FMCG. Also, it takes around a week to 3 months’ time (sometimes even six months) to fill someone’s area. In the absence of salesmen, the brand not only loses out on sales, but it also makes way for the competition to come in and take its hard-earned pie which is very difficult to re-capture unless you own the market like Nestle does with Maggi noodles or Amul with butter.
This hybrid model will help brands run a virtual beat visit by calling up outlet owners from their offices to take orders. Once the orders are taken over the phone through Bizom’s telecaller system, the order will be directed to the distributor to whom the outlet is mapped. So by creating a backup for its sales force the brand ensures that it will never miss out on scheduled calls. And all this at almost zero additional cost as one telecaller will act as backup for almost 20-25 salesmen. Additionally, this will ensure that all retailers are served on time, thus improving relationships with channel partners.
These simple hacks have helped Bizom’s customers increase their sales force’s productivity by 70% and more.
Please request a demo if you wish to help your salesmen seize the day and deliver results!
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