Making The Sales Call - Inventory Management (1.5 Rule)

During the Sales Call ( Visit to the Customer ), theevery SKU individually, it is important to take many
most important task of the Salesman is to Generatethings separately: sales history, trends and
Order. Here we put stress on word "Generate"expectations, seasonality, strength of the brand, safety
instead of "Take" order. To take is passive way bystock, etc.
definition of the word. This means that in this caseThe Inventory Management model of "Rule 1.5" offers
Salesman mostly just pick the order given andyou a good balancing of Order Generation, taking into
prepared by the outlet owner. To generate is anaccount History, Trend and Safety Stock. The Formula
active process where the Salesman leads thefor the Rule 1.5 is:
process. He assess the needs, propose order quantity,ORDER = WEEKLY SALES x 1.5 - STOCK
create back-up Profit Story that will support him withExplanation: Order is created on the base of the last
his proposal, overcome objections and conclude theweek sales, but is increased by 50% for case that
sales.sales increase, than is reduced by the current stock.
In order to really master this process, the SalesmanThis is in accordance with the policy of keeping of
must be equipped with specific tools and sets ofSafety Stock. In case that sales increase in the next
knowledge. One of the most important thing is the skillperiod, the stock is safe until the next sales visit. If the
and knowledge of Inventory Management in the outlet.opposite happens, meaning that the sales in the next
By default you may think that this is the job of theweek is lower than in previous, there is no fear of
outlet owner, since he orders, he pays product, store it,overstocking, since the formula will balance the next
sell it further etc. The truth is that outlet owner isorder (reduce it).
managing too many things at same time: outletThe orders are increasing while the sell-out goes up,
premises (rent, utilities, maintenance ), staffbut also decreases in the period when the sell-out is
(employment, training, supervision), legal obligationsdeclining. This makes this mechanism of Inventory
(accounting books, taxes ) and on top of all this heManagement very useful for both, the Supplier and
have many product categories, among whom yourCustomer, since it secures fluent supply of products,
portfolio is one out of many.avoid OOS, balance capital invested, decrease
From this it is clear that the outlet owner can never beobsolete stocks, increase consumer's shopping
more focused and trained than your properly trainedexperience and maximize profit.
Salesman. During the process of Order Generation, for