EFFECTIVE PERSONAL SELLING

PROF. IYER
SALES MANAGEMENT
Effective Personal Selling

2
 Effective Personal Selling
• Why effective selling matters
• The personal selling process
• Effective selling and hiring effective sales
representatives

3
 Why does effective selling matter:
Profitability?
Practice % who consider Overall Effective Firms % Difference
themselves very Survey
or quite
effective
Systems selling to major 18% 11.8% 15.2% 28.8%
accounts

Determining the profitability of 20 11.8 21.8 84.7

sales to each account

Selling at higher prices 27 11.8 8.4 (28.8)

Gaining share within existing 37 11.8 32.7 177

accounts

Selling new products 32 11.8 34.4 192

Retaining existing accounts 62 11.8 22.6 91.5

4
 The personal selling process
• Prospecting
• Classifying Leads
• Pre-call planning
• Approach/relating
• Needs discovery
• Presentation
• Handling Objections
• Closing
• Follow-up and servicing

5
 Prospecting:

• Building a prospect (suspect) list

– Direct inquiries
– Directories
– Referrals
– Cold Calling

6
 Qualifying Prospects

• Needs
• Buying Authority
• Ability to pay

7
 Pre-call Planning
• What do I want to accomplish?
• What do I know about the prospect?
– Their size, markets, current suppliers, buying routines
• Where can I find information
– company records
– other salespeople
– customer employees
– published information/web
– observation (what’s being delivered/loading dock)
• What am I going to say?

8
 The Approach/Relating

• Gaining access
– Direct personal contact
– Phoning ahead
– Personal letters
• Establishing rapport
– Know your product/know your customer
– Listen to your customer
– Reduce tension
• propriety, competence, commonality, intent

9
 Needs Discovery

• Permission
• Fact finding
• Feeling finding
• Checking
• Using open and closed-ended questions

10
 The Presentation: basic selling process models

• Stimulus-Response presentations
• Need Satisfaction presentations
• Problem-Solutions presentations

11
 Stimulus-Response Presentations

• Translate features into benefits

• “Canned” presentations
• Useful when..
– A product is is standardized
– or when the benefits are the same for all customers
– inexperienced salespeople/ high turnover
• Ensures a uniform, high-quality presentation

12
 Need-Satisfaction Presentations
• Discovering & meeting customer needs
• Discovery occurs early in selling process
• Useful when..
– Dollar value of the sale is high enough to justify the time
spent
– Different benefits need to be emphasized for different
customers
• Requires training the sales force to ask the right
questions.
• Most commonly used.

13
 Problem-Solutions Presentations

• More formal than the need-satisfaction approach

• More team oriented/ technical sales people are
usually involved
• Useful when..
– Dollar value is high enough to justify the expense (or you
get the customer to pay for it)
– Long selling cycles
• Typical for computer systems, advertising campaigns,
telecommunications systems

14
 Handling Objections

• Real objections
• Pseudo-objections

15
 Closing

• When to close
• Closing techniques
– alternative choice
– summary close

16
 Follow-up

• Supporting the buying decision

• Managing implementation
• Dealing with dissatisfaction
• Enhancing the relationship

17
 How salespeople spend their time
Face-to-Face Selling Account Service
33% Coordination
16%
Phone Selling
16%

Internal Meetings
Administration
Travel 5%
10%
20%

SOURCE: William A. O’Connell and William Keenan, Jr., “The Shape of Things to Come,”
Sales & Marketing Management, January181990, pp. 36-41.