BUILDING SALES CAPABILITY

We recently held our National Sales Conference, where our entire salesforce of around 400 congregated in Goa for two days of fun; peppered with a few hours of deliberation and direction setting. As part of the deliberations, a few of us were tasked with giving a talk on matters of import to our business. My talk was on “Building Sales Capability”. Given the profile of the audience, I attempted to keep my talk simple, devoid of any consultant-type models, and hoped that the team would leave with a few practical pointers. Here's the transcript of my talk (edited a bit to suit this medium). 

For all businesses, the key objective is to SELL. The very reason for existence of most companies is to SELL. A SALE brings in revenue and Revenues bring in Profits, which is the essence of business. At United Breweries too, SALES is a primary objective. Everything that everyone does across UBL - at our breweries, in our offices, in the market-place - is aimed towards selling more cases of beer! The more we sell, the more we grow and prosper.

We all know this, but the key question for today is :  what do we do to ensure that we keeping selling more, that we keep beating the market and we keep growing? We cannot leave this to chance and hope that it happens by magic! We need to MAKE IT HAPPEN.

At a fundamental level, A SALE is a transaction between two parties - a buyer and a seller - where goods or services are exchanged for money or assets. It is an Act, it is a Moment. That fleeting moment when the buyer parts with his money to acquire a basket of VALUE from the seller - that is the all-important MOMENT OF TRUTH. And creating these moments of truth for our products over and over and over again is our key objective. It is the result of many forces acting together, in unison and inter-dependently that keeps the wheel of Sales going on and on.

I’d like to use the analogy of a 3-legged stool which needs each of its three legs to be strong and firm otherwise it will collapse. 

1.     One leg of the stool is the SALES PROCESS. This is the entire range of activities that leads up to THE SALE.  In our business it would start with the Planning of stock (i.e. Sales Forecast, Rolling plans, PGP); to generating orders & permits; coordinating with breweries for stock, unloading of trucks, managing trade relations; and, creating demand at the POS thru visibility, cold stock and promotions… these are just some of the tasks in the Sales Process that leads to the Moment of Truth.

2.      The next leg represents the PEOPLE - The Sales Organization. i.e. YOU GUYS!! The people who manage and activate the entire sales process. Our teams - our salesmen, our merchandizers, our distributors & their salesmen, our sales managers and channel managers, regional heads, the sales support team, sales analytics...  the entire Team!

3.     Some of you may think that these are the two legs that drives SALES. You are wrong! There is a third critical force behind sales, and that is PARTNERSHIPS. Here I am not only referring to the external partnerships with contract breweries or ad agencies or consultants, but the partnerships WITHIN our organization. To appreciate the force of partnerships, let’s look at the Sales Process again, and you will see how different parts of the organization support it and make it happen. Let’s say the Sales Process starts with the Long Range Plan (LRP) which forecasts sales for the next 3 to 5 years. This LRP sets off a chain of events that require the attention of all the other functions in the organization. The Supply Chain team will need to assess if the existing breweries can cater to the forecast, or do they need to plan for additional capacities or build new breweries? The CFO’s team will need to arrange for Working Capital and Funds for capex investments. The Marketing Team will need to create some kickass advertising for our existing brands and maybe even plan new brands and categories to support the growth plan. The HR folks may need to recruit and train more people to execute this plan, and also maybe work out better sales incentive plans! So basically the whole organization works towards creating these Moments of Truth - the point at which our consumer picks up a bottle of our Beer!

UBL has been doing very well over the years and continues to do so. So clearly the legs of our stool are nice and strong, enabling a healthy sales output. BUT… we are living in Changing Times… and we need to ensure we have what it takes to continue to do well and GROW in these changing and challenging times. And that brings me to the crux of my presentation - BUILDING SALES CAPABILITY @ UBL.  A McKinsey Report that I came across on the internet says, and I quote  :

“Our research is increasingly clear : companies with better sales & marketing capabilities grow faster. At a time when growth is not only more important but arguably more elusive than ever, companies must tap the potential of sales and marketing to deliver better results.”  

I am no expert on this subject, so I got onto the internet, and came across a lot of material on the topic. Broadly, they all prescribe a model that has the following key steps : 

Step 1 : Audit & Assessment of Sales enabling factors or measures

Step 2 : Identification of Gaps and areas of improvement

Step 3 : Action Plan for plugging the gaps

Result : Improved Sales Capability

I believe this could be an exhaustive project which would probably require the services of an external consultant, and so I will leave that to my senior colleagues to consider. 

What I would like to talk about is this : If we look back at the three-legged stool, we can all identify ourselves somewhere in there and see the roles that we perform. And that’s what I would like to focus on. But first, let’s take a selfie…

Now look at that picture on your phone. You get the point!? Building Sales Capability at UBL starts with YOU! It starts with me. We are the building blocks of UBL’s sales capability. Don’t expect a magic wand to come from above and make UB Great. It is each one of us that needs to do our bit to make UB Great.  

“But I am just a spoke in the wheel!” you might say. Exactly! You ARE a spoke in the wheel. We all are spokes in the wheel. But we also know how important each spoke in a wheel is, don’t we? So let’s start with thinking about what can I do? What can I do to be a better and stronger spoke in the wheel, so that UBL’s Sales Capability improves, and we continue to Grow in these Changing Times.I have a few thoughts to leave you with…   

1.     Self-Confidence : As salesmen we must have self-confidence. We cannot stand in front of a customer and sell our product if we are not confident, and this confidence should reflect in the way we walk and the way we talk. And we at UBL have every reason to be confident. We are the people behind India’s most successful beer brand by far. Over the years many brands – local and foreign - have entered the market and many more have fallen by the wayside, but Kingfisher has stood tall and continues to do so. Our partnership with Heineken allows us the privilege of selling one of the world’s most successful and respected beer brands. Isn’t this a combination that should give you immense confidence when you step into the market?

Self-confidence also comes from our personal life and lifestyle. A fit body cultivates a fit mind and makes you feel and act with confidence… like you too have a chhappan inch ki chhati. Confidence comes with preparation – if we prepare well for a task, we will exude confident. Confidence is like a flame that burns inside us and drives us, but just like a flame, it also flickers - sometimes bright and lively, sometimes dim and almost dead. When you score a big win, you are brimming with confidence and the flame burns bright, but if you’ve had a bad meeting with your boss, your confidence may hit rock bottom. But you must be like these new birthday cake candles – no matter how much you blow them out, the flame always bounces back. So keep your flame of confidence always burning bright!

2.    Planning. Perspective: In order to be successful, we need to be thorough in our planning. If you’re a sales manager, you must properly plan for stocks, plan permit placements in time, plan your BTL deployment, plan activations, all well in advance so that you can deliver in the market. For our front-line salesmen too, you need to plan which customers you will meet and drive orders so that you meet your target, you need to plan your monthly, weekly and daily calls in what we call a PJP, so that you cover the market effectively. Even in our personal lives, we need to plan our finances, plan for household purchases, plan for holidays… When you plan, you will find that you are more in control, you are less stressed and you will be able to deliver better. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

There’s an interesting story I’d like to share on perspective. Many years ago, a shoe company in the US sent two sales managers to Africa, which was an untapped market for them, to conduct a market survey and assess the potential there. One manager wrote back (in those days they used telex and fax) “No one wears shoes here, there is ZERO potential. I’m heading back!” The other manager wrote back “No one wears shoes here, there is HUGE potential. I’m staying back to set up a sales office!” You see how different people have different perspectives? So how you perform in the market, how you perform in life, all depends on your perspective. And this again depends on your attitude.

3.     Outlet Focus : In our industry we are fortunate that we have a finite set of outlets to sell through. However, all outlets are not the same, and therefore must be treated differently. We also have the benefit of outlet-level data in most markets. We must take advantage of this data to get to know each outlet better and be able to assess its potential for business. Knowing an outlet better means knowing not just how much it sells of which brands, but also understanding the consumer profile, knowing our current position in the outlet, keeping track of our assets in the outlet, knowing our cold stock share, and of course knowing the owner well and sharing a good working relationship. All this information should lead to outlet-level plans – which brands to focus in which outlets, what level of spends to offer, what type of visibility to have where, where to run promotions and where not to. This will ensure we deploy our resources in surgical strikes and not just spray and pray!

4.     KPI Ownership: or KPIs = Key Performance Indicators. These are the objectives and targets that our bosses give us and we are expected to deliver on - Distribution Targets; Volume targets; market share targets. We also have market coverage targets – calls to make, outlets to visit, promotions to execute. When targets are handed down to us, the first reaction is stress and pressure. In order to be more effective, I say we should break these into targets of our own. Break them into daily, weekly milestones to achieve rather than leaving it to the month-end. “This week I will crack this retailer”; “Today I will place Heineken in 4 outlets”; “In every outlet that I visit, I will convert at least one consumer to our brand.” This also applies to our personal lives. Set a target or a goal and give yourself something to work towards. “I want to reduce my weight to 60 kilos by December 31st”. “I want to run a marathon in January next year”. “I want to save up to buy a car before Diwali” Once we get into the habit of setting our own targets and goals, we will find that achieving hand-me-down goals and targets becomes easier.  

Execution : At the end of the day it all boils down to the execution. We’ve spoken about planning, setting goals, being focussed, being confident… but if the final output on the ground is not up to the mark, the results will not come, and all this will just seem like gyaan. Execution is key. And when I talk about Execution in the context of our business, I’d like to remind you of our simple credo from the last Sales Conference… Be There. Be Cold. Be Visible. Are all our SKUs available in the outlet? Is my Visicooler pure? Do I have a high share of cold stock in the outlet? Are my brands the most visible? Are my neons working? Do I have the relevant POS material in place? Your test should be : if someone walked into an outlet after I have been there, would he say to himself… ‘It looks like a UB salesman was here!’

As you can see these five tips form the word SPOKE, so I hope this will make it easy to remember. I conclude by saying that Building Sales Capability may sound like this big, massive project that we must undertake, but it is actually a continuous process of improvement, much like the Japanese concept of KAIZEN. It is a continuous process that each of us must be conscious of and work on in our individual areas of work. Remember the Stool, and the wheel of sales that it drives. Remember that even though we are a just a spoke in the wheel, each spoke makes that wheel strong and makes the wheel go far! Thank You! And all the best!