You are on page 1of 17

SALES MANAGEMENT

Effective Personal Selling

Effective Personal Selling


Why effective selling matters
The personal selling process
Effective selling and hiring effective
sales representatives

Why does effective selling


matter: Profitability?
Practice

% who consider
themselves very
or quite
effective
18%

Overall
Survey

Effective Firms

% Difference

11.8%

15.2%

28.8%

Determining the profitability of


sales to each account

20

11.8

21.8

84.7

Selling at higher prices

27

11.8

8.4

(28.8)

Gaining share within existing


accounts

37

11.8

32.7

177

Selling new products

32

11.8

34.4

192

Retaining existing accounts

62

11.8

22.6

91.5

Systems selling to major


accounts

The personal selling


process

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

Prospecting:
Building a prospect (suspect) list

Direct inquiries
Directories
Referrals
Cold Calling

Qualifying Prospects
Needs
Buying Authority
Ability to pay

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 (whats being delivered/loading dock)

What am I going to say?


7

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
8

Needs Discovery

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

The Presentation: basic


selling process models
Stimulus-Response presentations
Need Satisfaction presentations
Problem-Solutions presentations

10

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
11

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.
12

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
13

Handling Objections
Real objections
Pseudo-objections

14

Closing
When to close
Closing techniques
alternative choice
summary close

15

Follow-up

Supporting the buying decision


Managing implementation
Dealing with dissatisfaction
Enhancing the relationship

16

How salespeople spend


their time
Face-to-Face Selling
33%
Phone Selling

Account
Service
Coordination
16%

16%

Administration
10%
SOURCE:

Travel

Internal
Meetings

20%

5%

William A. OConnell and William Keenan, Jr., The Shape of Things to Come,
Sales & Marketing Management, January 1990, pp. 36-41.

17

You might also like