BUSINESS MARKETING

CH. 17
COMMUNICATIONS
Managing the Personal Selling Function
 INTRODUCTION
 “The Customer is the strategy”
-John Chambers(President & CEO of CISCO)
 Importance of Personal Selling

 Business Markets v/s Customer Markets

 Lead role of the salesperson

 Execution of Sales Strategy

 RELATIONSHIP SELLING
 Relationship Marketing
- Selling Center “initiate and maintain
relationships with industrial customers”
- Buying Center “participate in the purchasing
decision and share goals and risks of that
decision.”
(* Ref:Diagram)
 Relationship quality
- Trust in the salesperson.
- Satisfaction with the salesperson.
Relationship Mgmt. Process in Business
Marketing
 FORMS OF SALES
ORGANIZATION IN
BUSINESS MARKETING

 GEOGRAPHICAL ORGANIZATION
 PRODUCT ORGANIZATION
 MARKET CENTERED ORGANIZATION
 GEOGRAPHICAL ORGANIZATION
 The most common form of sales organizarion.
 This method reduces travel distance & time
between salespersons & customers, thus
contributing to cost reduction.
 It’s disadvantage of the geographical sales
organization is that each salesperson must be
able to perform all of the selling tasks for all of
the firm’s products and for all customers in a
particular territory.
 Another disadvantage is that the salesperson
has substantial leeway in choosing which
products and customers to emphasize.
 PRODUCT ORGANIZATION
 Here salesperson specialize in relatively narrow
components of the total product line.
 A prime benefit of this approach is that it
enables the sales force to develop a level of
product knowledge that enhances the value of the
firm’s total offering to customers.
 Here the drawback is the cost of developing and
deploying sales force is high.
 MARKET CENTERED
ORGANIZATION
 It involves learning the specific requirements of a
particular industry or customer type and to
mould the organization to suit those needs and
types.
 In such an organization the salesperson is better
prepared to identify and respond to buying
influentials.
 TRADITIONAL SELLING VERSUS KEY
ACCOUNT SELLING
Traditional Selling Key Account Selling
Focus Focus
Sales  Varies  Large volume of purchases by
volume the customer, often across
multiple business units of the
seller.
Nature of  Core product/service plus
 Core product/service customized applications and
Product value-added services.
Time
 Short- term  Long-term
Benefits  Lower prices and higher  Lower total costs Broader set of
quality strategic benefits
Information
 Limited : Narrow focus  Extensive : Broader focus as
Sales Force on price and product firms share strategic goals
Objective features.
 Become preferred supplier
 Maximize revenue Lower customer firm’s total
satisfied Customers costs Enhance learning in the
relationship
 FRANK 3 PHASE APPROACH IN
SELECTING KEY ACCOUNTS

 Phase 1

 Phase 2

 Phase 3
 Prioritize
Internal Develop
relationship
Reputation strong
building has
Enhanced internal link
a key role
Forge
Successful multiple
Engagemen connections
t outcomes Partner in client
with client organisation
Manage to shope
client new Initiate
Relationship Business involvement
of multiple proposal with client
Levels

Align Early
internal Knowledge Knowledge involvement
Resource to of of in client
Client needs profitability competitive Engagement
drivers strategies

Fig. Cycles of Account Management Success

ISOLATING THE ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
PROCESS

 What makes them successful?

 Building internal relationships
 Forging relationships with customer organization
 Aligning and crafting
 Enhanced internal reputation
 ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT SUCCESS
 Building Internal Relationship
 Forging Relationship Within the Customer
Organization
 Managing the customer Engagement Process

 Aligning and Crafting

 Enhanced Internal Reputation

SALES ADMINISTRATION
 Recruitment & Selecting Sales Persons

 Training,

 Motivating,

 Supervising,

 Evaluating

 Controlling the Sales Force

 SALES ADMINISTRATION
 Recruiting and Selecting:
 Done by?
 Careful selection is important for two reasons:
 Substantial costs involved.
 Mistakes are costly and detrimental to customer relations and
sales-force performance.
 Trade-offs
 Experience v. inexperience
 Training:
 Principal methods used are on-the-job training,
individual instruction, in-house classes, and external
seminars.
 Popular training techniques include instructional
videotapes/DVDs, lectures, roll-playing exercises, slides,
films, and interactive computer programs
 SALES ADMINISTRATION
 Motivation:
 “amount of effort salesperson desires to expend on each
of the activities or tasks associated with his or her job.”
 Two types of rewards
• Intrinsically mediated rewards
• Extrinsically mediated rewards
 SALES ADMINISTRATION
 Job performance
 Motivation
 Aptitude
 Role perception
 Evaluation & Control
 “Monitor and control salesforce to see if objectives are being
met.”
 Performance measures
 Behavior based
 Outcome Based

 Setting performance standards

A critical sales management task: deploying the sales force.

Deployment Decisions Facing Sales Organizations

 THREE TERRITORY TRAITS FOR
SALES RESPONSE STUDIES
Potential is a measure of the total business opportunity
for all sellers in a particular market.
Concentration is the degree to which potential is
confined to a few larger accounts in that territory.
Dispersed—sales will probably be lower due to time
wasted in travel.
 Sales Resource Opportunity
 Deployment analysis
matches sales resources to
Grid
market opportunities.
 A sales resource opportunity
grid can be used to classify
the industrial firm’s portfolio
of PCU’s.
 PCU opportunity is the total
potential that the PCU
represents for all sellers.
 Sales organization strength
includes the competitive
advantages or distinctive
competencies that the firm
enjoys within the PCU.