Improve the sales and marketing in a food and drink business

This standard is about the skills and knowledge needed for you to improve sales and marketing in a food and drink business. Improving sales and marketing is key to the current and future success of a food and drink business. It is important to plan sales and marketing improvements and to ensure products or services are known about and purchased. Focused sales and marketing is essential in the highly competitive food and drink industry. You will need the skills and knowledge to plan, source and implement sales and marketing plans, ensure timescales, costings and resources are adhered to and objectives and targets are met. You will also need the skills and knowledge to monitor sales and marketing plans and evaluate the final effect of sales or marketing improvement plans to the success of the food and drink business. This standard is for you if you work in food and drink manufacture and/or supply operations and are involved in improving sales and marketing in a food and drink business.

Plan sales and marketing improvements

1. collate and evaluate information including sales figures, sales and

   marketing trends relating to your food and drink products or

   related services

2. review the information and ensure conclusions support the

   strategy, objectives and development plans of the business

3. prepare a detailed sales and marketing budget

4. produce sales and marketing plans in accordance with

   organisational requirements

   Evaluate plans

5. determine the actions required to fulfil the objectives or targets

   detailed in the sales and marketing plan

6. evaluate sales and marketing performance against targets

7. identify problem areas and areas for improvement

   Improve sales and marketing

8. communicate to relevant people achievement against sales and

   marketing objectives and/or targets

9. implement improvement plans

10. adhere to organisational requirements when addressing

    improvements

11. highlight and communicate to relevant people problems in

    meeting objectives or targets, and take action to deal with them

12. check use of resources and time against the sales and marketing

    plans and address any problems

13. identify and encourage colleagues to identify threats and suggest

    improvements to the sales and marketing plans

14. communicate changes to the sales and marketing plans to

    relevant people

15. evaluate the success of the sales and marketing improvement

    plans and communicate to relevant people

1. the sources of sales and marketing information available for your

   and competitors' businesses and how to access them

   2. how to collate and evaluate sales and marketing related

   information

   3. why it is important to collate information on your competitors'

   products, services, marketing and sales strategies and how to do

   this

   4. how to identify current and future gaps in the market and

   opportunities for development of your products or services and

   why it is important to do this

   5. why it is important to determine the customers for your products

   or services and how to do this

   6. how to determine your sales and marketing objectives ensuring

   the plan is consistent with the strategy, policy and objectives of

   the food business

   7. why it is important to evaluate the success of previous sales and

   marketing campaigns and how to do this

   8. the key points to be included in a sales or marketing plan

   including objectives, time frames, costing and other relevant

   information

   9. the organisational procedures for sourcing and implementing

   business plans

   10. how to breakdown the sales and marketing plans into measurable

   objectives and targets

   11. why it is important to adhere to timeframes, resources and costing

   and how to do this

   12. the organisational methods of communication and information

   technology and how to make best use of them

   13. how to communicate the detailed objectives, targets and

   timeframes of the sales and marketing plans and why it is

   important to do so

   14. the challenges experienced when implementing sales and

   marketing improvement plans and how to overcome them

   15. how to monitor the progress of sales and marketing against

   improvement plans and why it is important to do so

   16. the organisational procedures for providing feedback to

   colleagues

   17. how to monitor adherence to sales and marketing improvement

   plans

   18. what the organisational standards are for addressing problems

   and how to adhere to them

   19. why it is important to identify threats, opportunities and suggest

   improvements to the sales and marketing plans

   20. why it is important to evaluate the success of sales and marketing

   improvement plans and how to do this