Personal selling is defined as the straight & short demonstration of a product by a representative of selling organization to a prospective customer.
The personal communication of information to convince someone to purchase something is personal selling. When a representative of a business organization directly contact with a customer to tell about a product to get a sale, personal selling occurs.
Since products & services are expensive & complex, so personal selling is significant for business-to-business marketers. Personal selling is the biggest single operating expense in many business organizations.
Nature of Personal Selling
One of the oldest professions in the world is selling. Recently many salespeople are well trained professionals and well educated who work to establish and keep long-term links with customers.
See Also: Sales Promotion and Its Objectives
They establish these links by listening to their customers, accessing requirements of customers and organizing the business organization’s struggle to work out customer issues. A wide variety of positions and responsibilities are covered by the term salesperson. The person can be
- An order getter
- An inside order taker
The Role of the Sales Force
The interpersonal arm of the promotional mix is the personal selling. The business organization to the customer is represented by sales people and they serve as an intermediary connecting the customer to the business organization.
Salespeople
Salespeople serve for a business organization and do any of the following
- Communicating with current or potential customers.
- Prospecting of new business.
- Information gathering & servicing customers.
Sales positions range from
- Taking Orders.
- Delivering Products.
- Educating customers or establishing goodwill.
- Creative selling
- Positions where technical knowledge is needed
Sales Management
The analysis, planning, implementation and control of the sales force tasks are included in the sales management.
Personal selling includes two-way, personal communication between salespeople and single consumer sales while advertising non-personal, one-way communication with target customer groups.
In more complex selling situations, personal selling can be more effective than advertising. From business organization to business organization, the role of personal selling varies.
Some business organizations do not have salespeople at all. The sales force is regarded as the connection between business organization and its customers. The salesperson can represent both seller and buyer i.e.
- They represent both customers to the business organization.
- They represent business organization to the customer.
Characteristics of Personal Selling
There is flexibility of system in personal selling where it gives one to one link between seller and purchaser. Particular sales prospects are identified by them.
Finding prospecting qualified potential customers is the first step in selling process. The crucial to selling success is approaching the right potential customers.
Direct contact with the powerful purchasers give opportunity to represent the product and to customers and to answer the questions & queries of the customers
The salesperson informs about the product “story” to the purchaser that how the product can save or make money, during the presentation step of the selling process.
Product features are described by salesperson but he focuses on presenting customer advantages. By getting customer to perform most of the talking the sales person begins with a search for consumer requirements, by using need-satisfaction approach.
See Also: Total Promotion Budget and Mix
At very same time particular objections are raised by customers that can be overcome, during demonstration. Objections are always raised by the customers when they ask to place an order or during presentation.
The issue can be either psychological or logical, and objections are mostly unspoken. Positive approach should be used by the salesperson in handling the objections, search the concealed objections, enquires the purchaser to clarify any objections.
More information is provided by taking objections as opportunities, and converts the objections into reasons for purchasing. In the skills of handling objections, each salesperson requires training.
Builds Relationships
As just mentioned that principles of personal selling are transaction oriented which means that their objective is to assist salespeople to finish particular sale with a customer. But in many situations a simple sale is not search by the business organization.
A main customer is targeted and that would like to win and maintain. The business organization would like to represent that it has the abilities to function the customer over a long period of time in a mutually profitable relationship.
They emphasize on keeping profitable long term relationships, by practicing relationship marketing, with customers by making superior customer value & satisfaction.
They are realizing that it costs more to capture new customer from competitors than to maintain the existing ones while operating in mature markets and facing severe competition.
Recently customers are global and large. The suppliers, who sell & provide coordinated set of products & services to various locations, are preferred by the customers.
Furthermore the suppliers who rapidly solve the issues that come in various parts of nation or world are favored by the customers.
Those suppliers that function closely with customer teams to enhance processes& products are also favored. The sale is simply the starting of the relationship, for these customers.
Advantages of Personal Selling
The following are advantages of personal selling over other promotion tools.
- It can be concentrated on prospective customers.
- For individual customers it can be adapted.
- It consequence in real sale, while most other types of promotion promote customer close to sale.
Disadvantages of Personal Selling
The disadvantages of personal selling are as follow.
- Expensive per contact.
- It is costly to build and function a sales force
- Labor incentive.
- Various sales calls may be required to make a single sale.
- It may be hard to appeal high-caliber people.
Types of Personal Selling
There are two main kinds of personal selling which are as follow.
- The salespeople go to the customers.
- The customers come to the salespeople.
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