Distributor salesmen not selling your range? Spend one day on the beat with them

The distributor says the six salesmen are working hard. Your sales in that town say otherwise, and neither of you can see why. You cannot hire, fire or pay those salesmen. You can spend one day walking the beat with one of them. Then look. What you see will point to one of three things you may propose. One is the route and the visit gaps. Another is the short list of products to open the bag with. The third is the sheet of results.

Where does your say end?

Settle this before you offer advice, or the distributor will stop listening. Who is hired, what is paid, how the godown runs and how the salesmen are treated belong to the distributor. Raise them only as a talk between two businessmen.

Yours to propose, because they touch your sales directly: which outlets are visited and how often, and which of your products come out of the bag first. Also how orders are written and passed on, and what you give the salesman to make your range easier to sell. For judging the distributor as a whole, read how to measure dealer and distributor performance.

How do you spend the day?

Ask for one salesman, not the best and not the worst. Tell the distributor you are there to learn the route. Carry a sheet with these columns and fill it as you walk: time, shop, minutes inside, your products shown, order written, what the shopkeeper said.

Watch four things.

First, shops covered before lunch and minutes inside each. Second, which products come out of the bag first; that is your real product focus. Third, whether the salesman asks "what do you need?" or "what is finished?", since the two questions bring in different orders. Fourth, what the shopkeeper says about your pack sizes, your price against rivals and the gaps in delivery.

Say nothing during the visits. Offer your view when the beat is done, over tea, and never in front of a shopkeeper.

Which fix does the sheet point to?

Read it before you decide, and do not decide from what you assumed.

If there are few calls and long gaps between visits, the route is the problem. Visits happen when the salesman feels like it, so some lanes are seen constantly and others hardly at all. Draw the market with the salesman and give each cluster a fixed day.

If there are many calls and your products stay in the bag, the problem is product focus. Give the salesman two or three lines to open with this quarter, each with a reason a shopkeeper cares about, such as a better margin on one pack or a sample to leave behind.

If the calls are good and the orders small, look at the order sheet. A salesman who writes only what the shop asks for will write small orders. A sheet that lists your range, with the last order quantity beside each outlet, prompts the salesman to ask for the rest.

Pick one. A salesman who is handed a new route, a new product list and a new form in the same week goes back to the old routine.

What if you try to fix it all at once?

Here is an invented case. A company in Mysuru that makes incense sticks sells through a distributor in Hassan with six salesmen. Its field manager rode with one and came back with three findings. The salesman called on the big provision stores every time, ignored the small shops in two lanes behind the market, and never took the premium pack out. Pleased with the findings, the manager fixed all three in one meeting: a redrawn route, a premium-pack target and a new order form.

Three weeks later the manager rode again. The old route was back, the new form was unused, and the target was a number the salesman had stopped mentioning. Too much had changed at once to survive a busy week.

The second attempt was only the lanes. They went on two fixed days, drawn on the back of the sheet with the salesman. A fortnight later the lanes were being visited, the big shops' order sizes had not moved, and the new lanes added orders for the standard pack. The premium pack still sat in the bag. That made the next fix plain: the premium pack needed a sample to leave behind, not more talk.

How do you hold the fix after you leave?

Ask the distributor for a one-page sheet for each salesman: shops, visiting day, last order date, and your two focus lines. The salesman fills the last-order column and the distributor's clerk copies it to you. Review it with the distributor, not the salesman, on your usual visit, and ask one question per salesman: which shops have gone longest without an order?

If you can support a prize, reward route coverage rather than sales, because coverage is what the salesman controls. Agree it with the distributor first and let the distributor present it.

When the day is wasted

Skip it when the distributor is too small to employ salesmen. Skip it when your visit is treated as a threat and no salesman is lent for the day. And skip it when the real trouble is that the distributor stocks your range but prefers a competitor's. Then the work is the relationship. A day on the beat will not mend it, so look at following up with a distributor who took stock and is not selling it.

Ask for the date

Message the distributor today and ask which day suits for riding with one salesman. Bring the sheet. Bring back one number from the day, such as shops visited before lunch, and compare it with the same count a month later. If you would rather plan the day with someone first, tell us what you need, or see how the rest of selling through partners fits together under sales.