Sales Management and Personal Selling Reviewer

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards defining fundamental sales management concepts, personal selling models, organizational structures, and historical eras.

Sales Management

Management of an organization's personal selling function, involving planning, implementation, evaluation, and control of personal selling activities.

Sales Manager

A person who manages the personal selling function, handling strategy, people, evaluation, and control while interacting with salespeople, other departments, customers, and business partners.

Personal Selling

Personal communication with an audience through paid personnel or agents of an organization, in which the audience perceives the organization as the source of the message.

Specialization

The division of work and responsibilities within a sales organization structure.

Centralization

Where decision-making authority is located within a sales organization structure.

Span of Control

The number of people directly supervised by a manager.

Salesforce

The group of salespeople working for an organization.

Salesforce Deployment

Decisions concerning how and where salespeople are assigned.

Sales Strategy

Decisions about how the sales function will achieve its goals.

Recruitment

Finding or identifying potential salesperson candidates.

Selection

Evaluating candidates and choosing the best people to hire.

Sales Training

The continuous development of salespeople and their skills.

Leadership

Influencing salespeople through communication to achieve specific goals and objectives.

Management

Involves all aspects of the sales management process, including recruiting, selecting, and training.

Supervision

Day-to-day control of the salesforce under routine operating conditions.

Motivation

Explains how individuals decide to spend their effort on specific activities over time.

Sales Organization Audit

The most comprehensive approach for evaluating the sales organization as a whole across sales, costs, profitability, and productivity.

Sales Productivity

A measure that includes the costs associated with generating sales and serving customers, focusing on how effectively and profitably sales are made.

Economic Stimuli

The role of salespeople in stimulating action in the business world, assisting in recovery cycles, and helping sustain periods of relative prosperity.

Diffusion of Innovation

The process whereby new products, services, and ideas are distributed to the members of society.

Revenue Producers

The unique role occupied by salespeople within their firms to generate revenue.

Stimulus Response Selling

The simplest view of personal selling, where various stimuli provided by salespeople elicit predictable responses from buyers.

Mental States Selling

An approach (also known as the formula approach) assuming buyers can be led through sequential mental states: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA).

Need Satisfaction Selling

A selling approach based on the notion that the customer is buying to satisfy a particular need, requiring the salesperson to identify and satisfy that need.

Problem-Solving Selling

An extension of need satisfaction selling that goes beyond identifying needs to developing alternative solutions, which may include competitors' offerings.

Consultative Selling

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

Strategic Orchestrator

A primary role in consultative selling where the salesperson arranges the use of the sales organization's resources to satisfy the customer.

Business Consultant

A primary role in consultative selling where the salesperson uses internal and external sources to become an expert on the customer's business and educates them on product offerings.

Long-Term Ally

A primary role in consultative selling where the salesperson supports the customer even when an immediate sale is not expected.

Sales Process

A series of interrelated steps beginning with locating qualified prospective customers, planning the presentation, making an appointment, completing the sale, and performing post-sale activities.

War and Depression Era

The 30-year span from 1915 to 1945 marked by two world wars and the Great Depression, during which new sales methods did not develop quickly.

Professionalism: The Modern Era

The period beginning in the middle 1940s when buyers began demanding well-informed, customer-oriented salespeople rather than high-pressure, fast-talking salespeople.