Personal Selling and the Sales Force Personal selling is the personal communication between the sales force and customers for the purpose of making sales and creating business relationships. Mass marketing and sales promotions lead the seller to the buyer. Personal contact leads to personal sales. Personal sales calls tell the customer more about the product and addresses customer concerns personally. This process also builds long term relationships with decision-makers and develops strategic planning. A salesperson must be enthusiastic, persistent, confident, independent, motivated, good listener, who is honest above all. Sales people are usually required to take aptitude tests regarding their personality, analytical, and organizational skills.
The sales force is usually compensated with straight salary and commission. Personal sales by order getters establishes new relationships with customers, while order takers sell to regular customers, make the most sales, and maintain relationships with customers. Sales people spend 30% of their time making sales, 20% traveling, 21% on the phone, 17% of time in administrative tasks, and 12% of their time on service calls. Personal selling begins with prospecting and qualifying leads in the pre-approach phase, approach, presentation and demo, handling objects, closing, and follow up. Four basic ways to divide a sales force are: a territorial sales force structure; product sales force structure, a salesman sell only part of the product line; customer sales force structure, group accounts by level of effort or knowledge required; work load and telemarketing sales force structure:, determine the total workload, estimate the load per salesman, and the number of sales people needed. Sales relationships through marketing begin with attention followed by interest, desire, and action. Outside salesmen go into the field while inside sales representatives are telemarketers, technical support, and sales assistants.
The Essay on Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship management or CRM is not just the application of technology, but is a strategy to learn more about customers’ needs and behaviours in order to develop stronger relationships with them. It enables businesses to: Understand the customer Retain customers through better customer experience Attract new customer Win new clients and contracts Increase profitably Decrease ...
Team selling means various departments serve large complex accounts. Information is exchanged during the sales visit, fractionating issues, making trade offs, and proposing multiple offers simultaneously. Competition and cooperation are needed to maximize sales. Sales retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales on April 20, 2009 Kerin chapter 20 Personal selling and sales management retrieved from www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~renglish/370/notes/chapt20/ind ex.htm on April 20, 2009..
