Sales Management 1 b

Dr. Sanjeev
 Situations conducive for personal selling

• Product Situation
• Market Situation
• Company Situation
• Consumer Behavior Situation
 Product Situation
– When a product is of a high unit value like
Xeroxing machine, computer etc.
– When a product is in the introductory state of its
life cycle and require creation of core demand.
– A product require personal attention to match
specific consumer needs .
– Product requires demonstration
– Product requires after sales services
– Product has no brand loyalty or very poor brand
loyalty.
 Market Situation
– A company is selling to a small number of
large size buyers.
– A company sells in a small-local market or in
government or institutional market.
– Desired middle men or agents are not
available.
– An indirect channel of distribution is used
for selling to merchant-middlemen only.
 Company Situation
– The company is not in a position to identify
and make use of suitable non-personal
communication media.

– A company cannot afford to have a large

and regular advertising outlay.
 Consumer Behavior Situation
– Purchases are valuable but infrequent.

– Consumer needs instant answers to his

questions.

– Consumer requires persuasion and follow

up in the face of competitive pressures.
 Personal Selling: Advantages
Two-way form of communication: 

• Can select the requisite ‘motive’ that is to be sold.

• In selling situations, salesperson can adjust the message as
they gain feedback from prospect/ customer. 
• If a customer does not understand the initial message, like
how the product works, the salesperson can make
adjustments to address questions or concerns. 
• Non-personal forms of promotion are inflexible, at least in
the short-term, and cannot be easily adjusted to address
audience questions.
 Personal Selling: Advantages
Interactive nature of personal selling

• Most effective promotional method for building

relationships with customers, particularly in the business-
to-business market. 
• This is especially important for companies that either sell
expensive products or sell lower cost but high volume
products (i.e., buyer must purchase in large quantities) that
rely heavily on customers making repeat purchases. 
• Because such purchases may take a considerable amount of
time to complete and may involve the input of many people
at the purchasing company (i.e., buying center), sales
success often requires the marketer develop and maintain
strong relationships with members of the purchasing
company.
 Personal Selling: Advantages

Personal selling is the most practical

promotional option for reaching customers
who are not easily reached through other
methods. 
 Personal Selling: Disadvantages
• The degree to which this promotional method is
misunderstood. ‘Overly aggressive’ or ‘downright
annoying’

• High cost:
– High cost-per-action (CPA)
– Training Costs

• Personal selling is not for everyone. Right Fit Person

The Importance of Personal Selling in the Indian
context
• The absence of the availability for all India media
many companies find it expedient to extensively
use personal selling to achieve their promotional
objectives.
• Companies which cannot afford a large outlay for
advertising on a regular basis also find personal
selling a more reliable method.
The Importance of Personal Selling…

• The vast network of our distribution system

needs the support of the manufacture sales force
for market combing as well as devilment.
• Low levels of literacy and lack of adequate
customer education regarding various
products, make personal selling a very
effective method in product adoption
particularly in the rural markets.
 Cont….

• Orientation of Indian Consumers are such that

they want the best value for their money,
owing to high marginal value of rupee, which
necessitates personal selling.
Different Selling Strategies
 Communication Strategies
At the lowest level of personal selling;
The sales representative is an alternative
medium for communicating information about
the product or service offered by company;
The only strategy appropriate for increasing
sales at this level is walking more and talking
more.
 Communication Strategies
• Representative is personal communicator
• Provides information close to the point of
buying decision
Requirements…
 Persuasion Strategies
The persuasion level requires the sales
representative to go beyond the role of a mere
communicator to the role of understanding at
least the immediate and narrow needs of the
customers.
At this stage, the sales representative tries to fit
the customer into the existing product or
service mix by skillfully anticipating and
overcoming objection.
This is what Indian market is experiencing.
Requirements
 Negotiation Strategies
During negotiation, the product and commercial
terms are adjusted to meet the customer’s needs
rather than just attempting to skillfully overcoming
objections as practiced in previous stages.
The critical skill at this stage of selling is analyzing
and understanding the customer needs and
determining how the company’s products and
services can meet these needs. At this point, the
customer becomes a client and the process of
consultative selling begins.
Requirements
Client Profit- Planning Strategies
In India, Client profit planning strategy is
applicable in industrial product selling.
The representative is put to work with clients’
team to learn about profit-planning system,
product, finance, marketing, research and
development and future plans etc. so that the
product meeting the client’s needs could be
developed.
 Client Profit- Planning Strategies
• Becomes the part of clients’ plan
• Expand to other departments
• Find new uses for your product
• Services are important part of the offer
• Customer is perfect client now.
• Perceive, classify & serve customer’s need
Requirements
Business Management Strategies
At this stage professional representative is
responsible for managing territory as a strategy
business unit- investing time and expenses in
most profitable manner.
Few Indian Companies are using a system of
national account management in which manger is
responsible for all sales to a few key accounts.
Territory representatives along with sales
managers and accounts managers develop
business strategies and bottom line responsibility
to meet objectives of the organization.
 Business Management Strategies
• Sell to meet the clients’ total system & long
term needs
Requirements
Diversity of Selling Situation
 Delivery Sales Person
The primary job of the delivery sales person is
to deliver the product e.g. soft drink, bread
etc.
The selling responsibilities are secondary.
Good service and a pleasant personality may
lead to more sales.
Requirements
 Inside Order Taker
The retail sales person standing behind a
counter is an inside order taker.
The customer comes to the sales person with
the intention to buy a product or service, the
sales person only serves him or her.
The sales person may use suggestion selling
but ordinarily cannot do much more.
Requirements
 Outside Order Taker

The soap or spices sales person calling on

retailers is an outside order taker.
They do little creative selling.
In contrast with store personnel these
representatives actually may be discouraged
from doing any hard selling. That task is left to
executives higher in the hierarchy.
Requirements
 Missionary Sales People
These sales persons are not expected or
permitted to solicit an order.
Their job is to build goodwill or to educate
actual or potential user or provider services
for the customers, as in the case of medical
representative, working for the
pharmaceutical company.
Requirements
 Creative Sales Person of Tangible Product

• Vacuum cleaners, automobiles, encyclopedia,

• Customers may not be aware of their needs
• Or they may not realize how new product can
satisfy their needs/ wants better
Requirements:
 Creative Sales Person of Intangible Product

Sales of intangible products such as insurance,

advertising services, consulting services,
communication systems or educational
programmes, require creativity of sales person
to handle the situation. Generally selling the
intangible products is difficult as their benefits
cannot be demonstrated tangibly.
Requirements
 Classifying Selling Roles

Four major types of selling roles:

Order Getters,
Order Takers,
Order Influencers; and
Sales Support
 Order Getter
• Here the salesperson is actively engaged in
using his skills to obtain orders from
customers
• Scopic Areas:
New Business Development: Challenging and rewarding
function of finding new customers.
Account Management: Work to build and maintain
relationships with clients that are intended to last a long
time. 
 Order Takers
• Salespeople primarily assist customers with a
purchase in ways that are much less
assertive than order getters.  Here,
compensation for order takers is generally
lower than that of order getters.
• Scopic Areas:
Retail Clerks
Industrial Distributor Clerks
Customer Service  
 Order Influencers
• These salespeople concentrate on selling
activity that targets those who influence
purchases made by the final customer.
• Scopic Areas:
Missionary
 Sales Support
• Scopic Areas:
Technical Specialists
Office Support
Different Types of Selling
 Direct Sales
Direct sales are primarily concerned with the sale of the
product and service to ultimate customers. eg.
restaurants, door-to-door sales, insurance,
encyclopedias etc.
There is normally some emotional appeal associated with
this type of selling, thus sales persons are required to
possess strong persuasive ability.
Often length of time to close sales is shortest in the case
of above product categories.
In fact, sales persons are trained to close the sales on the
first visit because it is felt that if the customers are given
time, they will either cool off from buying or will buy
from the competitor.
Requirements
 Commercial Sales
The field generally includes non-technical
sales to business, industry, government and
non-profit organizations. eg. office equipment,
wholesale goods, building products, business
services and others. Unlike the previous, it is
customary for the commercial sales person to
make sales on first and second call. The
process stresses approach to right person
(decision-maker) making a smooth
presentation and closing the sale.
Requirements
 Technical Sales
The most distinctive characteristic of technical
sales is the product knowledge required by its
sales person, unlike the consultative sales,
where sophistication in organization
relationship and persuasive ability are sales
persons’ most valuable assets.
Even time required to sell the product is
relatively less than consultative sales.
Requirements
 Consultative Sale
Consultative sales are characterized by the
product or service that is sold at the higher
level of an organization eg. Computer systems
or management consultancy service. The
decision to purchase such products involves
higher capital outlay thus sales job requires a
low key, low pressure approach by the sales
person.
Requirements
Thank You