There are craftsmen who can sell Chukchi snow in winter. Sounds, of course, proudly, but the question arises about the advisability of such action. After all, the ultimate purpose of selling — not simply impose the goods to the customer, and make sure to come back again for purchase. It is this simple axiom you need to navigate to the company when you build your own sales system. In this case, however, we should not forget about the other important rules. To sell — don’t carry water

Before the invention of the Central water supply was in the world such a profession — a pitcher. Its representatives did nothing that drew water from natural sources, and then carried home. It may seem that the sales is also simple. It is only necessary to take a product or service from the “source” and “include” them to customers. In fact, it’s much more difficult.

Sales system is a long process consisting of many stages and requires the efforts of many professionals. How accurately will work this mechanism, depends on the end result.

The key elements of any sales system are: qualifications hired sales managers; the uniqueness of the product offering; the constant availability of the product; marketing strategy; strategy of sales development; the pricing policy.

We should also mention the strategic development plan is the most important component of the sales system.

What is it?

The strategic development plan is a document, like setting out the principles that will evolve the company over time and the goals that it intends to achieve. The plan helps not to get bogged down in routine, to clearly define the vectors of development and take them without being distracted by unnecessary things.

In the sales context (though not only) it is important, first, because that allows you to organize tasks and clearly plan the actions of employees. Agree, the work goes much better when everyone knows what and when to do and not encroaching on the scope of activities of colleagues. When responsibilities are blurred, and a clear plan of action, there is confusion and achieve sales growth in this case is extremely difficult. Here, on the contrary, we need a system and strategic development plan of the system provides.

Second, it performs another important function: explains the purpose of sales, target audience, builds the principles of working with distributors, etc. salespeople need to know all these details to properly perform the work: to bring the needs of clients, prepare the appropriate marketing strategy and so on. Conversely, a lack of understanding of the company’s objectives, strategy and plans, the risk that sales will develop unevenly and erratically, causing uneven and did not justify the expectations of the level of profit. What else is important when building a sales system?

Of high importance is the coordinated work of all departments of the company. Why so — it is easiest to illustrate on a real example.

Once we have carried out the audit of the sales system in the company producing the feed. The test showed the presence of a fully developed sales system and confirmed the understanding of staff goals of the company.

Between them directly, as it turned out, there was no consistency.

Thus, specialists in marketing and trade marketing work apart, in result they have developed promotion plans often contradicted, and did not complement each other, which reduced their effectiveness. Funds for marketing activity were allocated by the Finance Department is also uneven, without taking into account the real needs, which led to increased losses. Finally, forecasting demand marketing professionals was conducted without the constant cooperation with colleagues from production plants. The result was an inflated volume of production. Withdrawal from the shelves of expired products brought losses in the amount of UAH 6 million.

Unfortunately, such examples are not uncommon. Coherence in the work of the company to achieve really difficult. But very necessary if the goal is to increase profit growth. Conclusion

So, we discussed the key elements of an effective sales system. A lot of them, and each affects the final level of profit. It is therefore important to constantly monitor all the stages of your sales system.

If there is not enough resources — it makes sense to contact the experts. They will quickly help to identify issues that will prevent your business to develop effectively, and correct them.