CHAPTER 38

Personal Selling and

Sales Management

© Macmillan Publishers India

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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

⮚ Appreciate that Communicating Value is the Central Role of

Personal Selling
⮚ Comprehend the Nature, Significance, and Scope of Personal
Selling
⮚ Understand the Personal Selling Process
⮚ Comprehend the Main Responsibilities of Sales Management :
How to Manage the Personal Selling Effort of the Firm
• Managing the Sales Force – Selection, Recruitment and Induction
• Compensation Plans for the Sales Force
• Motivating the Sales Force
• Supervision, Coordination and Control
• Training the Sales Force
⮚ Size up the Characteristics that Make a Good Sales Manager
© Macmillan Publishers India
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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management
Communicating Value, the Central Role of Personal Selling
■ Carries Out the Value Communication Task in a Unique Way
● Personal Selling does the communication directly to the consumer
■ Nature, Significance, and Scope of Personal Selling
● Actual sale is its goal
Chart 38.1 A Few Definitions of
● Performs several tasks Personal Selling (Page 713)
● Serves as a competitive advantage
● Salesmen, a unique resource of the firm
● An expensive resource, as well
■ The Essence of Personal Selling
● Getting customers and keeping customers
■ Problem Solving, the Central Task; Attitude, the Key Trait Needed
● Empathy and Ego-drive make a good salesman (See Slide 7)

The Personal Selling Process

⮚ Prospecting
• Identifying the prospects and gathering leads
• Qualifying the prospects and analysing their purchases
• Today,© Macmillan
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can be used India
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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management
The Personal Selling Process (…contd)
⮚ Pre-approach: Planning and preparation
⮚ Approach: Initial interaction
⮚ Sales presentation:
Actual delivery of sales story/message/demo
The AIDA approach
⮚ Negotiation Chart 38.2 Aspects to be Taken Care
⮚ Post sale service of in Sales Presentations (Page 714)
● Relationship selling
■ Skill-set on which Personal Selling Rests
Chart 38.3 Skill Set, on which Effective Personal Selling Rests (Page 715)

Sales Management – Managing the Personal Selling Effort:

Tasks Performed by Sales Management
■ Determining Personal Selling Objectives Chart 38.4 Tasks of Sales
• Goals clarify roles Management (Page 717)
• Areas where personal selling objectives have to be set

© Macmillan Publishers India

Chart 38.5 Areas Where Personal Selling Objectives have to be Set (Page 718)
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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management
Tasks Performed by Sales Management (…contd)
■ Formulating Sales Policies Chart 38.6 Areas Where Sales
■ Structuring the Sales Force Policies have to be Set (Page 718)
■ Deciding Sales Force Size
■ Designing Sales Territories
⮚ What is a sales territory?
⮚ Why sales territories? Chart 38.7 Advantages of
Sales Territories (Page 719)
⮚ Criteria for territory design
● Territory size and territory shape
⮚ Two commonly used methods of designing sales territories
● Equal workload method and equal potential method
⮚ Reviewing territory design
⮚ Assigning right territories to right salesmen
⮚ Maintaining database on territories
■ Fixing Sales Quotas and Targets
● Participative approach desirable
© Macmillan
⮚ Activity quotas, in additionPublishers India
to sales quotas
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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management
Tasks Performed by Sales Management (…contd)
■ Creating the Sales Force – Recruitment and Induction
⮚ Right recruitment, the ABC of sales management
⮚ Problems recruiters face in selecting salesmen
● Bio-data /CVs do not help much
● Most of the tests are ineffective in assessing selling ability
● The tests are also ‘fakable’
● The ‘traits approach’ does not help much in selecting salespersons
■ What Should be the Selection Criteria
● Empathy and ego-drive make a good salesman: Mayer & Greenberg

Exhibit 38.1 Empathy and Ego Drive Make a Good Salesman (Page 722)

■ Induction and Initial Training of the Recruited Salesman

● Induction: Patni Computers and UST Global
● Initial training: IBM
■ Outsourcing of sales force: Staffing consultants Ma Foi, Team Lease, Kelly’s,
People One Consulting
©38.2
Exhibit Macmillan Publishers
Outsourcing India
of Sales Force (Page 723)
Ltd. 6
 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Tasks Performed by Sales Management (…contd)
Management

Managing the Sales Force

● After recruitment Salesmen have to be retained, managed, motivated
■ Sales Force Compensation: A prime requisite for retaining salesmen
⮚ Characteristics of a good sales compensation plan
Chart 38.8 Characteristics of Good Sales Compensation Plan (Page 724)
⮚ Fixing the compensation level Chart 38.9 Straight-Salary &
⮚ Fixing the compensation mix Straight-Commission (Page 725)
⮚ Comparative merits of the various alternatives
⮚ Combination plan
⮚ A few general rules Exhibit 38.3 Do not De-motivate ! (Page 726)

Motivating the Sales Force

⮚ Recognition Chart 38.10 Motivation Mix (Page 727)
• Example of Eureka Forbes
• Recognition delayed is recognition denied
© Macmillan Publishers India
• Instant recognition – ‘Tell him now!’
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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management
Tasks Performed by Sales Management (…contd)
Motivating the Sales Force (…contd)
● Cognizant’s Wah! programme
● KPIT Cummins
● Providing scope for earning social prestige
■ Morale Building : Morale and motivation go hand in hand
Chart 38.11 Morale Building (Page 728)

Sales Supervision/Coaching/Territory Management

● Supervision is leadership in action; it is not bossing, nor being nice
● ‘Being nice’ is not the same as being an effective supervisor
● Managing key customers/key accounts
● Guiding salesmen on route planning
⮚ Sales Force Automation
⮚ A sales manager has to be a good captain

Exhibit 38.4 Leading the Team – Shane Warne in IPL T20 (Page 730)
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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management
Tasks Performed by Sales Management (…contd)

■ Performance Appraisal of Sales Force

⮚ Appraisal system must lead to superior performance
⮚ Watch them in action and then assess them
⮚ Evaluate against predetermined norms/targets in every key aspect
⮚ Reward them according to their contributions
■ Sales Communication
⮚ Good communication helps to resolve conflicts
■ Sales Reports
⮚ Sales reports facilitate checking how far the salesmen ‘plan their
work, work their plan’
■ Sales Control and Sales Coordination
⮚ Instruments of sales control

Chart 38.12 Instruments of Sales Control (Page 731)

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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management
Tasks Performed by Sales Management (…contd)
▪ Training the Sales Force
⮚ Steps in designing and organising sales training

© Macmillan Publishers India

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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management
Tasks Performed by Sales Management (…contd)

Training the Sales Force (...contd)

⮚ Spelling out the aims of the training
Chart 38.14 Aims of Sales Training (Page 733)
⮚ Training can make one a better salesman
⮚ Are salesmen born or made? A continuing debate..
⮚ Type of sales training
● In-company: on-the-job & classroom kind
● External training: individual and group
⮚ Determining the training needs
⮚ The content of training
● Knowledge, Skills, Attitude
⮚ Training must cover attitude too; empathy, the main element in
attitude
● IBM trains its customers to be empathetic to customers

● Sales training – IBM

© Macmillan Publishers
Exhibit India734)
38.5 IBM (Page
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 Chapter 38: Personal Selling and Sales
Management

To Sum Up, What Makes a Good Sales Manager?

Chart 38.15 What Makes a Good Sales Manager? (Page 735)

■ The Unique Role of the Field Sales Manager

● The job is clear-cut and highly visible

● He is the fellow on the firing line

● He is the interface between the company and the consumer

● Man management, his key job

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