What is personal selling? Personal selling, another component of the promotional mix, is direct communication between a firm’s sales force and potential buyers to make a sale and build good customer relationships. Good salespeople don’t just want to sell products; they want to serve customers. A salesperson should help customers with their buying decisions by understanding their needs and presenting the advantages and disadvantages of a product. Salespeople must effectively represent their companies by establishing good customer relationships that foster repeat business and lead to a company’s long-term success.

Why is personal selling important? A company’s salesperson is often the first contact point for many customers. To build good customer relationships, a salesperson should be customer oriented, competent, dependable, honest, and likable. The best salespeople aren’t fast talkers. Instead, they listen carefully to customers’ needs and find solutions for them. In many B2B sales, millions of dollars are involved in a single purchase, such as buying an airplane or constructing an office building. You can see why businesses want nothing less than truly professional salespeople—people who can deliver carefully prepared presentations, establish rapport with customers, and negotiate details with skill. The demand for well-educated, well-trained professional salespeople explains why some are top earners in their companies.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a sales force? Personal selling is often the most expensive part of the promotional mix. In addition to direct compensation (salaries and commissions) and employment benefits, firms must spend money to train their sales forces and purchase the tools they need to track and maintain customers in their territories. This can include paying for travel and entertainment expenses. Generally, personal selling is preferred to advertising when a high-value, custom-made, or technically complex product is being sold. Advertising is more cost effective when a firm is selling a low-value, standardized product that is easily understood.

What functions do sales personnel fulfill? Sales personnel can assume one or more of the following roles:

1. Order getters. An order getter increases a company’s sales by selling to new customers and increasing a firm’s sales to its existing customers. These salespeople use current customers as sources for leads on new prospects. Telemarketers are order getters.

2. Order takers. An order taker handles repeat sales and ensures that buyers have sufficient quantities of products when and where they are needed. This is especially true in B2B sales. Retail clerks are order takers in B2C markets. They generally handle routine orders for standardized products that do not require a lot of technical sales expertise. So are customer service representatives who sell customers products to help solve their problems.

3. Order influencers. Order influencers are not engaged in direct selling; rather, they concentrate on selling activities that target people who influence the purchases made by the final customer. For example, pharmaceutical salespeople discuss products with doctors (the order influencers) who then write a prescription for the patient (the final customer). Similarly, your college professors act as the order influencers recommending specific textbooks for you to purchase.

4. Support personnel. Support personnel may obtain new customers but focus on assisting current customers with technical matters. Support personnel are most common in B2B sales and include the office personnel who assist salespeople, as well as call center workers.

All salespeople, whatever their specific role at any given time, are ambassadors for a business. They need to listen carefully, act as sounding boards, and relay customer feedback to an organization. This allows firms to improve existing products or create new products to better meet customer needs and preferences. Serving customers better is a large part of what building good customer relationships and promotion are all about.

What are the steps in the selling process? The steps involved in the selling process are essentially the same for selling a consumer product and for selling a B2B product, though the sale of a B2B product is usually more complex. In all cases, a salesperson has to be knowledgeable about his or her product and the competitors’ products.

No two salespeople are alike, and no two selling situations are the same. However, six steps emerge from all personal selling: prospecting, approaching the prospect, presenting, overcoming objections, closing the sale, and following up. This six-step personal selling procedure is outlined in Figure 14.3.

Figure 14.3

The Personal Selling Process

How are customers identified? The first step in the personal selling process is to identify qualified potential customers. This is known as prospecting. Businesses need to not only find potential customers but also identify those who are qualified to buy. To be qualified to buy means that a potential customer has the ability and the authority to purchase. Prospecting can be a daunting task; it often involves cold calling. Cold calling is approaching prospects without their expecting it. Some salespeople find leads at trade shows, from scouting a company’s website, or, better yet, from currently satisfied customers who are willing to recommend others.

What is the best way to approach a prospect? The second step of the personal selling process involves two parts: the pre-approach and the actual approach. The pre-approach involves salespeople doing their homework. This is especially critical when selling a B2B product. Salespeople must learn as much as possible about their potential customers to determine their likely needs and to anticipate how they might be able to satisfy those needs. The timing decision of the actual approach should also be carefully planned so to catch the prospect when they are best able to listen to the pitch and make a decision.

When it comes to approaching a potential customer, the idea is to meet, greet, and put the prospect at ease. First impressions are lasting impressions! This is the salesperson’s first chance at building a long-lasting relationship. Good salespeople present themselves as knowledgeable and friendly professionals who are genuinely interested in serving customers. The first impression is followed by asking some questions to learn about a potential customer’s needs. Then the salesperson must listen carefully to those responses.

How are the details of the product explained? The next step in the personal selling process is the actual presentation of the product to the prospective customer. Often salespeople demonstrate the product or let the prospect use it in a trial period. The presentation should be carefully planned incorporating the earlier research as to how the product could satisfy the customer’s current or future needs. The salesperson asks probing questions during the presentation, and the prospect’s responses are listened to carefully. Listening is more important than talking to fully understand the customer’s needs.

What happens if the prospect has an objection? Objections to buying are common. Good salespeople anticipate objections and are prepared to address them. Once objections surface, a salesperson will provide more information about the product and turn these objections into reasons to buy. Bringing in other people from the company who have additional expertise to address the prospect’s objections can be helpful.

How is the sale finalized? After overcoming the prospect’s objections, the next step is to close the sale. Great salespeople know the physical cues, comments, or questions that signal the time to ask the buyer for an order. This is also the time to review any buying agreements, ask the buyer which model he or she prefers or how many units are needed or to sweeten the deal by offering more favorable credit terms or throwing in extra quantities of the product free of charge. Closing the sale is an art that is learned with practice.

What happens after the sale is made? To ensure a long-term relationship and repeat business, the salesperson must follow up with the customer to ensure that he or she is happy with his or her new product. Any feedback from the new customer is relayed back to the company as input for improving existing products or designing new ones. Good follow-up service and rapport can give rise to referrals or testimonials that can be used to enhance future sales. Following up is all about building and nurturing relationships.

What is a sales promotion? The final element of the promotional mix is sales promotion. A sales promotion is a short-term activity that targets consumers and other businesses for the purpose of generating interest in a product and selling it. As consumers, we see sales promotions almost everywhere: coupons in newspapers, rebate offers on a new car purchase, e-mail announcements offering discounted prices on airline tickets, and end-of-aisle displays of potato chips at a local grocery store tempting impulse purchases.

What are the two general types of sales promotions? Most companies’ products go through a distribution system before they reach the final consumer. These companies encourage wholesalers (middlemen) to push their products through to end users. Any incentives to push a product through the distribution system to final consumers are called trade (B2B) sales promotions. In addition, consumer sales promotions are incentives designed to increase final consumer demand for a product. Coupons, contests, and free samples are examples. A good sales promotion should generate interest and excitement around a product. Companies want consumers to be so excited about their products that they seek the products out and ask for them by name. In short, companies want all involved to opt for their products instead of competing alternatives.

What are some consumer sales promotional tools? Some of the most common consumer promotional tools are listed in Figure 14.4. Consumer sales promotions are aimed at the end users, or final consumers. Consumer promotions are intended to increase demand for a good or a service by providing that extra incentive to tip consumers in favor of a specific brand. They are also aimed at providing customers with another reason to feel good about their purchases. The timing of consumer sales promotions is important to get maximum impact. They need to be strategically coordinated with other elements in the promotional mix. Using promotional tools is becoming more common because it helps segment markets and is cost effective.

Figure 14.4

Common Sales Promotion Techniques

What are some trade sales promotional tools? Some of the specific tools used to promote a product to other businesses are listed in Figure 14.5. However, if you want other businesses to become interested and excited about carrying your product, it is important to generate in-house enthusiasm. Fully educate the sales staff about the product and its many uses, features, and benefits. This also may require some formal training on how to best present the product. To generate leads, it is often beneficial to participate in trade shows equipped with sophisticated multimedia presentations, full-color brochures, and giveaways embossed with your product logo. Creating some internal buzz and excitement for your product is necessary to get other businesses interested in carrying and promoting your product. Finally, the same level of energy and excitement should be created with distributors. When it comes to trade sales promotional techniques, firms have many options from which to choose. If one does not work, new strategies are adopted until the best combination is determined.

Figure 14.5

Common Business-to-Business Sales Promotion Techniques

How is social media used to promote products? In essence, social media are today’s form of word-of-mouth communication. If you had a wonderful meal at a restaurant, you can tweet about it, pin a picture of the dessert on Pinterest or post on Instagram, or share on Facebook to let your friends immediately know of your great experience. Similarly, news of a bad experience can travel just as fast. Companies are well aware of this and are using social media not only to hear from their customers but also to communicate with them.

The term viral marketing (viral advertising or marketing buzz) refers to using social media tools and techniques to spread a marketing message quickly. As important as it was two decades ago for a company to have a website, it is equally important now for a company to have a presence on at least one but generally several social media sites. Accordingly, companies have begun to shift their marketing and promotion budgets from traditional print and broadcast advertising to social media and website initiatives.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the promotional mix? As you’ve learned, when developing the best promotional mix for a product, companies must weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each of the four main options—advertising, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotions. Table 14.2 summarizes some of these key advantages and disadvantages.

Table 14.2

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Promotional Tools