A newsagent recently had a crack at a supplier about poor performance, saying the supplier was letting them down.
Looking at the sales data, I saw that the products from this supplier are down 5% year on year but the overall transaction count for the business are down 11%. This tells me the supplier is performing above average.
I can’t stress enough the importance of using data to support any claim made about your business, especially when dealing with the supplier.
I was asked to look at the data as the supplier was experiencing good growth in other locations nearby. They wanted to know if the problem in the newsagency in question was their issue or a business-wide issue.
My review of the data indicated a business-wide issue. At first, the newsagent would not accept this. It took a confronting discussion looking at data on their computer system for them to accept that their view was not matched by the evidence.
This was not about winning an argument. Rather, it was about guiding the newsagent to make business decisions based on facts rather than half facts.