The sales department has specific tasks to get on the market. Sales need to periodically visit customers, check credit, to generate, monitor deliveries of products, introduce new product or promotion, products of goods, negotiate a new post, another handful of complaints, etc. much in the same retail outlet. Now imagine reproducing it in a large number of outlets.
The universe of outlets that are targets of the company, and the number of salespeople and sales managers may be different from one company to another, depending on the branch. It may also depend on the company's strategy on the market. However, each company in the industry will try to cover as many outlets as possible with employees.
It is very easy to explain this intention. More outlets cover you directly through your representatives, more sales, you can expect. Although you can access the retail outlets indirectly, through wholesalers, it is always better to have direct contact to the market.
Although the company tries to cover as many customers as possible, it also seeks to engage optimal number of representatives on the ground. Optimal minimum means necessary to achieve desired results.
We see that the point is to find a balanced approach between the cost of employment, training and support to the number of sales representatives on one side and the achievement of budgeted sales volume of the other side. It is a problem typical of the FMCG companies that sell a huge volume of a broad portfolio, which sells fast through ramified network of retailers, which are more or less dense distributed throughout the geographical area of the market.
In such a situation, it is important to have a good sales planning for road sales representatives. This is done through several stages:
1.) Evaluation of the world market is the stage of collecting data from all retail outlets in the market. The investigation involves the collection of baseline data, estimates sales and potential, the output size, frequency of visits of buyers, etc.
2.) When you gave your universe sales outlets you rank in the categories ABC.
A - Major outlets large volume and potential, located in urban areas. The number of such outlets is generally relatively low
B - medium sized outlets, urban areas with growth potential. Number of outlets B will be moderate
C - Small outlets, always useful to visit. Probably there will be many outlets in this category
There will be some outlets that you might want to run out of planning your route. It is very difficult to cover all points of sale on the market. In certain sectors, where there is the small number of outlets, it will be possible in May. But for a company FMCG with thousands of outlets, it is more realistic to skip the lowest points of sale for planning the route.
3.) The next step is the creation of the visit of the frequency output categories. Here you apply the principle of Pareto. Given that most of the company's sales comes from the relatively small number of outlets, they deserve more frequent visits. Therefore, the model of the frequency of visits in May look like:
A outlets - weekly visits (or even several times a week)
B outlets - Once in 2 weeks
C outlets - Once a month
4.) After the classification of retail outlets and setting the frequency of visits, it is necessary to calculate the average time spent at point of sale for normal activities. In addition to this, you calculate other time, for example, driving time, etc. Finally you have the number of people you need for better coverage of world output. Of course this May be expensive, in case of sale of these representatives can not directly justify their number and density in the market, thanks to increased turnover.
Therefore, you must start with a minimum number of sales people. If their contribution to the company is justified, then the number of representatives can be increased gradually. He is the best way to re-assess and plan the sales force during the annual business planning.
ABC Route planning must be done gradually. The expansion of the sales force must come in phases. In each phase, it is necessary to gain increased sales, profits and market share to justify the next step.
The universe of outlets that are targets of the company, and the number of salespeople and sales managers may be different from one company to another, depending on the branch. It may also depend on the company's strategy on the market. However, each company in the industry will try to cover as many outlets as possible with employees.
It is very easy to explain this intention. More outlets cover you directly through your representatives, more sales, you can expect. Although you can access the retail outlets indirectly, through wholesalers, it is always better to have direct contact to the market.
Although the company tries to cover as many customers as possible, it also seeks to engage optimal number of representatives on the ground. Optimal minimum means necessary to achieve desired results.
We see that the point is to find a balanced approach between the cost of employment, training and support to the number of sales representatives on one side and the achievement of budgeted sales volume of the other side. It is a problem typical of the FMCG companies that sell a huge volume of a broad portfolio, which sells fast through ramified network of retailers, which are more or less dense distributed throughout the geographical area of the market.
In such a situation, it is important to have a good sales planning for road sales representatives. This is done through several stages:
1.) Evaluation of the world market is the stage of collecting data from all retail outlets in the market. The investigation involves the collection of baseline data, estimates sales and potential, the output size, frequency of visits of buyers, etc.
2.) When you gave your universe sales outlets you rank in the categories ABC.
A - Major outlets large volume and potential, located in urban areas. The number of such outlets is generally relatively low
B - medium sized outlets, urban areas with growth potential. Number of outlets B will be moderate
C - Small outlets, always useful to visit. Probably there will be many outlets in this category
There will be some outlets that you might want to run out of planning your route. It is very difficult to cover all points of sale on the market. In certain sectors, where there is the small number of outlets, it will be possible in May. But for a company FMCG with thousands of outlets, it is more realistic to skip the lowest points of sale for planning the route.
3.) The next step is the creation of the visit of the frequency output categories. Here you apply the principle of Pareto. Given that most of the company's sales comes from the relatively small number of outlets, they deserve more frequent visits. Therefore, the model of the frequency of visits in May look like:
A outlets - weekly visits (or even several times a week)
B outlets - Once in 2 weeks
C outlets - Once a month
4.) After the classification of retail outlets and setting the frequency of visits, it is necessary to calculate the average time spent at point of sale for normal activities. In addition to this, you calculate other time, for example, driving time, etc. Finally you have the number of people you need for better coverage of world output. Of course this May be expensive, in case of sale of these representatives can not directly justify their number and density in the market, thanks to increased turnover.
Therefore, you must start with a minimum number of sales people. If their contribution to the company is justified, then the number of representatives can be increased gradually. He is the best way to re-assess and plan the sales force during the annual business planning.
ABC Route planning must be done gradually. The expansion of the sales force must come in phases. In each phase, it is necessary to gain increased sales, profits and market share to justify the next step.
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