Page 523 - Foundations of Marketing

490 Part 6 | Promotion Decisions

purchase process. Team selling , which involves the salesperson joining with people from
the firm’s financial, engineering, and other functional areas, is appropriate for such products.
The salesperson takes the lead in the personal selling process, but other members of the team
bring their unique skills, knowledge, and resources to the process to help customers find solu-
tions to their own business challenges. Selling teams may be created to address a particular
short-term situation, or they may be formal, ongoing teams. Team selling is advantageous in
situations calling for detailed knowledge of new, complex, and dynamic technologies like jet
aircraft and medical equipment. It can be difficult, however, for highly competitive salesper-
sons to adapt to a team selling environment.

Relationship Selling

Relationship selling , also known as consultative selling, involves building mutually benefi-
cial long-term associations with a customer through regular communications over prolonged
periods of time. Like team selling, it is especially used in business-to-business marketing.
Relationship selling involves finding solutions to customers’ needs by listening to them, gain-
ing a detailed understanding of their organizations, understanding and caring about their needs
and challenges, and providing support after the sale. Sales representatives from organizations
such as Eli Lilly have begun to change their sales tactics to focus on building relationships.
Rather than spending large amounts of time describing the benefits of their products, Eli Lilly
sales representatives are spending more time listening to the doctors. This sales tactic, known
team selling The use of a as soft selling, has often led to higher sales from customers who do not feel overly pressured
team of experts from all func- to purchase a product they know little about. Sales relationships are also built on being able
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tional areas of a firm, led by
a salesperson, to conduct the to recover when customers are concerned about services. Being proactive in identifying the
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personal selling process need for recovery behaviors is a major part of relationship selling. For example, contacting
the customer if delivery time is longer than expected as well as explaining what happened and
relationship selling The
building of mutually beneficial when the product will be delivered is important.
long-term associations with a Relationship selling has significant implications for the seller. Studies show that firms
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customer through regular com- spend six times longer on finding new customers than in keeping current customers. Thus,
munications over prolonged relationship selling that generates loyal long-term customers is likely to be extremely profit-
periods of time able for the firm both in repeat sales as well as the money saved in trying to find new customers.

Team Selling
Team selling is becoming popu-
lar, especially in companies © iStockphoto.com/Jeffrey Smith
where the selling process is
complex and requires a variety
of specialized skills.

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