Chapter 13 - Personal Selling and Sales Promotion

Sales quota

A standard that states the amount a salesperson should sell and how sales should be divided among the company's products.

Product sales force structure

A sales force organization in which salespeople specialize in selling only a portion of the company's products or lines.

Customer (or market) sales force structure

A sales force organization in which salespeople specialize in selling only to certain customers or industries.

Territorial sales force structure

A sales force organization that assigns each salesperson to an exclusive geographic territory in which that salesperson sells the company's full line.

Salesperson

An individual who represents a company to customers by performing one or more of the following activities: prospecting, communicating, selling, servicing, information gathering, and relationship building.

Sales force management

Analyzing, planning, implementing, and controlling sales force activities.

Handling objections

The sales step in which a salesperson seeks out, clarifies, and overcomes any customer objections to buying

Event marketing (or event sponsorships)

Creating a brand-marketing event or serving as a sole or participating sponsor of events created by others

OBJECTIVE 2 - Identify and explain the six major sales force management steps

High sales force costs necessitate an effective sales management process consisting of six steps: designing sales force strategy and structure, recruiting and selecting, training, compensating, supervising, and evaluating salespeople and sales force performance. In designing a sales force, sales management must address various issues, including what type of sales force structure will work best (territorial, product, customer, or complex structure), sales force size, who will be involved in selling, and how various salespeople and sales support people will work together (inside or outside sales forces and team selling). Salespeople must be recruited and selected carefully. In recruiting salespeople, a company may look to the job duties and the characteristics of its most successful salespeople to suggest the traits it wants in new salespeople. It must then look for applicants through recommendations of current salespeople, ads, and the Internet and social media, as well as college recruitment/ placement centers. After the selection process is complete, training programs familiarize new salespeople not only with the art of selling but also with the company's history, its products and policies, and the characteristics of its customers and competitors. The sales force compensation system helps to reward, motivate, and direct salespeople. In addition to compensation, all salespeople need supervision, and many need continuous encouragement because they must make many decisions and face many frustrations. Periodically, the company must evaluate their performance to help them do a better job. In evaluating salespeople, the company relies on information gathered from sales reports, personal observations, customer surveys, and conversations with other salespeople. The fastest-growing sales trend is the exploding use of online, mobile, and social media tools in selling. New digital sales force technologies are creating exciting new avenues for connecting with and engaging customers in the digital and social media age. Today's sales forces are mastering the use of online, mobile, and social media tools to identify and learn about prospects, engage customers, create customer value, close sales, and nurture customer relationships. Rather than reducing the need for sales people, online and social media technologies are helping to make sales forces more efficient, cost-effective, and productive. The technologies help salespeople do what good salespeople have always done—build customer relationships by solving customer problems—but do it better, faster, and cheaper.

OBJECTIVE 1 - Discuss the role of a company's salespeople in creating value for customers and building customer relationships.

Most companies use salespeople, and many companies assign them an important role in the marketing mix. For companies selling business products, the firm's sales force works directly with customers. Often, the sales force is the customer's only direct contact with the company and therefore may be viewed by customers as representing the company itself. In contrast, for consumer product companies that sell through intermediaries, consumers usually do not meet salespeople or even know about them. The sales force works behind the scenes, dealing with wholesalers and retailers to obtain their support and helping them become more effective in selling the firm's products. As an element of the promotion mix, the sales force is very effective in achieving certain marketing objectives and carrying out such activities as prospecting, communicating, selling and servicing, and information gathering. But with companies becoming more market oriented, a customer-focused sales force also works to produce both customer satisfaction and company profit. The sales force plays a key role in developing and managing profitable customer relationships

Personal Selling

Personal presentations by the firm's sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer relationships.

OBJECTIVE 4 - Explain how sales promotion campaigns are developed and implemented.

Sales promotion campaigns call for setting sales promotion objectives (in general, sales promotions should be consumer relationship building); selecting tools; and developing and implementing the sales promotion program by using consumer promotion tools (from coupons, refunds, premiums, and pointof-purchase promotions to contests, sweepstakes, and events), trade promotion tools (from discounts and allowances to free goods and push money), and business promotion tools (conventions, trade shows, and sales contests), as well as determining such things as the size of the incentive, the conditions for participation, how to promote and distribute the promotion package, and the length of the promotion. After this process is completed, the company must evaluate its sales promotion results.

Consumer promotions

Sales promotion tools used to boost short-term customer buying and engagement or enhance long-term customer relationships

Business promotions

Sales promotion tools used to generate business leads, stimulate purchases, reward customers, and motivate salespeople.

Trade promotions

Sales promotion tools used to persuade resellers to carry a brand, give it shelf space, and promote it in advertising

Inside sales force

Salespeople who conduct business from their offices via telephone, online and social media interactions, or visits from prospective buyers

Outside sales force (or field sales force)

Salespeople who travel to call on customers in the field.

OBJECTIVE 3 - Discuss the personal selling process, distinguishing between transaction-oriented marketing and relationship marketing

Selling involves a seven-step process: prospecting and qualifying, preapproach, approach, presentation and demonstration, handling objections, closing, and follow-up. These steps help marketers close a specific sale and, as such, are transaction oriented. However, a seller's dealings with customers should be guided by the larger concept of relationship marketing. The company's sales force should help to orchestrate a whole-company effort to develop profitable long-term relationships with key customers based on superior customer value and satisfaction. The fastest-growing sales trend is the exploding use of online, mobile, and social media tools in selling. The new digital technologies are providing salespeople with powerful tools for identifying and learning about prospects, engaging customers, creating customer value, closing sales, and nurturing customer relationships. Many of today's customers no longer rely as much on assistance provided by salespeople. Instead, increasingly, they use online and social media resources to analyze their own problems, research solutions, get advice from colleagues, and rank buying options before ever speaking to a salesperson. In response, sellers are reorienting their selling processes around the new customer buying process. They are using social media, Web forums, online communities, blogs, and other digital tools to engage customers earlier and more fully. Ultimately, online and social media technologies are helping to make sales forces more efficient, cost effective, and productive

Sales promotion

Short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or a service.

Presentation

The sales step in which a salesperson tells the "value story" to the buyer, showing how the company's offer solves the customer's problems

Closing

The sales step in which a salesperson asks the customer for an order

Follow-up

The sales step in which a salesperson follows up after the sale to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat business.

Preapproach

The sales step in which a salesperson learns as much as possible about a prospective customer before making a sales call.

Approach

The sales step in which a salesperson meets the customer for the first time.

Prospecting

The sales step in which a salesperson or company identifies qualified potential customers.

Selling process

The steps that sales people follow when selling, which include prospecting and qualifying, preapproach, approach, presentation and demonstration, handling objections, closing, and follow-up.

Team selling

Using teams of people from sales, marketing, engineering, finance, technical support, and even upper management to service large, complex accounts.