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Sort your sales for the month by the state where it was legally sold (location of delivery).  In which states are your sales concentrated?  Do they line up with your branch offices or are you missing potential sales because you are not where sales are generated?  Ask yourself if owning brick and mortar buildings are really necessary in your industry or not.  Can you rent?  Can you sublet part of the store (i.e. kiosk?)

Questions for sales by state (or territory):

1. Which are the top states for sales dollars?  List out your sales by state, highest to lowest.
2. Within those top states, who are the largest customers?  If there is a very large concentration of just a few customers – analyze how the next tier can be expanded?  Fewer customers means ultimately this market can change quickly with one customer dropping out.  A large state with only one customer needs expansion.
3. Do you have enough sales representatives in the area from where sales are coming?  Is there a gap here in your sales coverage plan?  Do you need to reassign zip codes, concentrations of specific potential customers?  Are the sales report lists about the same size?
4. Do you have sales representatives in the areas where you want to grow?  This assumes you have studied the regions where you lack sales and know who and where the potential market lies.
5. You know where your sales are coming from by state.  Do you know the map of your customer base?  Do the actual sales line up with your market map?  Where are sales dollars concentrated.
6. For the representatives assigned to these states, what are the state sales per representative?  Which is highest?  Which is lowest?  Why are sales averages different between states?  Who is not as efficient?  What leads to more efficiency for sales representatives in your industry?  Measure the gross profit earned by the sales representatives.  Find out who is generating the highest net profits and who is generating the lowest number.  Line your incentive program up along these criteria.  Reward increases in profitability.   Make sure to interview the sales rep with the highest return because he is doing something right.
7. If it is feasible, have you studied the sales regions, identified potential customers, estimated potential sales dollars and assigned those missing customers to live sales representatives?

 

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