01 personal selling salesmanship PDF

Preview

Summary

personal selling sales manship
Distribution management...

Description

PERSONAL SELLING Personal selling is a personal (face-to-face, telephone, or Internet chat) presentation for the purpose of making sales and building relationships. Peter Drucker explains marketing this way: “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him or her and sells itself.” Selling is the most important part of a larger "integrated marketing communications" that must be orchestrated for maximum impact on the marketplace. The promotional mix (or marketing communications mix) includes personal selling and non-personal selling (advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing). Selling is a vital function of business. The purpose of all marketing activities is to sell the products of the business enterprise. Selling enables the business to achieve its objectives by satisfying the needs of the customers. Advertising, personal selling & other sales promotion activities are widely used to create demand & increase sales. NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL SELLING The essential characteristics or personal selling are:  Personal selling is a direct personal communication between seller and buyer.  It is art of persuading buyers to buy certain goods or services- It is mutually advantageous to the sellers and the buyers. Sellers are able to sell goods at profits and buyers are able to satisfy their needs at reasonable cost. Personal selling is unique because it involves personal contact. It is the two-way marketing communications tool. It follows the AIDAS model, which defines a good message and the stages a receiver should go through. The steps in AIDA are to gain the receiver’s attention, to create and hold the receiver’s interest, to arouse desire, and to motivate a desired action (purchase). Marketers manage satisfaction by targeting the customers who are most likely to appreciate the organization’s distinctive competence. A personal sales call is expensive. It is most appropriately used in situations where the target market is concentrated, where products are high in value or orders are large, or when the product is technically complex. Sales promotion, advertising, and publicity move the prospect toward an exchange decision. Yet, personal selling is the tool that most often brings the buying decision process to a satisfactory conclusion for both buyer and seller. The strength of personal selling is that it is flexible and provides immediate feedback. The salesperson can address the concerns of the prospect. The salesperson can ask questions to determine the prospect’s level of interest and react quickly to the prospect's wants. The sales presentation can be personalized based upon those wants. Many customers don't know what they want, and part of the salesperson's responsibility is to help them find out how the product can solve their problems or satisfy their wants. IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL SELLING Personal selling is an important method of selling involving direct and personal contact of the seller with the prospective buyer. It is a two-way communication with the potential buyers and an act of convincing or persuading the buyers to buy certain goods/services. It is beneficial to both the sellers and the buyers. Now-a-days salesmanship is accepted as an essential service, as it is considered as an assistance given to the customer to buy wisely. It is an important technique of promotion. The importance of personal selling may be explained under the following heads: i. BENEFITS TO CONSUMERS Personal selling has a vital role to play in decision making on the part of consumers. In case of individual purchase, the salesman acts as a guide and friend to consumers. He informs him of new products and new uses of existing products. He assists him in selecting products which match his needs and income. He guides him in purchasing products that will give him maximum satisfaction. ii. BENEFITS TO BUSINESSMEN Salesmen help the businessmen in more than one way. They help the businessmen to locate prospective customers' and thus to increase sales. They help in the creation of demands for new products as well as help to sustain demand for the existing products. Through salesmen, a businessman informs the customers of his products and knows about their tastes, attitudes and behaviour. This helps him in designing and developing the products according to the needs of the customers. iii. BENEFITS TO SOCIETY Through large and rapid sales turnover, salesmen help in increased employment and income. Besides helping the customers and businessmen; the salesmen perform certain other functions such as after sales service, meeting complaints, giving information about credit facilities, delivering goods, collecting payments, etc. They help in increasing the standard of living of people by introducing new products.

BBA(N)502 SDM

Module 01 Personal Selling & Salesmanship

Page 2 of 8

FUNCTIONS OF A SALESPERSON The duties and responsibilities of a salesperson differ from one business to another depending upon the nature of the business, the size of the business, the type of selling job, the sales policies of the concern, etc. However, there are certain duties and responsibilities which are common to all types of business. 1. Selling: The fundamental duty of a salesperson is selling. This duty includes meeting the prospects, presenting and demonstrating the products, inducing the prospects to buy, taking orders and effecting sales. 2. Guiding the buyers: A salesperson should guide the buyers in buying the goods they want. 3. Attending to complaints: A salesperson should attend to the complaints of the customers immediately and try to settle their grievances quickly and sincerely. 4. Collection of bills: Sometimes, a salesperson may be required to collect the outstanding bills relating to the goods sold by him and remit the amount to his firm. 5. Collection of credit information: A salesperson may, sometimes, be required to collect information about the credit-worthiness of the customers. He has to collect detailed information and submit it to his firm in time. 6. Reporting; A salesperson, especially a travelling salesperson, is required to send daily, weekly or monthly reports to his firm, providing information about the calls made, sales effected, services rendered, route schedule, expenses incurred, business conditions, competition, if any, etc. 7. Organizing: A travelling salesperson is required to organize his tour programme. He has to prepare the route and time schedules for his tour so as to systematize his sales efforts. 8. Attending sales meetings: A salesperson is required to attend the sales meetings convened by his employer at periodical intervals to discuss the marketing problems, sales promotion activities, sales policies, etc. 9. Touring: A travelling salesperson has to undertake touring regularly to cover the territories assigned to him. 10. Arranging for packing and delivery: A counter salesperson has to arrange for the packing of the goods sold and the delivery of the packages to the buyers. 11. Window and counter displays: An indoor or counter salesperson has to arrange for the window and counter displays of the products in an attractive manner so as to attract or induce the prospects to buy. 12. Promotion of goodwill: Every salesperson has to build up satisfied clientele (i.e., customers) for his employer and thereby promote the goodwill of his firm. 13. Recruiting and Training: Sales person is also responsible for recruiting new salesmen, imparting training, by accompanying them while making sales calls. 14. Working with Middlemen: Salespersons establish direct relations with middlemen — distributors, wholesalers, etc., and collect market information and pass it on to their firm. TYPES OF SELLING JOBS A salesperson personally communicates with the prospect to make the sale and build a relationship. The job of a salesperson ranges from order takers to order getters. Order Takers interact with customers placing an order. Order takers include most retail sales workers. These job titles include: Cashiers, Counter and rental clerks. Retail sales workers assist customers in finding what they are looking for and try to interest them in the merchandise. They might describe a product’s features, demonstrate its use, or show various models and colours. For some sales jobs, particularly those selling expensive and complex items, special knowledge or skills are needed. The largest employers of retail sales workers are department stores, clothing and accessories stores, furniture and home furnishing stores, and motor vehicle dealers. Order Getters engage in creative selling of products and is responsible for the entire ordering and relationshipbuilding process. Order getters include most manufacturers and wholesale sales representatives. Depending on where they work, sales representatives have different job titles. Many of those working directly for manufacturers are referred to as manufacturers' representatives and those employed by wholesalers generally are called sales representatives. Manufacturers' agents are self-employed sales workers who contract their services to all types of companies. Those selling technical products, for both manufacturers and wholesalers, are usually called industrial sales workers or sales engineers. Many of these titles, however, are used interchangeably. PERSONAL SELLING AS A CAREER Personal selling as a career is unique and offers many benefits. It is, however, not for everyone. In general it involves long, irregular work hours and extensive travel. A personal salesperson should also be able to handle rejection face to face, which is a large component of the job. On the other hand, personal sales offer great rewards for those who are successful. Because most compensation involves commissions based on completed sales, the potential for income is great. With personal sales, there is no ceiling on what a person can earn, as there is with other salaried jobs. Also, many people enjoy the freedom of flexible hours and the fact that a personal salesperson has little contact with a supervisor. A career in personal sales offers a person the chance to develop interpersonal skills, communication skills, organizational skills, and time-management skills.

BBA(N)502 SDM

Module 01 Personal Selling & Salesmanship

Page 3 of 8

SALESMANSHIP & QUALITIES OF SALESMAN SALESMANSHIP Salesmanship is the art of successfully persuading prospects or customers to buy products or services from which they can derive suitable benefits, thereby increasing their total satisfactions. Salesmanship is seller initiated effort that provides prospective buyers with information and other benefits, motivating or persuading them to decide in favour of the seller’s product or service. Sales Management, Personal selling and Salesmanship are all related. Sales management directs the personal selling effort, which, in turn, is implemented largely through salesmanship. Personal selling is a broader concept than salesmanship. Personal selling, along with other marketing elements such as pricing, advertising, product development and research, marketing channels, and physical distribution, is a means of implementing marketing programs. Salesmanship is one aspect of personal selling – it is only a part and never all of it. Salesmanship is one of the skills used in personal selling. At one time, the emphasis on salesmanship was almost wholly on persuasion; today while recognizing the significance of persuasion, the emphasis is on the benefits attractive to prospects and customers. Sales personnel interact in diverse ways with different customers. Apart from knowing the product and its applications thoroughly, sales personnel have to be psychologists with some individuals, advisors with others, and personal friends with still others. Effective sales personnel adjust their personalities on every call, making sure that what they say and do is compatible with each prospect’s personality. Both personal selling and advertising make use of salesmanship techniques. Both are means for motivating or persuading prospective buyers to buy. Advertising, often described as “salesmanship in print”, utilizes nonpersonal presentations, which generally are less flexible than the personal presentations made by sales personnel. A unique attribute of personal selling is that sales personnel identify differences among buyers and pattern presentations according to individual peculiarities. PSYCHOLOGY IN SELLING Human psychology plays an important role in selling. As the selling process and salesmanship deals with human beings, it becomes necessary to know and understand the human psychology in relation to buying. A study of the customer’s mind is always useful for successful selling, or else, human needs cannot be converted into ‘wants’. Every sale is essentially a mental act. Therefore, it is essential to know about the likes and dislikes of the customer, what appeals to him most and what type of person he is. By knowing these things, the salesman can feel comfortable while selling. For maximum effectiveness, sales must be planned intelligently. This is possible only upon the basis of knowledge of what takes place within the prospect before and during the sale. There must be an understanding of the needs which are to be satisfied and the parts played by the intelligence and the emotions, in their gratification. There must be insight into the dynamics of the sale. "Why do people buy?" and "In what manner does the salesman exert an influence upon them?" Research by psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts into motivation and into the influence of the intelligence and the emotions on behavior has provided useful insights into the mechanics of buying behavior. BUYING DECISION PROCESS According to the "5-stage model" of the typical buying decision process, a consumer passes through five stages: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post purchase behavior. Clearly, the buying process starts long before the actual purchase and has consequences long afterward. The model implies that consumers pass sequentially through all five stages in buying a product. But this is not the case, especially with low-involvement purchases. Consumers may skip or reverse some stages. Thus a woman buying her regular brand of toothpaste goes directly from the need for toothpaste to the purchase decision, skipping information search and evaluation. Problem Recognition: The buying process starts when the buyer recognizes a problem or need. The buyer senses a difference between his or her actual state and a desired state. A person passes a bakery and sees freshly baked bread that stimulates her hunger; she admires a neighbor's new car; or she watches a television commercial advertising a Hawaiian vacation. Marketers need to identify the circumstances that trigger a particular need. By gathering information from a number of consumers, marketers can identify the most frequent stimuli that spark an interest in a product category. The marketer can then develop marketing strategies that trigger consumer interest.

BBA(N)502 SDM

Module 01 Personal Selling & Salesmanship

Page 4 of 8

Information Search: An aroused consumer will be inclined to search for more information. We can distinguish between two levels of arousal. The milder search state is called heightened attention. At the next level, the consumer may enter active information search. She actually looks for reading material, phones friends, and engages in other activities to learn about the product. How much search she undertakes depends on the strength of her drive, the amount of information she initially has, the ease of obtaining additional information, the value she places on additional information, and the satisfaction she gets from search. Evaluation of Alternatives: There is no simple and single evaluation process used by all consumers or by one consumer in all buying situations. There are several decision evaluation processes, the most current models of which see the consumer evaluation process as cognitively oriented. That is, they see the consumer as forming product judgments largely on a conscious and rational basis. Some basic concepts will help us understand consumer evaluation processes: First, the consumer is trying to satisfy a need. Second, the consumer is looking for certain benefits from the product solution. Third, the consumer sees each product as a bundle of attributes with varying abilities of delivering the benefits sought to satisfy this need. The consumer develops a set of brand beliefs about where each brand stands on each attribute. The set of beliefs about a brand make up the brand image. The consumer's brand image will vary with his or her experiences as filtered by the effects of selective perception, selective distortion, and selective retention. In the evaluation stage, the consumer forms preferences among the brands in the choice set. The consumer may also form an intention to buy the most preferred brand. Purchase Decision: Two factors can intervene between the purchase intention and the purchase decision. The first factor is the attitudes of others. A buyer's preference for a brand will increase if someone he or she likes favors the same brand strongly. The converse is also true. The second factor is unanticipated situational factors. These may erupt to change the purchase intention. The consumer might lose her job, some other purchase might become more urgent, or a store salesperson may turn her off. Thus preferences and even purchase intentions are not completely reliable predictors of purchase behavior. Purchase decisions include: Product choice, Brand choice, Dealer choice, Purchase timing, and Purchase amount. Post-purchase Behaviour: After purchasing the product, the consumer will experience some level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The marketer's job does not end when the product is bought but continues into the postpurchase period. Marketers must monitor the following: Post-purchase Satisfaction Post-purchase Actions, and Post-purchase Use and Disposal TYPES OF BUYING SITUATIONS There are three major types of buying situations: At one extreme is the straight re-buy, which is a fairly routine decision. In the middle is the modified re-buy, which requires some research. At the other extreme is the new task, which may call for thorough research. The buyer makes the fewest decisions in the straight r-ebuy and the most in the new task decision. Straight re-buy: The buyer reorders something without any modifications. It is usually handled on a routine basis by the purchasing department. The buyer simply chooses from the various suppliers on its list. Modified re-buy: The buyer wants to modify product specifications, prices, terms, or suppliers. It usually involves more decision participants. New task: A customer buying a product or service for the first time faces a new task situation. The greater the cost or risk, the larger is the number of decision participants and greater their efforts to collect information. BUYER-SELLER DYADS Sociologists use the term ‘dyad’ to describe a situation in which two people interact. Fundamental to understanding salesmanship is recognition that it involves buyer-seller interactions. The salesperson and the prospect, interacting with each other, constitute one example of a ‘buyer-seller dyad’. (Another is the interaction of a seller using advertising with a particular prospect in the reading, listening or viewing audience.) In both advertising and personal selling, the seller seeks to motivate the prospective buyer to behave favourably toward the seller. Whether or not the buyer reacts as the seller desires depends upon the nature of the interaction. The figure, depicting a buyer seller interaction as a flow chart, is a conceptual model of salesperson-buyer dyadic relationship. This model, developed after an extensive literature survey, views the sales process as being influenced by both salesperson and the buyer and each in turn being influenced by personal characteristics and role requirements. Personal characteristics inclu...