Reasons for the decline in product sales. Analysis of revenue from product sales and its planning at OJSC Koks. How to increase revenue by reducing the cost of services

It can be caused by various circumstances: crises in the economy, an ill-conceived company management system, problems in production and sales, seasonality or unfavorable weather conditions.

Reasons for the decrease in profit of a business entity

Highlight following reasons, leading to a decrease in the revenue of an economic entity:

General economic. Rising inflation, depreciation of the national currency, which makes it more difficult for a company to pay for goods and services of foreign partners. The category of general economic factors includes crisis phenomena in financial system leading to a reduction in consumer income, unemployment, slowdown in traffic Money economic entity.
State. Reluctance (inability) of the state to timely pay private firms for work performed or services provided. Establishment of administrative barriers leading to downtime of companies (for example, a long period of time for obtaining permits to start economic activity), increased taxes and fees that increase the costs of business structures, corruption, unsatisfactory work of the courts, due to which disputes between counterparties take months to be resolved.
Market. A decrease in a company's profit is a consequence of increased competition in the market and the emergence of cheaper and (or) high-quality alternatives to its product. Financial indicators may worsen due to the lack of government support for domestic producers and the influx of analogue goods from abroad. A decrease in profits is caused by errors in supply planning, leading to the presence of large quantity intermediaries who charge a commission. Other reasons include instability in stock markets and problems in the banking system.
Force majeure. The company's profit decreases sharply when emergency circumstances occur. These include a fire in a warehouse or office, natural disasters, declaration of martial law in the country, theft of valuables or disclosure of confidential information.
Operating rooms. The company loses a significant portion of its income if it does not effectively use the fixed assets at its disposal.
Financial. The decline in profits is caused by a large share of loans and advances in the company's capital, inefficient use of credit resources, ill-considered pricing policy, a significant amount of costs in the cost structure (for example, renting an unreasonably expensive office), and overdue accounts receivable from large buyers.

Other factors that reduce profits include seasonality, ill-conceived marketing policies, unfavorable weather conditions (important for agricultural producers), and lack of motivation among managers and ordinary employees.

Often during a crisis, we find many reasons that justify a decline in sales. These could be wordings: “customers don’t have money,” “our prices are high,” “the client doesn’t want to buy now.” It is important to know that these are superficial reasons that can be neutralized by quality communication with clients. The author offers his own methods of increasing sales during a crisis, read about them in a new article.

Surely many who work in sales have had a situation where a client refused to purchase a product, arguing that the country had a difficult economic situation. This is exactly the situation that can help check the preparation of the seller, whether he is professional or not.

Let’s conditionally divide clients into easy and difficult ones. The difference is that the latter require a little more work than the former. In times of crisis, many easy clients become difficult ones.

What does difficult clients mean? They do not want to part with their money quickly. The seller needs to devote a lot of time and attention to such a client. The level of professionalism of the person who sells the product to such a client must be appropriate. He must be able to find an approach to a difficult client, identify his true needs and desires. The seller must get his client talking and establish contact with him. A very important quality is persistence. But the seller needs to have a good sense of the line between persistence and intrusiveness. Remember that persistence does not mean fixation on one thing. It happens that the seller only presents his product and does not show any interest in the desires and preferences of the buyer. The client may have the feeling that they are trying to impose on him the idea that he definitely needs this product.

It happens that a client needs something, but he doubts whether to buy it now or wait a little longer. In order to overcome the customer's reluctance to pay, the seller should start talking to him more. Often a seller, having heard that a person is not going to buy anything due to, for example, a crisis, does not take any action. Does not try to find out the true reason for refusing purchases. Although it would be worth conveying to the client that life does not stop during a crisis. Very important point- get rid of the barrier in the seller’s head that people don’t want to make purchases during a crisis. In addition to the crisis, there may be other barriers: our competitors are cheaper, our prices are high. By keeping these barriers in mind, the seller is mentally dooming himself to failure. The seller should have the status of a “rich seller” and then he will not have to fight with himself when communicating with clients.

There are several types of sellers: players, spectators, victims. The first always and in everything see only positive sides, they consider different ways of developing events. Such sellers always know what to answer the buyer or what to offer him. They try to think positively and not get upset if they fail.

The latter begin to act only if someone asks them a question or asks them to do something. Such sellers most likely have an internal barrier that prevents them from communicating with customers - the fear of seeming too intrusive.

But the latter are surrounded only by problems created by them. Victim sellers do not believe in their product, they do not believe that it is really good. Victim sellers can be attributed to the “Ugly Duckling” phenomenon, when the seller has a high-quality product and a decent price, but he is still convinced that such a product cannot be sold.

It happens that the company has different types sellers. How, then, can you maintain a good emotional mood in the company? First of all, the manager should pay more attention to sales players who are always ready for action, they are active and see the positive sides in any situation. Conversely, you need to interact less with victim sellers. This will help the manager not to get stuck in a swamp of problems and disorder. And the entire company as a whole. By interacting with sales players, the manager will be able to redirect the attention of employees to positive aspects and search for new opportunities. Victim sellers will think that they can change their approach to work. They will go after the player sellers. Because they want to communicate with players in the company, discuss development vectors, management listens to them. This is the only way to avoid the spread of chaos in the company.

Victim sellers tend to lack motivation. Although the problem of motivation is, for the most part, artificially invented. Of course, there is an option to introduce a bonus system to encourage employees to work more efficiently. However, in this case, there may be those who work only for bonuses. The real motivation can be the success of other employees. It is better to introduce bonuses for clients.

By the way, about clients. A very common question: “How to keep the client’s attention?” You need to constantly maintain interaction with the client and show interest in him. Not only at the moment when he makes a purchase. For example, before you call and tell the client about new products, you need to ask him about the product or service he previously purchased from you, whether he liked everything, etc. The client will be pleased that the company cares about his satisfaction. This way communication will be established.

So let's summarize. To keep sales at the proper level, you need the following:

Conduct training for employees;
Get rid of the idea that it is difficult to sell during a crisis.

First of all, sellers need to remove defeatist thoughts from their heads: “we are expensive,” “difficult,” “impossible.” There are various trainings for this. One thing needs to be understood: even during a crisis, people’s needs do not go away, the desire to spend money simply decreases. You just have to start talking with the client, identify his needs and direct them in the right direction.

Why don't individual salespeople or even entire teams fulfill their sales plan? Often neither managers nor company leaders can answer this question. Instead, more excuses are made, hasty decisions are made, but the situation does not change.

Qvidian, a business solutions company, tried to find out what was behind the low performance and conducted a study ( 2015 Sales Execution Trends study), which reflected the latest trends modern world sales

It turned out that the degree of responsibility of sales managers is greatly exaggerated: only 30% of company heads surveyed cited poor coaching skills of specialists as the reason for low sales. On the other hand, the two most common responses made us think about the quality of salesperson training: 42% of managers complained about an excessively high failure rate, and 41% were convinced that their employees simply did not know how to profitably present a product.

Main priorities

The main concern of most companies in 2015 is achieving high financial indicators: 94% of managers expect an increase in profits and 87% - fulfillment of the sales plan. Based on the data obtained, the authors of the study identified the TOP 5 reasons why salespeople fail to cope with their responsibilities:

Too many deal refusals (42%)
Inability to competently present the product (41%)
Overload with administrative tasks (36%)
Long waits for results from new employees (36%)
Poor training of salespeople (30%)

“Tip for 2015: Provide better training and motivation for your employees.”

In the endless race for big profits, do not forget about the key sources of growth and income of the company:

Finding new clients (59%)
Increase in average check due to cross-selling (43%)
Increased sales efficiency (35%)
Optimization of transaction conversion rate (31%)

Most businesses today are gradually realizing that they need more rigorous forecasts regarding their trade policies. Almost 46% of executives admit that their understanding of the modern sales cycle and consumer behavior needs clarification.

"Tip for 2015: Study your customers' behavior and create relevant content"

According to the study, in the business world, along with high competition, there is an increasing gap between new and old technologies: the growing popularity of modern CRM systems (by 7% compared to 2014) is adjacent to a clear commitment to old channels of interaction with customers (by 11%). since 2014). This discrepancy cannot but affect the overall sales process.

One of the biggest difficulties today, according to 24% of company heads, is the insufficient effectiveness of managers in training employees. Compared to last year, this figure increased by 15%, which indicates the need to increase the competence of management personnel and update knowledge in the field of sales.

Advice for 2015: Invest in modern technologies and business analytics

Conclusion

A study conducted by Qvidian illustrates the current business situation by 2015. Bye most of companies are concerned about the transition from cautious development to aggressive growth, obstacles such as incompetence, poor employee onboarding, irrelevant information about purchasing behavior, inappropriate customer communication channels and poor business intelligence will remain the main reason for poor financial performance and slow growth.

Is revenue falling?

Let's talk about unpleasant things. Sooner or later, a situation happens to any store owner when reporting for a period inexorably says: compared to the previous period, revenue has fallen... And here there are different reactions.

Someone, without giving himself the trouble to think about why, waves his hand: well, it happens that the month or quarter turned out to be unsuccessful. The next one will be better.

And this is the surest path to trouble. Because a drop in revenue in a clothing store is always a wake-up call.

Someone panics, vomits and rushes, fires staff, abruptly and thoughtlessly, rashly changes the assortment...

And this is also not the best thing that can be done. What is happening is not ruin, not bankruptcy. Yes, this is an alarming signal and cannot be ignored. But in order not to make a mistake, you need to react thoughtfully. Not at random.

What to do? How to increase revenue?

The first thing you need to do is analyze the reasons for the decline in revenue. Consider the following:

Are the reasons seasonal? What did the revenue dynamics look like for the same reporting period last year?
What happened to sales? If the same number of units of goods were sold as in the previous period, and revenue has fallen, look for reasons in your pricing policy
If sales have fallen, what about your product range? Is it appropriate for the season?
What has changed in the store compared to the previous reporting period and even earlier? Some negative changes do not give an effect immediately, so look for reasons one or two, or even three periods ago.
Did it happen that you stopped doing something that you were doing before? For example, provide outdoor advertising or conduct active sales by base? It is precisely such actions that have a delayed negative effect. And replacing the seller with a less professional one is immediate.
If you yourself haven’t changed anything or stopped doing anything, it’s time to pay attention to the actions of your competitors. Perhaps they did something very successful, drawing away customers from you?
Do you trust your employees? Are internal reporting in order? Is everything logical in it or does something require close attention? There were cases when revenue did not fall at all, just part of it changed its destination, missing the owner.

First, stop digging...

What to do once you understand the reasons for the decline in revenue? There is one good phrase: “If you suddenly find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging.” So, if there is a reason for the decline in revenue, the matter will not improve on its own. Whatever happens - the cause must be eliminated. Even if this is your new sign, which cost you a lot and you really liked. Even new seller, who does not communicate competently with clients - a friend’s daughter and generally a “good girl.”

When a company's sales fall, it is not always the fault of the crisis, which in the last year people have been blaming all the problems in the business. But the crisis is ending and there will soon be no one to blame. Therefore, it will be necessary to deal with solving real problems. Some people don’t have them, and that’s great. But in any sales department there is something to improve and improve. Our task is to offer you food for thought and tools for solutions. We invite you to read Alexander Shuvalov’s material on how to deal with falling sales.

Problem: Company importing gardening equipment, Moscow. They have been around since '96. We were in the lead for a long time. Over the past three years, they have been losing the market in all positions. Completely forced out of the golf course manufacturing market. In principle, they have no idea where to move and how. Sales are falling. The Sales leave.

Dear Pyotr Semenovich! Based on our conversation that took place on February 12, 2008, I took a number of the following actions in order to get the most full information about the product your company offers on the market:

1. I ordered equipment (Mantis walk-behind tractor, Kioritz engine (Japan) at a price of 21,900 rubles) through an online store on behalf of a private individual with payment terms - cash. I placed the order at 12.15 on 02/13/08. Result. A call from your manager came to me only on February 14, 2008, at 16.45 (that is, almost a day later!) Having heard my answer, the manager who made the call, in response to my answer that I had already found another seller, answered me (verbatim): “Ah... Well, okay... Well, all the best...”

2. I made a number of calls to the office of your company (02/12/08, 02/13/08, 02/14/08). I have deliberately divided the garden equipment groups into symbolic subgroups (in my opinion):
Subgroup A: Walk-behind tractors and cultivators; Braids and trimmers; Lawnmowers;
Subgroup B: Sweepers; Snow removal machines;
Subgroup B: Sprayers; Seeders and spreaders;
Subgroup G: Golf equipment;
Subgroup D: Design and installation of golf courses.

Result. When processing my calls, the last ones were redirected to the same manager in three different subgroups out of five. At the same time, the manager advising me told me quite clearly and in detail about the advantages of the Mantis walk-behind tractor (probably this is the best-selling walk-behind tractor), but at the same time he was confused and spent a very long time looking for information on other types of garden equipment (the reason is obvious - the manager does not know the product well, which is not sold so widely and successfully).

Regarding the possibility of ordering a golf course project with subsequent purchase necessary equipment, then the manager who negotiated with me found it difficult to answer a number of my questions, which ultimately led to the fact that “I decided to order” the golf course project from another supplier.

3. I searched for garden equipment on the Internet (as a potential buyer). I first entered arbitrary queries into the search bar: garden equipment; everything for the garden, etc. (search engines Yandex, Rambler, Google were used). After which, in the search bar, I entered one by one the names of the equipment group, exactly repeating what is indicated on your company’s website: Walk-behind tractors and cultivators, lawn mowers, snow blowers, etc.

Result. None of the requests in search engines did not lead to the display of information about your company (I checked the tabs, based on relevance, with a depth of up to 8 pages, which corresponds to 96 links). The most frequently repeated companies with the same requests that have a business similar to yours are ckoba.ru; tiller.ru; sodovody.ru; agrotrading.ru

The facts I have indicated, along with what I heard from you personally during a telephone conversation, indicate the following:

A. The company has a very low ratio of professional salespeople;
B. The company's products are practically not represented on the market for new buyers;

Conclusion: The company does not have, or is poorly represented by direct participants, a sales policy along with strategic plans for the development of the company as a whole. It seems to me that sales are carried out in a sluggish mode - equipment is sold to the same old clients time after time, while the influx of new clients is not carried out according to plan, but from time to time. Also, not enough attention is paid to new potential buyers both through the online store and personal sales. However, this is not only a problem for your company.

Similar problems are inherent in 80% of trading companies.

Based on the information that I received from you and your sales representatives, based on my own experience, I will try to formulate the essence of the problem: despite the fact that the company, in principle, has a product that is being sold (this is indirectly evidenced by the experience of seemingly successful sales in the past), Some managers cannot reach normal sales figures. Which may well consist of the following points:

1. problem with the personal qualities of sellers. Why not? If we assume that 20% of sales managers account for 80% of the turnover, will halving the size of the department have such a significant impact on sales, at least during the search and selection of new employees to replace outsiders? * I don’t suggest replacing employees immediately (because I think we need to raise our own, and not look for “miracle workers” on the side, especially since they are usually not there), but also to “complex” before a possible “surgical” solution to the issue, if so The choice of employees turned out to be completely unsuccessful, but it’s still not worth it (you need to have this “fire option” in reserve).

2. problem with motivation. If the motivation offered is only what you said (salary + deductions from sales, albeit progressive), then the problem is not solved even to a first approximation, and it is too early to dismiss it. If we assume that the most successful managers, from the management’s point of view (and based on their bonuses), simply “skim the cream” from the largest clients who went to them by right of primacy and then became established among the loyal ones, then it is easy to understand the rest - they simply “ there is nothing to catch,” the market is not unlimited, and there are not enough VIPs for everyone, hence the despondency of outsiders. * I do not rule out a situation where the “old guys” make even fewer calls per day than the “outsiders” - I wonder if this has been checked? But since I don’t have such data, this remains just a guess.

3. Lack of professional skills is certainly present. * Everyone probably dreams of having a sales department made up entirely of “stars” who can sell anyone their own liver, and repeatedly. In reality, sales managers often become random people; professional sales people are not trained in our universities, and a system for improving the company’s professional skills is unlikely to do any harm. To summarize the question about the reasons, at the risk of repeating myself, I would say this: the company does not have the main thing that determines the success of sales - there is no TECHNOLOGY that would be formulated, perhaps formalized, would have points of control and linkage to the employee motivation system.

* Nowadays it seems that managers are divided into two groups:

1) wizards (“I don’t know how, but I can do it!!!”);
2) “not wizards” (I don’t know why - but I can’t do a damn thing!!!).

It is necessary to make sure that the reasons for the success of some and the failure of others are clear and documented.
Solution:
1. Comprehensive analysis of the situation
2. creation of a full-fledged sales technology in the company.

* Availability of technology would allow:
A. management should not depend as much as it does now on the personal abilities of employees (I can imagine how terrified the director must wake up at night if he suddenly had a nightmare that one of the “old guys” who makes a good half of sales , was about to move on to competitors).
B. indicate to beginners (and not only): what needs to be done, how, and why exactly.
B. build a motivation system more effectively
D. monitor the state of affairs in the sales department at any time using “control points”
D. be fully prepared for the rapid changes inevitable in the market.

The main points that, in my opinion, it makes sense for management to pay attention to:
A. Head of the sales department. Does he exist? If not, is the director himself ready to perform his functions, and will this be the right decision? If so, what are his responsibilities? Does he enjoy authority among his subordinates, does he share the views of the company’s management on tactics and development strategy? Does he gather employees in the mornings in order to inspire them to achieve accomplishments and outline the scope of work, and on Fridays to “sort things out” and sum up the results? What does he even do?
* It’s better, of course, that there is one. Because ideally he should become the main “engine” of sales technology, a conductor of management’s ideas to the masses, a supervisor and training manager rolled into one.
B. Customer base. Do the sales department and company management have any idea who their customers are (potential and current)? Are they known by name and systematized in the form of a database? Are their capabilities, preferences, solvency, compatibility of their technologies with the Company’s products known, and the activity of their competitors?
* Or do sales occur on a random basis using alphabetical calls from a telephone directory? Is our customer base growing, or are we selling mainly to old customers? Whose base is growing faster - the old-timers or the outsiders? The company website is also important. It must be oriented in such a way that when you enter this or that technology into search engines, a link to your company appears in the first lines (in currently this doesn't happen at all). It may be important to divide all types of goods offered into subgroups and assign a specific manager to them. In addition, it is necessary to assign certain sales territories to managers, which carry approximately equal opportunities for each of the salespeople in terms of sales implementation.
B. Corporate Bible If my worst assumptions that the “old guys” are resting on their laurels and cutting coupons from the “sweet” clients they once captured are not justified, and they are actually energetic and experienced guys, then there is something for them interesting job. Perhaps it makes sense to get together and think about how you can put on paper in paragraphs 1-2-3... their way of selling your product. Summarize the main mistakes, the “rake” that the “old people” have already stepped on, ways to overcome objections, the main thing, what, in their opinion, should and should not be done in the sales process. (Feel free to steal the basis for this manuscript from one of the sales classics - they are not going to make money from publishing it).
* Dilute dry text real examples when a client was able to “put the finishing touches” in a difficult situation - this will greatly help “newbies” bridge the gap between theory and practice when reading. Constantly adding to this text together, rewriting and improving it, it will slowly become clear what they actually do and what you really need to do with your clients.
D. Motivation system. Surely, if you finally decide on point “B”, you will find some points in the organization of the work of the sales department that, when put on paper and discussed collectively, will seem unreasonable to you. Some have already been mentioned, others have not, but the beginning of the list might look something like this:
1. It is not profitable for successful managers to look for new clients - there will be no time left to “squeeze the juice” out of old ones. Yes, this requires significantly more effort, and the material benefits are doubtful;
2. outsiders will never be able to keep up with the salaries of the “old guys” - “the region is not the richest, all the big clients have already been taken over - where to go? The salary is enough"
3. corollary from point 2: if you make 50 calls per day or 5, this is unlikely to significantly affect your salary. Then isn't it easier to do 5?
4. Is it beneficial for leaders to have others follow them? Hardly. On the contrary, you feel much safer this way. And so on... In the same spirit. In my opinion, the “salary + sales deductions” bonus system does not stimulate growth for either “leaders” or “outsiders.” In this system it is necessary to “sew up” everything that is interesting to the company itself (growth of market share, maximum coverage of the client base, its development, systematic work with already known clients, information about the activities of competitors...). Based on these points, build two interrelated things: a “formula” for calculating managers’ salaries and “control points” for their activities. Naturally, each of them will have to be subordinated to planning, but this fully meets our objectives in building a sales technology. The formula for calculating salaries in the sales department is a very subtle matter; direct advice is impossible here, but you can imagine its basis something like this. Z (salary) = O (salary) + b (bonus).
* Salary - can be made the same, or different, depending on vocational training and the employee’s experience, his value to the company. First, you can evaluate them subjectively. As ideas about what is good and what is bad accumulate, you can arrange certification and assign categories based on its results. Sales people will have the opportunity to make a career without changing positions in staffing table- and this in itself is a powerful motivating factor. By the way, it is convenient to calculate some parts of the bonus from the salary; then the bonus part will also increase in proportion to the category, which fully meets our objectives. Bonus = p1 + p2 + k + m Where: P1 - deduction from repeat sales (to existing customers). It is better to make this part not “direct”, but tied to the implementation of an individual plan for sales volume (fulfilled - received, not fulfilled - did not receive, or received in a progressively decreasing amount as you move away from the planned figure) P2 - deductions from primary sales (sales new clients). Everything said about P1 equally applies to P2.
* It makes sense to separate these two indicators from “gross sales” in order to leave yourself leverage to stimulate both leaders and outsiders. I assume that it will not be so easy for both of them to carry out both plans - after all, they will be individual, and for the leaders they will be significantly higher. At the same time, even the laggard will want to do them, because they will be achievable. K - fulfillment of the plan for the number of contacts with clients per day. Fix this number in the “corporate bible” (say, 15 clients with whom the contact was remote - telephone, ICQ ... - and 3 personal visits), control it using a simple report form - date, client, short comment on the results, future plans. These reports can become the basis for generating complete information about the customer base. Fulfilling the weekly and then monthly quota for “contacts” is the basis for accruing this part of the bonus.
* You can separately plan contacts with new and existing clients to ensure the development of your client base. At the discretion of management. M - collection marketing information. All information obtained about the market in the process of communication with clients can and should be evaluated. Its value is subjective; the size of this part of the bonus is determined by management. For the assessment, a monthly (or more often) employee report with the code name “According to Intelligence Data” is used, in which the manager shares everything that he has “dug up” during the period - the framework is set based on current priorities. You can enter other parameters, but it is advisable not to overload the formula. Each employee must clearly understand how he can earn more with its help. And the answer will not always be “sell more,” or rather, it will not be the only answer. And the last thing about salary. The department's "bonus fund", which is shared among employees, can be strictly tied to the department's performance general plan sales This is one of the options in which the “leaders” will be directly interested in the success of the entire team and “pulling up” those lagging behind. Perhaps this system is not perfect, but I proposed it as a real tool as an intermediate link. E. Training system When it becomes clear what goals the sales department faces, how to achieve them and how to encourage achievement, when the planning and reporting system starts working, when all this is reflected in the “corporate bible” and reaches the consciousness of all employees - “outsiders” either they will leave on their own, not agreeing with the increased requirements for their activities, or they will feel a “taste for life” and want to grow in order to turn into a salary the opportunities that our “salary formula” provides. Then the natural question they will ask is: “What am I doing wrong?” There is only one way to find out - put the manager in combat-like conditions and see what happens.
Here the options may be different.

P.S. In fact, this is just one of the options for describing possible problem in your company. For a clear understanding and characterization of the real problem, and even more so, a way out of the current situation, it is necessary to have systematic approach and everyone's ratings business processes from within the company, based on real facts, and not on guesswork (as in my case).
In fact, there may be several ways to stabilize and increase sales, and everything depends solely on the real situation within the company.

Best regards, Shuvalov A.