PERSONAL SELLING
According to David Kontz and Robert Dodge (2006), Marketing Management and Principles 6th edition, defined personal selling as an interpersonal persuasive designed to influence some person decision.
F.P. Chatles (1995) Principle of Marketing and Method, 5th edition defined personal selling as a process of informing customers and persuading them to purchasing product through personal communication in an exchange situation. Personal selling can be defined as those that involves face to face interaction when one or most prospective purchasers for the purpose of marketing sales. It can also be seen as a face to face interaction between two or more people (the seller and buyer) with the aim of closing sales through personal selling the awareness of the product can be created interest aroused, product preference developed price negotiated and finally sales closed. People that engage in personal selling are usually called sales people, sales representative, sales executive, salesmen, etc.
2.6 PERSONAL SELLING PROCESS
The nature of selling differ from situation but there are a number of distinct activities involved in personal selling process. They include:
(a) Prospecting and Qualifying: This is the first step in selling that is use to identify and qualify prospects. More companies are taking responsibility for funding and (qualifying leads so that the sales people can use the expensive time doing what they can do best. Selling companies can quality to assess their level of interest and financial capacity. The leads can be categorized with “hot” prospects turned over to the tile marketing unit for follow-up. Even then, it usually takes about calls on a prospect to consummate a business transaction.
(b) Pre-Approach: This is the second step in selling process which involves gathering additional information about prospect to determine if they can afford it and if they are qualified to make the buying decision. Another take is to decide on the best contract approach, which might be a personal visit, a phone call or a letter. Finally, the sales person should plan an overall sales strategy for the account.
(c) Presentation and Demonstration: The sales person now tells the product “story” to the buyer, following the AIDA formula of gaining attention, holding interest arousing desire and obtaining action. The sales person uses a features, advantages, benefit and value approach (FABU). Features describes physical characteristics of a market offering such as clip processing speeds or memory capacity, advantages describing why the features provide an advantage to the customer. Benefit describes the economic, technical, service and social benefit delivered by the offering. Value describe the worth (often in monetary terms) of the offering. Too often, sales people spend too much time dwelling on product feature (a product orientation) and not enough stressing the offering benefits and value (a customer orientation).
(d) Overcoming Objective: Customers typically pose objection during the presentation and when ask from the other psychologically, resistance include resistance to interference, preference for established supply sources or brands, apathy reluctant to giving up something, unpleasant association created by the sales representative, pre-determine idea dislike of marketing decision and narrative attitude through money logical resistance might consist of objective to the price, delivering schedule or certain product or company characteristics, to handle this objection, this objective the sales person maintain a positive approach, ask the buyer to clarify the objective question the buyer in a way that the buyer has to answer his or her own objection, devices the validity of the objection, or turns the objection into a reason for buying handling and overcoming objections is a part of the broader skills of negotiation.
(e) Closing: Now the sales person attempts to chose the sale. Sales people need to know how to recognize closing signs from the buyer, including physical actions statements or communication and questions. There are several closing techniques. They can ask for the order, recapitulate the points of agreement, offer to help the secretary write up the order, ask whether the wants A or B, get the buyer to make minor choices such as the colour size, or is not placed now. The sales person might offer the buyer specific inducements to close such as a special price, an extra quality or a token gift.
(f) Follow-up and Maintenance: Follow-up and maintenance are necessary if the sales person wants to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat business. Immediately after closing the sales person should comment any necessary details on delivering time, purchase terms and other matters that are important to the customer. The sales person should schedule a follow-up call when the initial order is received to make sure there is proper installation, instruction and servicing. This visit or call detect any problem, the buyer of the sales person’s interest, and reduce any cognitive dissonance that might have arise. The sales person should also develop a maintenance and grown plan for the account.
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