"We are behind target."
It is the most common sentence in a sales review, and on its own it tells you almost nothing.
A missed target is a symptom. Before anyone decides what to do, I want one page that shows where the gap actually sits. And I read it with the rep, not about the rep.
Four things go on that page.
Sell-out against target. What actually reached pharmacies and hospitals, by product. That is how big the gap is.
Where the gap sits. Usually a few areas and accounts explain most of it. That is where next month's effort goes.
Sell-in and distributor stock. Read beside sell-out, never instead of it. Is stock building up at the distributor, or running short on the shelves?
The activity behind it. Were the key doctors seen, and how often, against the plan?
Sell-in, sell-out and distributor stock are three different numbers. Mixing them up is how teams convince themselves a month was fine when it was not.
And the shortcut I never take: closing the gap by loading the distributor. The gap does not disappear. It comes back next month, bigger.
“Do not argue about the total. Find where the gap sits.”
Lesson 5 of 13 in Step 2: Targets, forecasts and numbers, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.