Sales Gurukul

Sanjay, a Distributor in a mid level FMCG company is fed up of calling company office again and again for his pending claims with the company A.  Claims involve money. Investment in claims is investment too and it affects his working capital requirement.  Reduction in working capital = less money to buy company goods as per market demand= less sales = less profit. He is fed up of this delayed claim settlement by company. He has made up his mind to leave distributorship of the company as soon as his claims are settled.  Sunil, distributor of another OTC company B, is frustrated for not receiving stocks even 10 days after making advance payment. He has experienced this delay in his orders every time he placed sales order to the company. Company is based just 300km away from his town. At maximum he should receive stocks against his order within two days of advance payment being credited to company account. But it does not happen. Sunil is in talks with other company C market...

Sales is a challenging profession. Every sales call, every day matters in Sales.  No one can fake around productivity in sales. Here performance,most often,is mostly objective and is in numbers. Sales targets and achievements are in numbers. This objective nature of sales job "can make it stressful" for most sales people. Another factor adding to the stress quotient is that it is THE only function in company which "brings money" to company. Rest all depts in a company consume money. Because it generates revenue for the company, so sales folks are always being followed up on their sales numbers. "How much productive calks you made?" "How much sales have happened till date?" "Why you are so low on sales targets till date?" "When will payment of X will come?" "When the new customer will get operational in town B?" One or more of such questions follow sales people almost every working day. No wonder Most sellers are stre...

  Marketing consumes money. Branding devours money. Operations guzzle money. HR consumes😋 money. $a£es Brings money. Then why #sales function doesn't gets its due respect always? #b2b #bdr #sdr Sales Wheel 

Scene No, 1 Rajesh is busy working in the market making sales calls to his customers. He is upbeat as most of his sales calls are productive. He is in the middle of a sales call when he receives a telephone call from his boss. Boss: "Rajesh, what are you doing now?" Rajesh: "Sir, I am working in the market." Boss: "Leave the market now, and send us your sales plan for the coming week." Rajesh;"Ok sir, but can I send the same in today evening". Boss; "No, send it within the next 20 minutes, as I have to present my sales plan for the coming week to my boss within the next 45 minutes, so do it fast." Rajesh (swearing under his breath); "Ok boss". Scene 2: Preetam is sitting with his distributor and discussing the sales plan with him for the current month. He has checked the stocks and sales of the distributor.  He is about to make the primary sales order of the distributor when he receives a telephone call from the office. Sales ...

 Following are some of the factors which decide a good salesman: Good salesman is one who sells not products but solutions to the customer keeping in mind the needs of customers. A good salesman is one who solves the problems of his customers concerning products/services provided to the customers by him. He achieves his/her targets by meeting needs of both his customers and his/her company.                                                   Image:stock unlimited He also provides timely information about competitor activities to the top management. He keeps on adding more customers to his list of customers to ensure regular and stable sales from different customers during different phases of year. He ensures timely resolution of the problems being faced by his customers. For him the customers come first as satisfaction of his customers will ensure steady busine...

 A person willing to make career in Sales must have following qualities : Must have good listening skills. Listening more helps sales persons (SPs) helps them learn more about customer issues and customer needs.  Knowledge about customer needs helps SPs to sell right products or services to customers. Patient listening to customer problems helps SPs provide timely and appropriate solutions to their customers SPs should be hard working . All skills can come to a zero if SPs are not hard working. Hard working SPs with less skills can beat non hard working skillful SPs.                                       Image: National Association of Sales Professionals Must have good communication skills. With good communication skills , SPs can deliver their messages to their customers and other persons effectively and thus sell more. SPs should have problem solving skills. Sal...

Sales is a very challenging profession. The more challenging it gets, the more rewarding it becomes. There are few other professions that are as numbers-oriented as sales. By being numbers-oriented I mean, in the sales profession performance is measured with numbers like: _% targets achieved. _% new customers added.  _% of sales metrics achieved. Remuneration and incentives are directly linked to sales performance. In other words, Performance management reviews are more objective in nature in sales than in other professions. This objective nature of the sales job makes it one of the most insecure professions in the world. Performing well above average, your job is relatively safe. But if your performance is below average then it can be curtains for poor sales performers. The sales profession is very demanding. And this adds to the stress of sales professionals. Having been in the Sales profession for more than 28 years, I can vouch for the stress that this profession brings. But I ...

Story Time: CEO of one of the renowned companies I worked for found himself a job by knocking on the doors of that company. I too found a job for me by cold-calling on employers. A CEO is a comparatively less known person than a huge film star. Can you imagine a top Indian Film star gulping his ego and knocking on the doors of producers to find employment for himself? Most people find it beneath their egos to ask other people for jobs or get employment. They may suffer silently or get employed at bad places but won't go out and request people for jobs or search for a job by knocking on the doors of potential employers. Right? But that star has something bigger in his mind than his Ego. In his prime he was a big egoist.  He was called one man industry at the peak of his film career. But every peak has a valley. He too hit his valley when a few of his films flopped. Suddenly he became an unbankable film star. Few films came his way. Down in film career, he started a film company call...

 Check your shopping behavior and then check how your friends or your known ones decide to buy things. Haven't you or your known ones purchased certain things because of discounts being offered on them. Visit market or any shopping mall, I bet you will find many shops selling clothes, dresses, appliances etc. offering discounts on their products. Check any e-commerce site and you won't find a single product where discounts are not being offered.                                               Image:Nimble CRM (For more on sales and marketing tips visit Sales and Marketing Tips ) Most marketers and sellers USE discount strategy to attract new customers and make customers buy things which they may not even need. Why customers fall for discounts? Because humans by nature are greedy creatures. By talking sweetly with them and by offering discounts you can make people do what...

 You have a great product , with great quality and huge market demand. Your marketing dept had spent huge amount of money in developing and producing this product and spent an equal amount of money in creating hype around it. Will that be suffice for you to earn money from this wonderful product? No. To ensure that this product is used by its end users, the product must reach near to its target customers. Market is full of stories of great products which died slow death due to poor sales and distribution strategies.                                          Image: The Scientific World That is where the sales comes into picture. Sales is responsible for taking the product to the end customer and helping the customer derive benefits from the same. If it were not for sales, most product, however good,bad or best they may be, will not leave factories where they are manufactured. Sale...

Sales people often ask : Is sales job secure? And How to secure Sales Job? In this blog we will explore both these topics. Any job is secure for a job holder who delivers even 90% of performance expected from his or her job. So does sales job. But it is easy to secure sales job. How ? Here is greatest tip to keep your sales job 🔐 A sales job is about achieving sales targets. But always remain in 90% to 100% range of hitting sales quota. Never over-achieve your sales targets. As long as you are hitting a minimum 90% sales quota your job is securely provided you ace the following skills.: Build the skill of managing your immediate boss . Keep your boss happy by making him or her feel great. In sales, if you have good relations with the boss then you will have a secure job. Never trust your colleagues. There are few promotions in sales jobs. For a single promotion, you may be competing with your colleagues. There is a lot of backstabbing for promotions. Beware of your so-called professi...

What is Gross Margin and Net Margin in Sales? Let us start without beating around the bush. You buy (or manufacture) a product at Rs 8/-. You sell it at Rs 10/-. Gross profit margin= Sales revenue minus cost of goods sold (COGS) divided by sales revenue multiplied by 100= (Rs10/- Rs.8/)*100/10= 2*100/10= 20%. It is because gross margin or gross profit margin is always expressed in % terms. However to sell that product you incur Rs 1/- as sales expense ( shop rent,electricity bill,shopping bag cost i.e paper bag cost,sales person salary). (For a manufacturer cost of goods sold (COGS) is taken into account which includes raw material cost and fixed costs like plant ,machinery, manpower cost,working capital cost etc.) So your sales expenses to sell that product = Rs 1/-. So your net profit margin (NPM) on that product = Gross profit margin in amount minus sales expense in amount divided by sales revenue multiplied by 100= 2–1/10= 10%. NPM is always expressed in % terms. Hope it helps. Sal...

 Contest means competition among participants tin a game or activity. Whosoever wins the contest or collects desired points or credits gets rewarded. Sales contest is a competition among sales people to achieve sales related goals or activities which lead to higher sales. Sales contests are run by businesses or companies to motivate their sales people to do their best to generate: new customers, or more sales, or new leads or make more calls Etc. To make contests popular companies set goals for their sales team members. Then rewards are set for those who exceed quota For example a new company introducing a new product in market may run a contest among it's sales people by announcing that whoever adds ten new customers will get a cash reward of Rs. 1000/- for adding 20 new customers reward will be Rs. 3000/- (image : saleshacker) Those who achieve these quota will be rewarded as per contest. Sales contests may be set for teams too. Such sales contests for team let teams earn rewards...

 Each Sales transaction is meant to ensure that the product reaches the end consumer. (For more on sales and marketing tips visit Sales and Marketing Tips ) Most of companies adopt distribution channels to ensure the reach of its products to the customers.  Some of the channels adopted by companies for the sale of their products are given below. Image; tutor2u. net Shown above are just three of many distribution channels. Distributor channel under heading 1 and 2 can be referred to as indirect channel as in these channel the product reaches the end customer/consumers after moving through channel partners. But in case of distribution channel the product is moving directly to the customer from the company.  This is the DIRECT CHANNEL OF SALES and thus can be called direct sales. Franchisee shops of different companies are examples of direct sales. In Direct sales there are no middle men between company/manufacturer and customer/consumer. This channel helps the companies red...

 Best ways differ to crack rural markets are different for big companies and smaller companies. Big companies = those with many brands and products which offer good sales volume in rural markets. Such companies’ best bet to reach the depth of rural markets is to appoint direct or indirect distributors in all rural towns with more than 10k population. We at Dabur used to follow this practice way back in 1999.                                                        Image:the economic times Smaller companies that have few brands or products can take the help of van working to penetrate rural markets. Vans loaded with company products can be deployed to rural markets to sell products to shopkeepers in rural towns. Both types of companies can put up shop boards or get wall painting down in rural markets to create awareness ab...

 Person calling on another person/s to sell something is called sales call. A sales call may be made in person or through telephone .                                                  Image:Salesforce Person sales call is called seller. The one receiving sales call is called prospect or buyer or customer. Calling another person in person or phone without any acquaintance is called cold sales call. Calling another person in person or phone with acquaintance is called warm sales call. Thanks, Youtube/C/Sales Gurukul-Subscribe our Youtube channel now !