Page 31 - DMGT205_SALES_MANAGEMENT

Unit 2: Personal Selling

The acid test of the appropriateness of the personal selling strategy comes when particular sales Notes
people interact with particular customers. Management makes its first key decision on personal
selling strategy when it determines the kind of sales person needed. It makes its second key
decision when it determines the size of the company sales force. But after these decisions are
implemented-after the desired number of the desired kind of sales personnel have been recruited,
trained and assigned to the field - each sales person must individualise his own dealings with
each customer.
Regardless of the fact that the sales person is an order getter or order taker and regardless of the
basic selling style, the extent of the sales person's success depends on the outcome of interactions
with the customers. Each time a particular sales person comes into contact with a customer, he
says certain things, does certain things and behaves and reacts in certain ways to what the
customer says and does. All this generally does vary from one sales call to the next.
The nature of variation in the sales person's approach to each customer is a matter of selling
skill. This skill is a function of both how good the sales person's pre-planning of each sales call
has been and performance on the call itself. In doing the pre-planning, the skilled sales person
analyses a great deal of information about the customer and the nature of the business. What are
the customer's key objectives and problems? Who in the customer's organisation makes and
influences buying decisions and what are their aspirations, needs, motives, fears, anxieties,
drives and the like?
After these and similar items of information, the skilled sales person sets definite goals to
accomplish on each call. Next he plots the selling strategy to use on each successive call in an
effort to achieve these definite goals, i.e. what the sales person plans to do and when. Then the
sales person makes the scheduled sales calls. If all goes according to the plan, the sales person
achieves the goals set for each call, and thus he contributes to the achievement of the company's
overall personal selling objectives.

2.7 New Approaches in Selling

Changes are taking place rapidly in selling and sales management. In order to bring down the
cost of personal selling, companies are tying to tele marketing and other direct selling methods.
Buyers are becoming more sophisticated, knowledgeable and demanding. They want to deal
with those people who have product knowledge and experience.
The intermediaries want help in determining inventory levels' preparing trade advertising and
planning, displays and layouts. Customers want presentations based on facts, products and
services that help them to solve their problem.
The Sales person just doing the talking and smiling is out of date. Therefore, the emphasis is
on developmental roles, team selling, selling through computer and Market Information
System (MIS) as well as on tele marketing. Today the demand is for those sales persons who
are qualified, trained, capable to sell and can make long term problem solving relationship
with the prospects. It requires the recognition of their service and rewarding them adequately
for their efforts.

Team Selling

It is done for large customers and in multinational firms because the intricacies involved in
selling are so extensive that no individual sales person can satisfy them. To serve these customers
known as national a/c or key accounts, companies train a team of service personnel, each of
them has special experience and skills needed for specific account. The team is coordinated and

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 25