How to Sell Trees Faster and Stop Losing Sales

Which of the two failures is happening?

Walk one customer cycle with your eyes on the shelf, not the counter:

• The customer reaches an empty slot → this is a supply failure. More selling speed will not help; there is nothing to sell.
• The customer waits while you are restocking or serving someone else → this is a throughput failure. More stock will not help; it will just sit there.

Almost everyone assumes the second and buys throughput when the first is true. Watching a single cycle costs a minute and saves the purchase.

Fixing a supply failure

Supply failures are cheap to fix and easy to diagnose:

1. Order before the shelf empties, not after. Restocking after the gap means the gap already cost you a customer.
2. Keep the mix that actually moves — the tree prices page explains how to test which tree turns over.
3. If cash is the reason the shelf is empty, you are in a cash problem, not a selling problem: read how to earn cash.

Fixing a throughput failure

Throughput failures are about who covers each job:

Hire one at a time and measure. Two hires at once hide which role was the actual bottleneck, and you never learn which one to repeat. The worker costs guide has the measurement method and the payback test.

Does selling faster mean selling more?

Only up to your traffic. Once you can serve every customer who arrives, further speed changes nothing — the new limit is how many customers come, which is the subject of getting more customers. Recognising that ceiling is what stops you from over-hiring.

The practical order is therefore: fill shelves → cover the bottleneck → expand when both are saturated. That is the same order as the upgrade guide, seen from the counter instead of the cash balance.

A one-minute self-check

Before your next purchase, answer these three:

1. Can a customer right now find a tree on the shelf? If no → supply.
2. If they can, can you serve every customer who arrives without a queue? If no → throughput.
3. If both are yes, is the lot physically full? If yes → capacity.

Whichever answer is “no” first is the only purchase worth making.

Related

• How to earn cash — where the money goes after the sale.
• Customers — how demand grows.
• Worker costs — hiring math.
• How to play — the full loop these decisions sit in.