Diary of a Salesperson - VI

The Role of an 'Area Business Manager' - IV

“The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.”

Over the last few blogs we have discussed how an Area Business Manager plays a crucial role in team bonding and motivates the team to perform phenomenally. In this blog I would discuss about how an ABM should identify gaps in budget projection, how to analyze the plans and how to chalk a plan to help the team achieve 100% outcome.

It very important for an ABM to first find the gap and design a customized plan for his team mates. Although the budget gets defined differently for each field colleague in the beginning of financial year but is it important for an ABM to be well accustomed with the strengths and team’s concerns.

·         Personalized Approach - An ABM must distribute the budget among the team mates as per their profiles.

An ABM must take into consideration every team mate’s profile and then work upon what proactive plans to put in place as to mitigate the deficit if there is any. He must carefully plan month wise action plans for each team mate in a way that each of them not only achieves 100% planned budget but may also at times overachieve the pre-planned goal. He should strategize in a manner that there is scope for every team mate to achieve incentives.

·         Organizational Approach - He should always lay his focus on high priority brands to derive the maximum outcome.

It is an ABM’s most important responsibility to identify a few essential key aspects –

Ø  Whether the gap in the budget is from high focused brands or low focused brands.

Ø  By what extent (%) is the gap going to impact the team mate’s career growth.

It is believed that wherever the gap is cropping either from high focus brands or low focused brands, it is going to lead to low overall annual performance which would further delay the team mate’s career growth. 

Any ABM who wants to achieve success and become an inspiration for others must keep a few things in mind while planning business for the month or quarter.

·         Time management of field colleagues.                                          

·         Daily work hygiene.

·         Customer specific brand positioning.

·         Brand wise performance of field colleagues.

·         Utilization of resources and implementation of strategies as per the Brand Plan.

·         Distribution Plan and Execution (Stockiest wise business planning as per the coverage of field colleagues)

·         Continuous Monitoring (Execution of strategies & Return On Investment)

Time management of field colleagues –

Even though the time allocation for everyone is defined by the company as per the Sales Force Effectiveness (SFE) Guidelines, I still highly recommend the ABM to check weekly and monthly time allocation for each team mate. Changes should be suggested to the salesperson keeping in mind the segment, area, and their core strength which would bring out extra productivity with additional time. If needed an ABM should plan joint working in the same area to maximize productivity. He must take prior permission from seniors before suggesting any changes in coverage of salesperson with a justifiable reason.

Customer specific brand positioning - 

An ABM should always review the gap in budget in the salesperson’s area on various aspects. For instance, Brand X is a low value brand but very high sales unit are required to cover the overall budget gap then planning should be modified towards generation of additional prescriptions of high value brand to cover all budget gap. Brand budget achievements are very important but it is highly recommended that an ABM covers overall budget for the next level of promotion. He should help the salesperson to identify right customer who can help him in getting extra value. An ABM should plan his visit along with salesperson in order to get assurance for getting additional prescriptions; this will help boosting confidence of salesman towards achieving the overall budget.

In my next blog I will talk about brand wise performance of colleagues, utilization of resources, distribution plan and execution and continuous monitoring.