Sales Management
Module 2: Developing Sales Management Knowledge
1) Factors influencing the continued evolution of personal selling. Personal selling in sales management is the bi-directional flow of communication between a prospective buyer and a company’s sales person with the aim of influencing the person to buy a particular decision or service (Trehan and Trehan, 2010). Both engage in a conversation either through telephone, video conferencing, internet links or other means. The key factors that continually influence the evolution of personal selling include the competition level, the need to improve sales productivity, the segmentation of the traditional customer basis, the adoption of systems where customers’ satisfaction dictates the standards of product quality and team performance, and the need to adopt to customer-oriented training in sales.
With competition, companies have continually been faced by the need to establish and maintain trust based and long term associations with customers through positive corporate and brand images. In addition, the technology use has led to the need to improve the productivity in sales by adaptation of laptop computers, electronic mails among other technology based services. In addition, the modern era of sales has led to specialists in personal selling to deal with specific types of customers, a variety of channels for sales like telemarketing, and the need to move adopt the globalization of sales efforts.
2) Contribution of sales people to the society and the negative aspects of personal selling with respect to the society (if any). In the society today, the sales person has two critical contributions towards a nation’s economic growth. First, the sales person enhances the dissemination of innovation, and acts as an economic stimulus (Trehan and Trehan, 2010). The sales person acts in furthering the diffusion of innovation by distributing new services, ideas or products to the society. Since the work of a sales person involves the search for prospective clients by demonstrating how a given product or services is capable of fulfilling a given need, it is true that pioneers in adapting a newly invented product, services, or ideas will remain dependent on the sales person to provide them with the necessary information for their continued use of that particular innovation (Trehan and Trehan, 2010). In addition, the sales person acts as an economic stimulus as they are expected to fuel activities into the world of business. Where the world economics are concerned in business issues like competition and consumer satisfaction in products, the salesperson in responsible for the implementation of the necessary strategies and approaches to business development and continued existence.
3) The primary contributions of sales person to the employers. Since the salespersons are in direct contact with the customers, these provides the employer with so many valuable advantages like acting as source of revenue, an effective way to carry out market research and provide accurate responses, as well as prospective contenders or high managerial positions in companies. Since the salespersons act as company’s source of income, they together with the management feel the pressure resulting from the firm’s need for profitability and the sales persons are frequently reminded of their role in the attainment of a healthy income statement.
Even though they are not the sole source of income in the organization, salespersons have a critical role in progression of the productivity of their activities and generating revenues from their sales. In addition, the much time spent by salespersons in contact with costumers can effectively be utilized to carry out market research from them since direct feedback is obtained and can be taken back to the company. Finally, majority of the companies with sales positions use such jobs as the preliminary foundation for prospective assignments and so, hardworking and highly productive sales persons with intense knowledge on clients needs qualify as a candidate for management positions in the company they work for.
4) The survival of most businesses is dependent on the benefits of sales persons. I agree with this because the salespersons for any given organization are responsible for the identification of prospective buyers, decision processes, and decision makers, promoting the company to the customers by selling its positive image, obtaining relevant information concerning the key competitors as used in sales promotions among others. The key use of a salesperson is the establishment and maintaining of personal relationship with key clients and this contributes towards the business productivity and revenues. In case the salesperson decides to leave the organization, these key clients would move with them and this would have a negative impact of the revenues and productivity of the company. In addition, with the provision of detailed and the latest information concerning the market to the company, the salesperson contributes to the company’s decision making and establishment of new strategies and tactics to fit in the market conditions.
5) Comparison between need satisfaction and problem-solving selling. Need satisfaction selling the salesperson must identify the needs of the prospective customer and provide a demonstration of how such needs are satisfied by the product or service under sale. After identifying the prospective needs, the salesperson is responsible for talk about the uniqueness of the product or service in line with these needs (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). To talk about the product, the sales person must identify the important features and adequate self confidence to regulate the interview on sales by asking questions and providing ample time for answers rather than dominating the conversation (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007).
In addition, needs satisfaction explains the social conduct between the prospects and the salesperson with the critical principle that sales originates and terminates in the buyers mind. On the other hand, problem-solving selling strategy is an extended form of need satisfaction selling strategy which requires the salesperson to go beyond the identification of the prospect needs and developing alternate solution to meet those needs (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007).
Here, the sales person is responsible for educating the prospect customer on the consequences of the current problem as well as communicating the significance in customer value delivered by the solution (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). This approach is time consuming and in most cases the respective company has not that much time for each prospective customer or in other cases, the customer may lack all that time. Compared to the need satisfaction, this method is applicable in situation where both parties are oriented towards scientific reasoning. Need satisfaction on the other hand spends little time and customers tend to be willing to participate. Both methods take time to pay attention to the prospect’s needs before persuading them to buy (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007).
6) Difference between consultative selling and problem-solving and need satisfaction selling. Three roles of consultative sales persons. Consultative selling strategy focuses on assisting customers to attain their premeditated goals using the services, products and expertise of the selling organization. The process is therefore not just aimed at satisfying the needs or solving customers’ problems like is the case for both need satisfaction and problem-solving selling strategies (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). The three key roles of consultative salespersons are long-term ally, tactical orchestrator and business consultant.
As a long-term ally, the salesperson provides support to customers despite the lack of the need for instant sale. In the role of strategic orchestrator the sales person efforts to please the prospects needs focuses on the utilization of the resources of the organization and requires the involvement of other persons from the selling organization. As a business consultant, the sales person becomes an expert on customer business through the use of sources interior or exterior to the selling organization. In this role, the salesperson also educates the prospects about their product and its comparison with competitive offers.
7) Situations where stimulus response selling strategy is most effective. Such situations include where the prospect is not a professional buyer since the salesperson dominates the conversation and controls it with furnished questions designed to make the prospect’s answer a ‘Yes’ with the aim of changing their mental state to the salesperson’s desired one that will make the buyer say ‘Yes’ to the proposal (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). This is mostly the situation for telemarketers who depend on wide-ranging sales scripts or memory.
8) The importance of teamwork between the customer and the sales organization in consultative selling and how teamwork within the sales organization factors in. Teamwork between the customer and the sales organization in important as it is through the organization’s expertise that the customers are made to reach their strategic goals. Such teamwork will also ensure that at any given moment the client can access up to date information that will help them in their strategic goals attainment (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007).
Within the sales organization, teamwork will contribute towards the identification of the customers’ prospective needs and providing the best expertise to work in collaboration with the customers for the attainment of those goals. In addition, a salesperson must be at the scene after the sale has been made to guarantee that necessary and proper training and client satisfaction issues have been addressed to their satisfaction. This is seen as an emphasis on creation of relationship rather than concentration on short term sales, mainly focusing on low costs products and services (Biong, & Selnes, 1996). This also indicates change in sales organization based on how they pick, instruct, assess and compensate sales persons and other sales teams’ members.
Module three: Developing Sales management knowledge
1) The effect of corporate mission statement on personal selling and sales management activities. All successful companies are governed by a mission statement which is observed in the implementation of any business decisions or strategies. The mission statement of sales organization affects personal selling and sales management activities by defining what the customers need to know about the company and what how this is going to be achieved in order to satisfy the organizations goals and objectives (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). The sales organization’s management is responsible for the defining the established relationships between clients and salespersons. In addition, the greatest role of sales marketing should be in developing a learning firm and fueling a learning orientation to its salespeople for the purpose of coping with change in client’s surroundings, products or even changes in the organization with time.
2) When is sale promotion and publicity used to supplement a personal selling strategy? Personal selling is the only promotional tool where direct communication between the salesperson and the prospect and this is more credible in the delivery of messages as compared to other media. On the other hand, high costs accompany the practice as compared to mass advertisement in form of sales promotion and publicity (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). To supplement personal selling advertisements are used when the cost per contact with audience is critical, or in case of repetitive contact, when message need to be controlled or in case of addressing an outsized audience.
3) Reasons for emphasizing personal selling in business markets and advertising in consumer markets. Personal selling is important in business markets as it involves direct communication of the business product, service or ideas to the prospective customers as well as persuading them by describing the business competitive advantage compared to the competitors (Biong, & Selnes, 1996). In addition, personal selling is an important tool for market research as it provides timely response concerning the market needs directly from the customers. It is also important for business market in establishment of relationships with clients as well as maintaining them as this will ensure business continuity (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007).
With advertisement, the need is to enlighten the customers about an existing product and create anxiety in them to know the product or service or idea so that they can buy it. With frequent advertising, there is assured repetitive contact with the customer and this is important in persuading them to associate or seek more information about a given product, and its advantages and disadvantages hence buy the product increasing sales and profits as well. It is also meant for instances where the company wants to take information to a large number of audiences with the least of cost per contact.
4) Most companies use both advertising and personal selling. This is because, with advertising, the sales company informs the public at less cost and uses salespersons to provide more information to these audiences and persuade them to make a decision to buy the company’s product, service or idea. In addition, the research information about competitors obtained from personal selling can form the basis for adverting focusing on winning more customers and increased sales (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). This information can also be used to position the product within the market by identifying the target market.
5) How the sales management activities differ for a sbu due to differentiation strategy versus and sbu using low cost strategy. An Strategic business unit using low-cost strategy would concentrate on analyzing the competition, carrying market researches to obtain more integrated information pertaining to the market, deal with market segmentation, and product positioning in those segments, pricing and packaging as well as advertising (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). For a Strategic business unit using differentiation strategy, the main concentration would be on sales and some of the sales activities would include personal selling, distributor and account management, as well as after sales services. Others would be intelligence pertaining the competitive market and installation and merchandising.
6) The effects of buying situations on the buying centre, buying process and buying needs. The buying situation is the used to determine the organizations buyer conduct and can be inform of a new task buying situation which involves first time buying of a product, or modified rebuy buying situation where an organization despite its previous use and knowledge of the product require more information on the same and lastly the straight rebuy buying situation where the account has considerable experience in using the product and is fully satisfied the present urge to purchase (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007).
Each of these situations affects the buying center as the number of individuals involved in the process and the roles of each member differ. In addition, the purchasing situations dictate the buying process. Take for instance the buying situation involving straight rebuy buying situation. Since reutilized response behavior is used, the phases in the buying process are few compare to the buying situation where new task buying is involved as the buying center must be consulted before buying the product (Biong, & Selnes, 1996). With the buying needs, the buying situations dictate the buying needs depending on the satisfaction. For instance an organization may have experience with a given commodity but still require more information concerning it due to the satisfaction of the buying needs based on previous experience (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007).
7) The difference between management’s relationships with the industrial distributors and the management’s relationships with the end user. The management’s relationship with the industrial distributors like middlemen is more defined with wide scope as they such companies have limited sales force to fulfill and support their distribution efforts (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). In addition, such companies treat distributors as customers and hence establish long term relationships or partnerships which are necessary for their achievement. This relationship is cost based as the distributor must gain some money for their involvement in the channel. With the end users of its product, the management has a direct relationship with its customers and that which is not based on payments but on the satisfaction of wants by the company’s product (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007).
8) Trade shows in supplementing other sales channels. A tradeshow is organized to demonstrate and highlight an up-to-date product, idea or trend, opportunity or information concerning a given industry. It is a good way of introducing a company’s product or enforcing a product and gather (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). Through trade shows, information about new trends and fundamental information about the market competition is obtained. In case of a start-up company, trade shows will be useful to market a product to distributors, suppliers, consumers and investors as compared to wholesalers.
9) Incase accounts are covered by distributors telemarketing is used for inbound telemarketing where the account calls the seller or outbound telemarketing where the seller calls the account. This is viewed as a way to replace field marketing in some account or simply integrate with field sales with the same accounts (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). The main reason for using telemarketers is because they can serve a large amount of smaller accounts hence lowering the selling costs and allows the sales force to concentrate on larger accounts.
10) The most important organizational buyer behavior trends and their effect on sales strategies in the future. The main organizational buyer behavior trends include the new buy, modified rebuy and straight rebuy (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker and Williams, 2007). Each of this prompts for specific activities for instance the new buy prompts for all elemental activities unlike the straight buy which calls for little or no activities in return, this can affect the future of sales strategies as any additional information required about a product in case of modified rebuy must be provided to allow for sales. In addition, the straight buy products must be kept in touch with the current market trends and the necessary information about them provided as well as the effect of the incorporated information or concepts.
References
Biong, H., & Selnes, F., (1996).strategic role of the Salesperson. Marketing Science Institute. Retrieved on 31-05-2011 from http://www.msi.org/.
Ingram, T., LaForge, R., Avila, R., Schwepker, C., and Williams, M., (2007). Professional Selling. Thomson South Western. United States of America: USA.
Trehan, M., and Trehan, R., (2010). Advertising and Sales Management. V.K (India) Enterprises. New Delphi: ND.
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