Stories from Sales II- CC 2

This is the story of a young ASM taking over a challenger territory – Karnataka. As a matter of context, the company was a market leader by far in all southern states except Karnataka (Number 3). The first few months are filled with anxiety and exuberance, and lots of reorganization must happen. Territories remapped.?3 months down the line, the new calendar year starts. Lots of planning post redistribution of territory, allocation of orders, and as a team we want to start at a 100% YOY increase in the first month of the new year.?

The month-end spent at the depots is to ensure that the secondary and tertiary sales are monitored, and we keep between 3 days to 12 days of stock depending on the territory and dispatch schedules, full loads versus partial loads of Vans. This is to ensure that the demand creation beginning of the year starts positively. A fortnight later we are at 55% of our targets and we inch through. All the van markets are monitored, TSI (territory sales in charge) pushed to do their upcountry visits and ensure stock levels are healthy and markets are responding to this clean and honest effort.?

The last week is filled with some anxiety as the competitors plan a launch and capital is jammed up, logistics are again monitored every evening to see pipelines. Even the distributors are roped in for the vision of what will success look like. They pitch in and collaborate to redistribute excess stocks in bigger cities like Bengaluru, Mysore, Hubli, and Mangalore. The baseline checks around larger sales targets, especially in food products as they have an expiry and the taste profile might change, is that the returns are kept in check, and pipelines are monitored so that dumping does not happen. Else, for the glory of a month, the entire supply chain gets stressed because of imbalances.

The day of reckoning finally arrives. 110% of target sales. Return under 1.5%. Cheque bouncing 0.6% (down from 1.5% previous month). I am ecstatic. Thank the team and head back to my regional HQ for the month-end sales review. We take the Shatabdi and reach Chennai in the afternoon. The review starts, regional manager looks at our numbers, congratulates us, and asks me the number for returns and cheque bouncing. He then asks for DD (demand draft, if the cheque bounced then the distributor was supposed to give a demand draft). That has escaped me and my sales officer in our euphoria and we kind of try to say, it's mere 22k default by a distributor in KGF (Kolar gold fields). The regional manager gives me a dress down which I will never forget. We take the next bus out of Chennai to head back to KGF, get the DD made, and return to Chennai armed with the DD. The regional manager takes me out for a dinner conveying that it was a teaching moment and hope I have learned something.

Lesson learned for life: A sale is not realized unless you collect the money or receivables are accounted for, else it is notional.?

This has stayed with me for life. Recognizing what behavior you want to drive is as important, if not more than just celebrating success.

Lesson learned for life: A sale is not realized unless you collect the money or receivables are accounted for, else it is notional.

P.S - Hard time reconcile the GMV values these days when you look at returns, realisation, etc :-). For similar stories, you might want to read this https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/stories-from-sales-gaurav-suri/