How To Improve Your Results by “Getting in the Game”

Many companies in our industry are doing things the old fashioned way. Their common practice is to review monthly reports of sales summarized by geography and or product, then react by applying pressure to “do better” down the chain of command. At best, they get the same old results. At worst, they get run over by the more progressive and nimble competitors. We see the same thing happening with both small and large companies who use this old fashioned approach.

Part of the problem with this technique is that reviewing summarized sales results after the fact isn’t telling the whole story. It’s far too “topline”. If the only tools you have to manage your business are ones that report summary sales information after the fact, then you are missing the boat. You are not in the game. To be in the game, you need a company-wide functional and mobile CRM tool that enables your team to Plan, Execute AND Measure, not just measure. This is what you need to get in the game. Allow me to illustrate this better using a football analogy.

A coach holds practices consisting of the same basic drills everyone does. They do these drills over and over the same way everyday, trying to get better. Then its game time, and the coach doesn’t go to the game! He simply looks at the results afterwards and examines the score (did we win or lose?), the rushing yards for and against, the passing yards for and against, and the number of interceptions for both sides. He walks away knowing how they did. Unfortunately he has no idea how they played. For example, he may know they rushed for lots of yards, even more than the other team, and more than usual. But he doesn’t know WHY they rushed the ball so well. He doesn’t know that they ran the ball terribly up the middle, and all of their yards came from sweeps to the right side.

To put this in terms of beverage alcohol sales, he knows they sold lots of cases in the on-premise, but he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know that accounts with drink menus featuring their brand in a fruity tall drink did 5 times more cases than accounts that featured the brand in a martini. He doesn’t know that the sampling events they are running in nightclubs are not delivering the expect volume while the events they are doing in casual bars are bringing in lots of incremental volume.

The smart coach watched the game, and made note of HOW they played and WHY they succeeded or didn’t. He structured the next weeks practice to focus on the things that will bring them more success in the future. They worked on perfecting the sweep to the right, and practiced running the same play to the left. They completely changed the running plays up the middle and all but cut them out of the game plan for next week.

Perhaps armchair coaching a football game is easier than running your business, but it doesn’t have to be. Use GreatVines and change the way you play the game.