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When Is It Time To Change How Your Manage Your Field Marketers?
Kyle DorflingApr 9, 2015 6:45:00 PM4 min read

When Is It Time To Change How Your Manage Your Field Marketers?

Managing a retail mobile workforce isn’t easy. As a team leader, you need to not only motivate them to perform and exceed their sales goals, but give them the space and time to do focus on their work, and show enough trust in them to do their work. However, all these tasks become exponentially more difficult as your team grows.

 

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In fact, some tasks can become practically impossible.

Instead of having decent control over your team, you’re now juggling them ineffectively, which means you can make mistakes.

Here are 6 signs that show you that you’re working too hard and need to change the way you manage your field marketers, merchandisers and reps.

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          1. You can’t prove that your teams were physically at a store on time

As your team grows, it’s important to understand that you can’t be everywhere at once. That also means that you can’t prove if your team was physically at a store or even on time.

It is no doubt a frustrating thought. If you’re currently in charge of a team, you’ve also likely lost sleep over this exact problem as your team has grown.

However, let’s look at this from a different angle. Treat it as a positive: your team is growing, which means you’re doing something right. Now it’s up to you to change the way you manage your team.

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          2. You can’t measure planogram and store compliance

Your product may be the best in terms of both quality and price. Even your competitors might admit that if they were truthful. However, that doesn't mean a thing if it's not on the shelf and available for purchase.

That obviously means that the public won’t be able to buy your product, which can lead to two situations, both of which are unfortunately negative for the retailer.

Firstly, their customers will lose faith in their store having the product or products they want, which means they’ll stop coming. Secondly, they’ll start losing money, and their competition will ultimately beat them. Also, you'll lose money.

Likewise, if you’re a supplier who wants to maximise in-store sales, you need to be able to measure store compliance at all times. If you are unable to measure store compliance, how will you know if your brand is being handled fairly?

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          3. You can’t visually see your brand representation in real time

Even if you can measure store compliance as well as check in on your brands at store level now and then, it’s often too late.

Instead of checking in once or twice a day, your field and trade marketers need to be able to see your brands at store level as they are audited in real time. Anything other than real time will put you at a disadvantage.

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          4. Your team is using Dropbox, WhatsApp or other generic software

As much as software such as Dropbox or WhatsApp are amazing tools for image storage and sharing and communication respectively, that doesn’t mean that you should be using them to manage your field marketers, merchandisers and reps.

These type of programs are simply not built for this particular task. Not only do they not make use of standards or comply to specific criteria when doing store audits but they also can’t make stock suggestions. You can also end up wasting your time trying to draw any meaningful conclusions from store photographs taken, reports compiled or any store data that is wrongly formatted.

It’s best to rather have a single solution to fit all of your needs.

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          5. You’re compiling reports manually

Nobody enjoys doing anything manually if they know they have the opportunity to do it automatically.

The same can be said for compiling reports. Done manually, you’re taking up precious time that you could use to focus on other important aspects of your work. But it’s more than that. Manually compiling a report can also lead to inaccuracies, which is one of the last things you want if you’re rushed for time or can’t afford mistakes.  

In automating this process, you’ll become that much more productive, which can ease any frustration or pressure on your part.

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          6. You are unable to measure field marketing, merchandising and sales rep trends

In knowing of any trends that are either ongoing, have already occurred, or are about the take place puts you at a significant advantage.

Not only does it give you the ability to see what is working and what isn’t, but it will also allow you to plan for the future. You may even have the opportunity to predict what will work.

On the other hand, not being able to measure these trends (or even see them) will put you at an extreme disadvantage as your field marketers, merchandisers and sales reps won’t be able to function as efficiently as possible.

Conclusion

There is no shame in admitting that you’re struggling to manage your growing team and need to change the way you work. Acknowledging such a fact is the first step towards getting yourself back on the right path so that you can be as effective as possible.

*Editor’s Note: This blog article was updated on 7 June 2017 for accuracy.

Do you manage a retail field marketing team? We’ve designed mobile software just for you. Phone us on +27 21 852 2046 or email info@dotactiv.com to book a free consultation.

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Kyle Dorfling

Kyle joined DotActiv in 2009. He gained experience across multiple facets of the business before his appointment as Acting CEO in 2021.

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