Personal Selling

Chapter 20

Personal Selling and Sales Management• Personal Selling: the two-way flow of

communication between a buyer and a seller, often in a face-to-face encounter, designed to influence a purchase decision.

• Sales Management: planning the selling program and implementing and controlling the personal selling effort of the firm.

The Roles of Personal Selling

1. Salespeople serve as the link between the firm and its customers.

2. Salespeople ARE the company in the eyes of the customer.

3. Personal selling may play a vital role in a firm’s marketing program.

Relationship and Partnership Selling• Relationship Selling: building ties to

customers based on a salesperson’s attention and commitment to customer needs over time—The Long-Term.

• Partnership Selling (Enterprise Selling): buyers and sellers combine their experience and resources to create customized solutions.

Forms of Personal Selling

1. Order Taking

2. Order Getting

3. Sales Support

Order Taking

• Outside Order Takers: replenish inventory stocks of resellers

• Inside Order Takers (order clerks): answer simple questions, take orders, and complete transactions– Inbound Telemarketing

Order Getting

• Identifies prospective customers, provides customers with information, persuades customers to buy, closes sales, and follows up on customers’ use of a product or service.

Sales Support

• Missionary Salesperson: promote the firm and stimulate demand, but don’t actually take orders.

• Sales Engineer: specializes in identifying, analyzing, and solving customer problems.

• Team Selling: a team may consist of a salesperson, a technical specialist, a sales engineer, or financial executive who would each deal with a counterpart in the customer’s firm.

The Sales Process

Prospecting and Qualifying

Preapproach

Approach

Sales Presentation

Handling Objections

Close

Follow-Up

Prospecting and Qualifying

• The search for and qualification of potential customers. – Lead: the name of a person who may be a possible

customer. – Prospect: a customer who wants or needs a

product.

– Qualified Prospect: an individual who wants the product, can afford it, and is the decision maker.

• Cold Canvassing: calling or visiting people or businesses at random.

Preapproach

• Obtaining further information on the prospect and deciding on the best method of approach.

Approach

• The initial meeting between the salesperson and prospect. – Gain the prospects attention– Learn about the prospect’s needs (Needs

Analysis)– Stimulate interest– Build foundation for the presentation

Presentation

• The objective is to convert a prospect into a customer by creating desire for the product or service. – Stimulus-Response Presentation: assumes that

given a proper stimulus, a consumer will buy. – Formula Selling Format: assumes that a

presentation consists of information that must be provided in a step-by-step manner.

– Need-Satisfaction Format: emphasizes probing and listening by a salesperson to identify needs and interests of a buyer.

Handling Objections

• Excuses for not making a purchase commitment or decision.

1. Acknowledge and convert the objection

2. Postpone

3. Agree and neutralize

4. Accept the objection

5. Denial

6. Ignore the objection

Close

• Involves obtaining a purchase commitment from the prospect. – Buying Signals

• Body language• Statements• Questions

– Closing Techniques• Trial close• Assumptive close• Urgency close

Follow-Up

• Making sure the customer’s purchase has been properly delivered and installed and difficulties experienced with the use of the product are addressed.