Ing. Veronika Kopřivová, Ph.D.
Marketing Communication
Personal selling
1 Personal selling
2 Cycle of personal selling
3 Organizing sellers
4 Psychology of personal selling
Content
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• Personal selling evolved from one-off
sales to relational marketing, thus creating
long-term relationships with customers.
• Changes in technology have allowed
personal sales shift to greater speed and
convenience.
1 Personal selling
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• As old as commerce itself.
• A process of influencing customer through the personal contact.
• Oral communication with potential buyers of a product with the intention
of making a sale.
Personal selling
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• A promotional method in which one party (seller)
uses skills and techniques for building personal
relationships with another party.
• Often companies try to make customers aware
of a new product.
• To change preferences, stereotypes and habits of consumers.
• Capable to be much more effective than conventional advertising and other
marketing communication tools, much more limited and mainly very expensive
in the calculations.
Personal selling
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• 68% of B2B customers are lost due
to indifference or perceived apathy
rather than mistakes.
• selling on the business markets,
• selling to the commercial organizations,
• selling on the consumer markets.
Personal selling involves
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• Personal selling is one of the
oldest forms of promotion.
• Involves the use of sales force to
support:
– push strategy (encouraging to buy)
or
– pull strategy (role of sales limited
only to supporting retailers or
providing after-sales services).
Sales force
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• Prospecting
• Communicating
• Selling
• Servicing
• Information gathering
• Allocating
Six main activities of sales force
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• Face-to-face activity (= two-way form of communication) – high degree
of personal attention.
• Sales message could be customized – meet the customer´s needs.
• Possibility to answer immediately the customer questions (including feedback).
• Way how to get across large amount of technical or other complex product
information.
• Gives the chance to demonstrate the product.
• Opportunity to build good long-term relationships.
Advantages of personal selling
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• Costs of employing a sales force (good) sales people are expensive.
• Seller can only (usually) talk to one customer at a time.
• The degree to which the personal selling is misunderstood.
Disadvantages of personal selling
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• Retail sales
• Order sales
• Missionary sale
• Creative selling
• Retail
• Business-to-business sales
• Professional sales
Types of personal selling
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• System of steps in defined sequence, which have to be realized to reach
the seller´s goal = to sell.
• The aim of selling conversation is: establishing, maintenance and
expansion of long-term and mutually profitable relationships.
2 Cycle of personal selling
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• Research of potential customers, information, samples etc.
• Contact (necessary - meeting agreed in advance).
• Presentation – information (esp. technical inf.) about the product.
• Answering questions and objections.
• Conclusion – issuing of order, signing of contract etc.
• Next contact.
Cycle - briefly
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• Attention (Prospecting, Pre-Approach)
– Identification and estimation of potential customers
– The first contact with the customer
– Schedule preliminary testing
• Interest (Approach, Presentation)
– Presentation - description of product properties and their relation to customer needs
• Demand (Handling Objections)
– Product demonstration / services on site
– Resolve customer objections
• Action/behaviour (Closing, Follow-Up)
– Closing of the transaction, the customer's statement of intent to purchase a product
– Aftersales activity of the seller to ensure repeat purchases, early customer loyalty,
enhancing satisfaction with the purchase
Stages of a sales process
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• Building Product Awareness (to educate customers on new product
offerings).
• Creating Interest (communication is a natural method to get the first
experience with product).
• Providing Information (large part of conversation focuses on product
information).
• Stimulating Demand (convince customer to make a purchase).
• Reinforcing the Brand (long-term relationships, regular communication).
Personal selling is used for:
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• Current customer (customer) – already existing contact.
• Prospective customer (prospect) – customer with the demand (need)
which could be supplied by our product.
• Suspective customer (suspect) – customer who could need our product,
but is not conscious of it yet.
Who is the customer?
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• Persuasive communication
• Customer´s involvement
• Proofs
• Visualization
• Dramatization
• Demonstration
Presentation mix
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• Your products are too expensive.
• Product of company X is better.
• Your competitors are cheaper.
• Your product is completely new for us.
• I need the additional time to decide.
• I need to advice about it with Mr. X.
• We don't have any budget left.
• It's just not important right now.
Objections
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• Method of boomerang – to modify the objection into an advantage.
• To create a question from the objection and let customer agree with it.
• Third person – refer to a third person experiences with the product.
Objection handling
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DO or NOT to do?
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Maintain a positive attitude and be enthusiastic.
Remember that objections are a natural part of the sales process and should not be considered as a personal affront.
Tell the customer that they are wrong.
Maintain good eye contact, even when under fire.
Say anything negative about your product or service.
Lose your cool with the customer.
Let an objection go by without an answer.
Listen closely to an objection.
Tell the customer, “You don’t understand.”
Argue with a customer.
Acknowledge the objection and then give your point of view.
Knock the competition. That takes the focus off you and your company, and you never want to do that.
Say anything negative about your company.
Prepare to prove your position with testimonials, references, and documentation.
Lie to a customer.
Be defensive. That’s not a positive approach to an objection.
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3 Organizing sellers
Rewarding
Motivation
Training
Organizing
Planning
Evaluation
Managing
sellers
Recruiment
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• Influence the customers in their
decision making.
• Mediate the information to both sides
(to customer and also feedback to
producer).
• Present the products.
• Provide the services.
• The sales person = the company.
The sellers should
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• Order getters – seller is actively engaged in using his skills to obtain the orders.
• Order takers – the greatest number of sellers are order takers. They primarily
assist customers in way which is less assertive than order getters use.
• Order influencers – concentrate on activities that targets those people who
influence purchases of final customers (missionary salesperson – for example
pharmaceuticals: sellers discuss products with doctors (influencers) who write
the prescriptions).
• Sales support – assist with selling activities to other sales professionals.
Selling Roles
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• Diction competences
– Content and formulation
– Language skills
– Articulation
• Behaviour (style)
– Establishing of contacts
– Adaptability, modern image
– Gesture in communication
• Tact
– The „art“ of listening
– Pragmatism
– Representing of estimated role (during the conversation)
Sellers competences 1
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• Cogency
– Product knowledge
– Trust in quality of the offer
– Effective argumentation
– Demonstration
• Capability to Influence
– Knowledge of psychology of sales
• Self-control
– Objectivity in analyses
• Capability of Observation
– Sensitivity
Sellers competences 2
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• Initiative
– Active attitude, own ideas
– Independency
• Opinion
– Abstract thinking
– Rational behaviour
• Self-confidence
– Self-understanding
– Knowing the edges of his own possibilities, resistivity in extreme situation
Sellers characters 1
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• Sense for doing business
– Empathize to client's position
– „Sixth sense“ for consideration of sales opportunities
• Directness and sincerity
– Ego-involvement
– Helpfulness to clients aims
• Self-criticism
– Identification and elimination of own mistakes
• Happiness of agreed contract
– Aim to close the client's agreement
Sellers characters 2
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• Geographically: based on geographical division. Each seller has the area where
he offers all products of the company.
• Product orientation: based on allocation of the seller to exact product or
produce range – the advantage: specialization.
• Orientation to customer: based on the contact with selected customers. Seller
offers them the whole range or products.
• Functional specialization: based on functions/activities - the sales are divided
into several activities, the sellers are specialized to some activity.
Structuring of sellers
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• Direct sales using the distribution net of independent distributors,
which step by step recruit, train and motivate other sellers.
• Advantage: low starting costs.
• For example: Amway, Avon, Oriflame.
Multilevel marketing – MLM
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• Communication: VERBAL x NONVERBAL
• Incongruence – clash between verbal and nonverbal communication.
• Nonverbal communication is the process
of transmitting messages without spoken words,
sometimes called body language.
4 Psychology of personal selling
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• Kinesics
• Chronemics
• Paralanguage
• A gesture
• Face-play
• Oculesics
• Haptics
• Proxemics
The forms of non-verbal communication
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• Smile
• Expressing interest
• Adequate eye-contact
• Sufficient loudness, voice accent
• Open attitude
• Gesture of hands support the meaning of speech
Positive aspects of body language
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• Uncertain voice
• Fearful expression
• Avoiding eye-contact
• Defensive position of hands and legs
• Covering mouth by hand
• Too big distance
Negative aspects of body language (inferior)
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• Incompromising voice
• Quick speech
• Extreme face expression
• Abnormal eye-contact
• Dominant posture
• Penetration to personal distance
Negative aspects of body language (superior)
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Can you guess the feeling according to face-play?
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Thank you for your attention!☺
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