A Presentation on

PERSONAL SELLING AND SALES

FORCE MANAGEMENT
 Introduction

 Personal selling, popularly known as salesman ship, is

considered one of the options for distribution and also tool for
market promotion.
 Company can distribute its products either with the help of
middlemen or by hiring salesmen. It is also one of the
promotional tools.
 Personal selling increasingly used for consumer products as
well as industrial products.
 Many companies, Manufacturing and marketing consumer
products use both the means- Advertising and personal selling
to get the maximum possible consumer response.
 The branch of marketing management that deals with
managing personal selling efforts is known as sales force
mangement.
 DEFINITIONS

 “Salesmanship is the act of influencing customer via

face to face communication. It is one of the methods
to promote and/or distribute the products.”

 “Salesmanship is an art of teaching and helping

buyers to buy the products.”

 “Salesmanship is what salesman does.”

 Characteristics of salesmanship

 Salesmanship is one of the options to promote or distribute the

product. It is optional technique.
 It is aimed at increasing sales.
 It involves oral and face to face presentation of goods and
services.
 It facilitates two way communication-providing information to
the buyers and collecting the same from buyers.
 It is capable of measuring an immediate feedback of buyers.
 It is an act of influencing attitudes, preferences, and behavior to
win buyer’s confidence.
 It is a profession. It s treated as professional activities as it
satisfies the most conditions of a profession
 Importance of personal selling

 In today’s marketing practices, personal selling has

much important role to play.
 For many consumer products like home appliances,
cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, publications, etc.,
 salesmanship is considered as an indispensable
technique to promote product as well as to increase
sales.
 Many companies enjoy a strong position in market
only due to effective personal selling.
 Salesman can personally attend each customer to
convince as well to solve problems.
 IMPORTANCE

 Two-Way Communication:-It is the best tool for two-way

communication. Salesman can provide necessary information to
customer about company’s offer, and also can collect information from
customer. Customer can actively involve with salesman to solve his
doubts and objections. It is not possible in any other methods of market
promotion.
 Personal Attention:-Advertising and publicity are among mass
communication tools. They do not cater individual needs. Personal
selling focuses on personal problems of customers. It is comparatively
more effective and result-oriented.
 Detail Demonstration:-Except television advertisements,
demonstration is not possible. However, television demonstration is
much limited. Salesman can provide a detail demonstration and can
supervise when customer is making the actual use of products. For
technical products, it has more relevance.
 Complementary to other Promotional Tools:-Personal selling
can support advertising, sales promotion, and publicity. It removes the
drawbacks of advertising and sales promotion. Advertising increases
awareness while personal selling reinforces the advertising message.
Similarly, it can make sales promotion tools more effective by personal
guidance or conviction.
 Immediate Feedback:-This is the only market promotion technique
that provides an immediate feedback. At the end of every call/visit, a
salesman can easily judge whether the customer is interested or
indented to buy.
 Individual Services:-Salesmanship offers individual services. It can
meet personal expectations of buyers. It leads to customer satisfaction.
 Flexibility:-Sales talks and presentation can be adjusted according to
situation to suit individual nature, motives, and problems.
 Customer Confidence:-By systematic sales talk and
presentation, a capable salesman can remove all doubts, quarries,
objections and misunderstandings, and can win customer’s
confidence. It increases customers’ faith in company and its offers.

 Triple Rewards:-Salesmanship offers triple rewards. It benefits

all parties, including customer, salesman, and company. Customer
is satisfied with products and services; salesman can achieve his
targets; and company can improve its market share and profits.

 Improving Image:-Note that salesmanship can remove bad

image or misunderstanding by highlighting company’s
achievements and offers. The detailed explanation about company
and its products removes all doubts and misunderstandings. It
helps in restoring company image and reputation in market.
 Sales force management

 Sales force means team of salesmen. Salesman are also

called as sales representative, market executives or sales
person.
 personal selling is expensive medium of promotion as well
as distribution.
 The effectiveness personal selling depends on how it is
managed.
 Sales force management means planning, organizing,
staffing, directing, and controlling of personal selling
activities of the organisation.
 Sales force management is the management of
salesmen.
 Sales force objectives

• Sales force objectives can be classified into two categories they are
qualitative objectives and quantitative objectives.
• Qualitative objectives
• To do entire selling job: To carry out entire selling activity is the
responsibility of sales force. In some cases it may also happen that
there are no other elements of promotion mix present an only element
present is the selling functions.
• To service existing Accounts: it is proven fact that obtaining new
customer is far more difficult than maintaining the older ones. One of
the primary objective carried out by the sales force is maintaining and
servicing the existing customers.
• After all marketing function strives to attain customer satisfaction and
for this it is important for the sales force to see it that interest of the
existing customers looked after.
 To search out and obtain new customers:since sales people are the
ones who out into the market, they stand in the best to obtain new
customers for a company, though existing customers are important for a
company, every company strives to gain customers in this competitive
environment.
 To provide technical advice and assistance to customers: Many
products like cars, electronic gadgets, heavy machinery, etc. where
customers require assistance before they use them. providing technical
advice in buying as well as in using sophisticated product is also an
important objective.
 To collect and report market information: one of the commonly
practice method of sales forecasting is sales force opinion. This is so
because sales person is the one who is continuously attached to the
customers and the market. he is aware of the changes coming into the
market, the changes coming in customer preferences.
 One of the important objective of salesperson is also to provide the
information about the changes coming in the market so company can make
better products and strategies
 Quantitative objectives
 To capture and retain a certain market shares: The proportion of
sales is in the hands of sales force. And so they are in a good position to
know what the company’s competitive position is. And so to maintain
marker share is one of the objective of sales force. For ex. If a new
competitor has posed a threat to the company’s market share,
the sales force may start selling more aggressively to retain
market share.
 To obtain some number of new accounts of given types: Today is a
time of high competition and the market is full of competitors and its easy
for customer to switch from one company to another.
 The certain number of customers will definitely switch to another company
and few new customer will be added. It is the responsibility of sales force
to see that drop out rate should not exceed the rate of new customers
coming in, so as to maintain market shares.
 To keep personal selling expenses within set limits: As
discussed above, if a company manages to make a certain amount of
sales but is unable to control the expenses it will hamper profitability of
the company, the sales force must see to it that the personal selling
expenses remain under control.
 To secure targeted percentage of certain accounts business: A
company sell to different types of customers. though all customers are
important to a company, some need to be given more importance
because they add immensely to the profitability of the company.
 Sales force size

 Sales force size is like a manpower planning applied to sales force

activities. It decides how many salesmen a company needs
during specific time for effective selling and distribution
activities.
 We know that personal selling is more effective as well as
expensive medium to sell and distribute company’s products.
 A company must have adequate number of salesmen to carry out
selling activities effectively.
 FACTOR AFFECTING SALES FORCE SIZE
 1. Company’s general and marketing objectives
 2. Current and expected market share
 3. Degree of competition
 4. Types of products
 5. Degree of product differentiation.
 6. Level of other promotional efforts
 7. Geographical concentration of customers
 8.personal selling cost and firm’s financial capacity
 9. Skills and abilities of salesmen
 10. Availability of salesmen and their expectations
 11. Number and types of task company wants the
salesmen to perform.
 Methods of determining the sales force size

 Equalised workload method: Before a company decides upon the

size of the sales force it carries out job analysis defines the efforts
required to sell the product for a company. This effort is known
as the workload.
 Ex. A company targets to sell 100 units of a product in a month.
 Through past experience company knows that a sales person can
sell one units when he meets 10 new customers.
 Which means to achieve company’s sales target 1000 customers
shall be approached by the salespeople.
 If one person can meet 8 customers in a day and if there are 25
working days in a month than a salesmen can meet 200
customers in a month.
 So, company would require 5 salesmen to achieve the target of
meeting 1000 new customers.
 Incremental Productivity Method: In this method, additional
(incremental) cost of salesman is compared to additional (incremental) sales
revenue. Thus, additional contribution of additional salesman is calculated.
First of all, a company can appoint any number of salesmen (normally
minimum number).
 Then, it will continue adding more salesmen as long as the additional sales
revenues are greater than additional selling costs. This method is not much
useful as it requires a lot of calculations and it is based on the notion that
increase in sales revenue is due to additional salesmen, which is always not
true.
 3. Experts’ Opinion Methods:Here, experts are asked to suggest the right
number of salesmen a firm requires. Experts may be internal such as general
managers, marketing manager, sales managers, senior salesmen, marketing
research officer, etc., or external like marketing consultants, advertising
agencies, and marketing research firms.
 The experts are provided with needed details about company’s objectives,
market share, profitability, financial condition, competition, and other relevant
aspects. On the basis of their experience and research, they suggest specific
number of salesmen a company should appoint.
 Affordable Methods: In real sense, this is not a method.
The number of salesmen depends on a company’s financial
capacity to spend. Obviously, a company with sound financial
position appoints more salesmen and vice versa. Its actual
needs are not taken into account.
 The fact is, a company’s financial position depends on sales
and profits; sales and profits depend on selling efforts.
Ironically, a company with poor financial position needs more
salesmen, instead of less, to increase sales and profits!
 5. Arbitrary Fixation Method: Here, sales force size is
determined arbitrarily or randomly. A sales manager doesn’t
relate sales efforts to any other aspects, neither takes opinion
of experts. He can determine any number of salesmen that
seems appropriate according to his views. His experience,
assumptions, and calculation play important role.