ADAPTIVE SELLING FOR RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

STANDARD MEMORIZED PRESENTATION

OUTLINED PRESENTATIONCUSTOMIZED PRESENTATION

Also called a canned presentation, is a completely memorized sales talk.

• Is a prearranged presentation that usually includes a standard introduction, standard answers to common objections raised by customers, and a standard method for getting the customer to place an order.

• Is a written and/or oral presentation based on a detailed analysis of the customers needs.

Salespeople practice adaptive selling when they react to different sales situations by changing their sales behaviours.

The customized presentation illustrates adaptive selling because the presentation is tailored to the specific needs of the customer.

Selecting the appropriate sales strategy for a sales situation and making adjustments during the interaction are crucial to successful selling.

Knowledge enables the salesperson to build self confidence, gain the buyer’s trust, satisfy customer’s needs, and practice adaptive selling. PRODUCT AND COMPANY

KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT

SALES SITUATIONS AND CUSTOMERS

HOW TO CREATE KNOWLEDGE

RETRIEVING KNOWLEDGE FROM THE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Effective salespeople need to know how

products are made, what services are provided with the products, how the products relate to other products, and how the products can satisfy customers’ needs.

Equally important with product and company knowledge is detailed information about the different types of sales situations and customers salespeople may encounter.

1. One source of knowledge would be top salespeople in the company you work for. Some firms will collect and share this information with you.

2. Salespeople also create knowledge by getting feedback from sales managers. Diagnostic feedback provides information about what you’re doing right and wrong, instead of just whether you made a sale.

3. Other sources of knowledge include the Web, company sales manuals and newsletters, sales meetings, plant visits, and business and trade publications.

Salespeople store much of their acquired knowledge in their memory, and as such, retrieval is merely accessing information in that memory.

A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR BUILDING ADAPTIVE SELLING SKILLS

Is a popular training program that companies use to help salespeople adapt their communication styles

ASSERTIVENESS The degree to which people have opinions

about issues and publicly make their positions clear to others. Assertive people speak out, make strong statements and have a take-charge attitude.

RESPONSIVENESS Based on how emotional people tend to get

in social in situations. Responsive people readily express joy, anger, and sorrow.

DRIVERSEXPRESSIVEAMIABLESANALYTICALS

High on assertiveness and low on responsiveness.

Drivers have learned to work with others only because they must do so to get the job done, not because they enjoy people

High on assertiveness and high on responsiveness. Warm, approachable, intuitive and competitive, expressive view power and politics as important factors in their quest for personal rewards and recognition.

Are low on assertiveness and high on responsiveness. Close relationships and cooperation are important to amiables.

Low on assertiveness and low on responsiveness. They like facts, principles and logic.

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SUGGESTIONS FOR MAKING MORE ACCURATE ASSESSMENTS Concentrate on the customer’s behaviour and

disregard how you feel about the behaviour. Don't let your feelings about the customer or thoughts about the customer’s motives cloud your judgement.

Avoid assuming that specific jobs or functions are associated with a social style.

Test your assessments. Look for clues and information that may suggest you may have incorrectly assessed a customer’s social style.

The effort people make to increase the productivity of relationship by adjusting to the needs of the other party.

Here is a comparison of behaviours of more and less versatile people.

Less Versatile More Versatile

Limited ability to adopt to others’ needs

Able to adopt to others’ needs

Specialists Generalists

Well-defined interests

Broad interests

Sticks to principles

Negotiable issues

Predictable Unpredictable

Looks at one side of an issue

Looks at many sides of an issue

The social style matrix developed by Merrill and Reid is one of several sales training methods based o customer classification schemes.

An expert system is a computer program that mimics a human expert. The program contains the knowledge, rules, and decision, processes employed by experts and then uses these elements to solve problems, suggest strategies, and provide advice similar to that of an expert.

Training methods such as the social style matrix and expert systems are simply a first step in developing knowledge for practicing adaptive selling

Adaptive selling uses one of the unique properties of personal selling as a marketing communication tool. Extensive knowledge of customer and sales situation types is a key ingredient in effective adaptive selling

To be effective, salespeople need considerable knowledge about everything concerned with their product. Experienced salespeople organize customer knowledge into categories.

The social style matrix illustrates the concept of developing categorical knowledge to facilitate adaptive selling.

The social style matrix is one example of categorical scheme salespeople can use to improve their knowledge and adaptability.