Professional Sales Exam 1

Personal Selling

An important part of marketing that relies heavily on interpersonal interactions between buyers and sellers to initiate, develop, and enhance customer relationships.

Trust-Based Relationship Selling

A selling approach focused on earning trust, meeting customer needs, and creating, communicating, and delivering long-term customer value.

Sales Dialogue

A business conversation between buyers and sellers that occurs as salespeople attempt to initiate, develop, and enhance customer relationships.

Sales Professionalism

A customer-oriented approach that uses truthful, non-manipulative tactics to satisfy the long-term needs of both the customer and the selling firm.

Transaction-Focused Selling

A selling approach focused primarily on making the sale and moving on to the next customer.

Stimulus Response Selling

An approach where various stimuli are designed to produce predictable responses from customers.

Continued Affirmation Selling

A form of stimulus-response selling where a salesperson asks questions or makes statements designed to get the prospect to repeatedly answer yes.

Mental States Selling

An approach that assumes buyers can be led through certain mental states or steps in the buying process.

Mental States Sequence

Curiosity → Interest → Conviction → Desire → Action.

Need Satisfaction Selling

An approach based on the idea that customers buy to satisfy particular needs; the salesperson uses questioning and listening to uncover those needs.

Problem Solving Selling

An extension of need satisfaction selling that goes beyond identifying needs to developing alternative solutions for satisfying customer needs.

Consultative Selling

The process of helping customers reach their strategic goals using the products, services, and expertise of the selling organization.

Adaptive Selling

The ability of a salesperson to alter sales messages and behaviors during a sales presentation or across different customers and sales situations.

Strategic Orchestrator

A role associated with consultative selling in which the salesperson helps coordinate resources and solutions around the customer's strategic goals.

Business Consultant

A role in which the salesperson provides business knowledge and expertise to help the customer.

Long-Term Ally

A salesperson who develops an ongoing relationship with the customer and continues to create value.

Personal Selling and Society

Salespeople help stimulate the economy and contribute to the diffusion of innovation.

Personal Selling and the Employing Firm

Salespeople generate revenue, provide market research and customer feedback, and can become future leaders.

Personal Selling and the Customer

Salespeople provide solutions, expertise, information, and advocacy for customers.

Characteristics of Sales Careers

Occupational outlook, advancement opportunities, immediate feedback, job variety, independence, and compensation.

Immediate Feedback in Sales

Salespeople receive feedback from results, sales managers, and customers, allowing them to adjust their communication.

Five Trust Dimensions

Expertise, Dependability, Candor, Customer Orientation, and Compatibility.

Trust

The buyer's confidence that they can rely on the salesperson's integrity.

Expertise

The ability, knowledge, and resources to meet customer expectations.

Dependability

The predictability of a person's actions; it also includes the ability to handle confidential information.

Candor

Honesty of the spoken word and being upfront with others, especially about factors that may affect them.

Customer Orientation

Placing as much emphasis on the customer's interests as on the salesperson's own interests.

Compatibility

A salesperson's commonalities with other individuals that help create a bond.

Service Knowledge Areas

Areas such as delivery, inventory, training, field maintenance, credit and financial considerations, installation, guarantees and warranties, and other unique offerings.

Deceptive Practices

Unethical behavior involving misleading or deceiving customers.

Non-Customer-Oriented Behavior

Behavior that does not place appropriate emphasis on the customer's interests, such as pushy or high-pressure selling.

Illegal Activity

Unethical behavior that violates applicable laws.

Express Warranty

A specific promise or guarantee made about a product that can create an obligation for the selling organization.

Misrepresentation

A false product claim made by a salesperson who believes the claim to be true.

Negligence

Making a claim without exercising reasonable care to ensure that the claim is accurate.

Basis of the Bargain

A situation in which the buyer relies on the seller's statements or representations when making the purchase.

Concentrated Demand

A business-market characteristic in which demand is concentrated among a relatively small number of business customers.

Derived Demand

Demand for business products that results from demand for other products or services.

Higher Levels of Demand Fluctuation

Business-market demand can experience larger changes or fluctuations than consumer demand.

Purchasing Professionals

Employees whose job involves evaluating suppliers and purchasing products or services for an organization.

Multiple Buying Influences

A characteristic in which multiple people within an organization influence a purchasing decision.

Close Buyer-Seller Relationships

Ongoing relationships between business buyers and sellers involving repeated interaction, cooperation, and communication.

Business-to-Business Buying Process

The process through which an organization recognizes a need, determines requirements, searches for sources, evaluates proposals, selects an offering, and evaluates performance.

Situational Need

A need caused by a particular situation or circumstance.

Functional Need

A need concerning what the product or service must actually do.

Social Need

A need related to how a purchase affects the buyer's image or relationships with others.

Psychological Need

A need related to the buyer's feelings, security, confidence, or emotional concerns.

Knowledge Need

A need for information, education, or training about a product or service.

Multi-Attribute Model

A model in which buyers evaluate products or suppliers across multiple attributes, with different importance weights assigned to the attributes.

Importance Weights

The relative importance a buyer assigns to different performance characteristics when evaluating alternatives.

Five Ways to Influence Buyer Evaluation

Modify the product offering; alter the buyer's beliefs about the proposed offering; alter beliefs about the competitor's offering; alter importance weights; call attention to neglected attributes.

Postpurchase Evaluation

The buyer's evaluation of the product or service after purchase, which contributes to the formation of satisfaction.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

The transfer of data electronically between two computer systems.

Analytical Communication Style

A task-oriented, slow-paced communication style characterized by rational, meticulous, controlled, formal behavior.

Driver Communication Style

A task-oriented, fast-paced style characterized by competitiveness, independence, risk-taking, and directness.

Amiable Communication Style

A relationship-oriented, slow-paced style characterized by cooperation, supportiveness, and an easygoing approach.

Expressive Communication Style

A relationship-oriented, fast-paced style characterized by openness, warmth, emotion, spontaneity, and informality.

Analytical Buyer

A buyer who tends to be task-oriented, slow-paced, rational, meticulous, and formal.

Driver Buyer

A buyer who tends to be task-oriented, fast-paced, competitive, independent, and directive.

Amiable Buyer

A buyer who tends to be relationship-oriented, slow-paced, cooperative, supportive, and easygoing.

Expressive Buyer

A buyer who tends to be relationship-oriented, fast-paced, open, warm, emotional, and spontaneous.

Buying Team

A group of employees from one or more departments who fill roles in the buying center and work together to affect the outcome of a purchase decision.

Current Developments in Purchasing

Increasing use of information technology; emphasis on cooperation and collaboration; supply chain management; target pricing; increased importance of knowledge and creativity; increased outsourcing; and greater buyer access to relevant information.