Page 376 - Introduction to Business

350 PART 3 Marketing

Personal Selling

personal selling Using a sales force to Personal selling is the use of a sales force to sell products and services. In 2001,
sell products and services there were slightly more than 16 million salespeople in the United States and
almost half of these were females. It is important for a company to understand what
a salesperson does. Exhibit 10.4 indicates the four major responsibilities for sales
personnel and the components of each.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 3
Discuss the sales force’s main responsibilities.
Before salespeople can begin to plan sales presentations, they must acquire infor-
mation about their company, the product sold, the competition, and their prospec-
tive customers. Salespeople must understand the basic objectives, philosophies,
operations, and policies of their company, especially those that pertain to the sell-
ing job. For example, salespeople must know how much credit can be extended to
customers and how long deliveries will take. It is helpful if they can tell customers
how much time will be involved in processing orders.
Product knowledge is crucial to success in selling. Complete information about
the products handled, including sizes, styles, colors, durability, and so on, is neces-
sary. Salespeople must also know why and how their products are different from
competitors’ products. The sales force must be able to tell customers about the
benefits they will obtain from using their company’s products and about after-the-
sale service available. They must know the product prices and the discounts from
these prices.
Salespeople do a better job when they have knowledge about their company’s
competitors, especially their products, prices, differences between competitors’
products and theirs, strategies of competitors’ sales forces, benefits stressed for
competing products, and changes in competitors’ marketing strategies. There are
many sources of information that a sales force can use to keep abreast of the com-
petition. Annual reports and newspaper and magazine articles are excellent
sources. Customers are an invaluable source of information about competitors.
Trade fairs and competitors’ advertisements frequently are useful.
The more knowledge salespeople have about their customers, the better job
they will be able to do. A sales force must know the needs and desires of the market
so that it can show how these needs and desires can be satisfied by the products
being sold. Those who make the purchase decision should be identified. The extent
to which customers are satisfied with current offerings should be determined.
Once the sales force has the information necessary for successful selling, it is
EXHIBIT 10.4 ready to develop plans for making presentations to prospects and customers.

Salesperson’s
Responsibilities

Information required Pre-presentation Giving the sales Post-presentation
for successful selling planning presentation activities

• Company knowledge • Prospecting • Opening the sales • Following-up and
• Product knowledge • Obtaining and planning presentation servicing customers
• Market knowledge the sales interview • Securing desire • Paper work
• Knowledge of • Routing • Handling objections • Handling key and
competition • Closing marginal accounts
• Time management
• Evaluation

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