Sales fell this year.
Was that a bad year?
Not always. In markets I have worked in, I have seen teams do some of their best work in years when the sales line went down.
Because the market went down faster.
Growth on its own tells you where you went. It does not tell you how you did against everyone else in the same conditions. Share does.
The reverse is just as true. A brand can grow nicely in a market that is growing faster, and quietly lose ground every month.
So in my teams we read four things together:
- Market growth. Is the tide with us or against us?
- Our growth, on sell-out, not on what we shipped.
- Our share, over several months, not one.
- Our growth compared with the market's growth.
The hardest part is not the reading. It is agreeing with headquarters, before the year starts, which of these counts. When that is left open, a team that won ground in a shrinking market gets judged on the sales line alone. That is unfair, and good people notice.
“Growth shows the tide. Share shows how well you swam.”
Lesson 15 of 17 in Step 3: Money, pricing and forecast, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.