MAR3032 Segment 13 (Exam 2)

Common Sales Positions

Retail sales, manufacturer sales reps, insurance and financial sales, real estate sales, sales engineers

Scope and Significance of Personal Selling and Sales management

Personal selling: The two-way flow of communication between a buyer and seller, often in a face-to-face encounter, designed to influence a person's or group's purchase decision.

Sales management: Planning the selling program and implementing and evaluating the personal selling effort of the firm.

Personal Selling in Marketing

1. Salespeople are the critical link between the firm and its customers

2. Salespeople are the company in a consumer's eyes

3. Personal selling may play a dominant role in a firms marketing program

Main Forms of Personal Selling

Order-taking salespeople

Order-getting salespeople

Customer sales support personal

Order-Taking Salespeople

Processes routine orders or reorders for products that were already sold by the company

Outside order takers: visit customers and replenish inventory stocks of resellers, such as wholesalers/retailers

Inside order takers (order or sales clerks): answer simple questions, take orders, and complete transactions with customers

Order-Getting Salespeople

Sells in a conventional sense and identifies prospective customers, provides customers with information, persuades customers to buy, closes sales, and follows up on customers' use of a product or service.

Customers Sales Support Personnell

Missionary salespeople: do not directly solicit orders but concentrate on performing promotional activities and introducing new products (used in pharmaceutical)

Sales engineers: specialize in identifying, analyzing and solving customer problems

Team Selling: The practice of using an entire team of professionals in selling to and servicing major customers.

Conference selling: salesperson and other company resource people meet with buyers to discuss problems and opportunities

Seminar selling: company team conducts an educational program for a customer's technical staff

The Selling Process

1. Prospecting

2. Pre-approach

3. Approach

4. Presentation

5. Close

6. Follow-up

Prospecting

Finding leads

Lead: name of a person who may be a possible customer

Cold canvassing: select randomly from a directory and call, legal issues

Go to trade shows, meetings, conferences, social selling

Qualifying Prospects

Establish Need/Want

Prospect: customer who wants/needs the product

Qualified Prospect: Individual that wants the product, can afford it, and is the decision maker

Determine purchase authority (talking to the right person)

Pre-approach

Preparing for the sales call

Gathering information

Setting sales call goals

Preparing presentation, determine format to be used (anticipate concerns, objections)

PRACTICE

Approach

Making a good first impression

Build rapport (small talk, comfort)

Ask Questions

Listening!

Discovering Needs

Presentation

Deliver content

Use of visual aids (laptop)

Product demos

Handling Objections

Three Presentation Formats

Stimulus response, formula-selling, need-satisfaction

Stimulus-Response Format

Assumes that given the appropriate stimulus by a salesperson, the prospect will buy

"Hit the right button"

Suggestive Selling

Formula-Selling Format (Canned)

Based on the view that a presentation consists of info that must be provided in an accurate, thorough, and step-by-step manner to inform the prospect

Advantageous when different between prospects are unknown or w novice salespeople less knowledgeable about the product/selling process

"Canned" Selling Examples

Ingratiation: trying to say nice things about the person, sucking up to someone

Foot-in-the-door: try and ask for something small first, then keep building what you're asking, moving towards what you ultimately want

Door-in-the-face: starting off with something extreme, but then ask for something smaller, and smaller, until they want it

Outlined Presentation

A prearranged presentation that usually includes a standard introduction, standard answers to common objections raised by customers, and a standard method for getting the customer to place an order

Need-Satisfaction Format

Emphasizes probing and listening by the salesperson to identify the needs and interests of prospective buyers

Once identified, presentation is tailored to the prospect and highlights product benefits valued by prospect

Two Types: Adaptive, Consultative

Adaptive Selling (Marketing Orientation)

True Prof Selling

A need-satisfaction presentation format that involves adjusting the presentation to fit the selling situation, such as knowing when to offer solutions and when to ask for more information.

Figure out needs and then demonstrate how some offerings will meet those needs

Consultative Selling

A need-satisfaction presentation format that focuses on problem identification, where the salesperson serves as an expert on problem recognition and resolution.

Upselling: practice of introducing a higher-end product solution

Cross-selling: proposing related/complementary products/services

Serve as an advisor for the customer

Time Spent by the "Adaptive" Salesperson in Calls

Start off listening all the time, asking questions

Do that for quite a while until you have a solid sense of what they want

Transition to talking more and listening less

Do not want to be a "crocodile" (all mouth, no talking)

Fennec Fox (all ears, then talk)

Using MAM in Adaptive Selling

Figure out your rating of our service, flexibility, etc.

Develop an estimate

Handling Objections

1. Acknowledge and convert the objection: using it as a reason for buying

2. Postpone: Used when objection will be dealt with later

3. Agree and neutralize: agrees with the objection, then shows that it is unimportant

4. Accept the objection: sometimes valid, letting prospect express it, prob for the reason, attempt to stimulate further discussion

5. Denial: objection is based on misinformation and untrue, firm denial

6. Ignore the objection: used when it appears that the objection is a stalling mechanism and is not important to the prospect

Close

Summarize Benefits

Ask for the sale

Confirm the Sale

Show Appreciation

Three Closing Techniques

Trial close: asking the prospect too make a decision on some aspect of the purchase

Assumptive close: asking the prospect to consider choices concerning delivery, warranty, or financing terms under the assuming that a sale has been finalized

Urgency close: used to commit prospect quickly by making reference to the timeliness of the purchase

Follow-Up

Ensure on time delivery

Ensure customer satisfaction

Pursue Add-On Sales

Build/Sustain relationship

Relationship Selling

Practice of building ties to customers based on a saleperson's attention and commitment to customer needs over time

Customer relationship management: emphasizes the importance of first learning about customer needs/wants and tailoring solutions to these problems to create customer value

Relationship Selling Approach is exemplified by a salesperson who

Listens

Expresses genuine concern

Keeps promises

Uses knowledge to meet customer needs

Joint Value Creation (JVC)

Partnership selling: full collab in order to come up w a solution

Enterprise/Complex Selling: Buyer takes control of the process by knowing what they want, call for proposals, and let sellers come to them

Seminar selling: bunch of sellers coming together in front of one buyer

Sales Plan

A statement describing what is to be achieved and where and how the selling effort of salespeople is to be deployed

Sales Plan Formulation

Setting objectives

Organizing the salesforce Developing account management policies

Setting Objectives

Sales objective

Make or buy: own salesforce, or use independent agents?

Size of Salesforce

Organizing Salesforce

Organization/Structure: Regional: get there in person quickly, contingent on calls

Product line: One sales team specific to one product line

Used in companies where the products are very tech oriented, people understand the tech

Type of account: Directed to marketing, sales, big retailers, etc, financial services sold (small businesses, wealth management, etc).

Workload Method

A formula-based method for determining the size of a salesforce that integrates the number of customers served, call frequency, call length, and available selling time to arrive at a figure for the salesforce size.

Workload Formula

NS = NC x CF x CL/AST

NS = Number of Salespeople

NC = Number of customers

CF = Call frequency (# per yr)

CL = Average length of sales call

AST = Avg Amt of salesperson selling time available annually

Sales Plan Implementation

Recruiting, training, motivating, compensating, evaulating

Recruiting

Effective recruitment of salespeople is one of the most crucial tasks of sales management

Job analysis: study of a particular sales position

Job description: written document that describes job

Qualifications

Imagination, strong work ethic, honesty, intimate product knowledge, effective communication/listening skills, attentiveness reflected in responsiveness to buyer needs, loyalty, follow-up

Emotional intelligence

Sales Enablement (Training)

The process of providing the sales organization with the information, content, and tools that help salespeople sell more effectively.

Motivating

Clear job description, effective sales management practices, personal need for achievement, proper compensation and incentives

Compensating

Salary

o Not as much incentive to sell

Straight Commission

o Make a prop of every dollar you sell

o Everything contingent on sales, tough way to live

Combination

o Salary Plus Commission

o Salary Plus Bonus

Evaluating

Sales quota and conversion rate

Behavioral evaluation: used to eval salespeople, assessments of their knowledge, attitude, customer attention, product knowledge, selling skills, appearance, demeanor

Customer Relationship Management Systems and Tech

Salesforce automation (SFA): The use of various technologies to make the sales function more effective and efficient.

Marketing automation: applies systems and tech, including AI, to provide insights to sales people

Customer Service and Support Automation

Consists of processes and tech that supply customers with information about postsale activities, including instalation, repair, replacement, and replenishment, technical expertise pertaining to products

Common Salesperson Eval Measures

1. Conversion Rate

o # Sales/ # Calls

o Divide this, give a ratio of 1 or less

(Higher the rate, the better job youre doing)

2. Meeting Quota

o $ Actual Sales/ $ Sales Goals

o Can be greater than one (Ideally one or less)