Here's how you can adjust your sales approach after encountering failure.

I advised you go back to the Basic Rules 1)Check your (RTM) roue to market system compared with that of your competitors, what is usually causing delay in your truck out time which is leading to huge product returns to the factory(OTIF) on time delivery in fulls or package, 2)check your product quality & target market viz a Viz & your 3rd party channel of distribution, how do you monitor your sales representative in the trade if they making sales traction it not, 3)Have you ever think of reconfiguration of routes that will boost sales effectiveness & route sales efficiency,? what type of distribution frequency is adopted 1.5 or 2.0 or 2.5 reload pattern? If some of the listed above is checked I think this reduce level of failure in trade,

You can go ahead to conduct an in- trade market survey or you can also go to conduct an In- trade market opportunities to see where get it wrong, opportunities are abound anywhere, look at the product strength & your product display pattern in the trade this is key to sales progress, taken a wrong action at the right time will lead to a mistake & or right action at the wrong time will lead to resistance but a right action at the right time will lead to success, How do often do review set target get feedback about setting of target, you can apply the SMART approach, etc create suggestions box to seek opinion from other departments especially production & or finance for a way forward, develop a weekly review system & inspect what you expect,

Check staff skill & accomplishment, some staff are not so much aware of their company product quality & benefit it offer due to lack of training to acknowledge same, it is the responsibility of the organization to do so, check the staff skill & competence, check the readiness level of your staff discover those that needed to be motivated, train & re- retain for better performance and conduct monthly or yearly appraisal to determine compliance to standard through training,

What strategy is best fit? For instance in an FMCG, what strategy did you think can best apply, is it vertical distribution growth or horizontal distribution system? Consider doing building customer/consumer capabilities, some marketing firm has also adapt to what is called "take home marketing strategy" (ie) creating small shop near arm reach purchase instead consumer haven to travel distance journey to get what is essential and needed most especially in this hard growing economy where company are folding up, they rather prefer not to open more branches than to appoint 3rd party distributors to act on their behalf and save overhead cost & tax this strategic move is rather preferd as they transfer their responsibilities to this group,