Effective Personal Selling
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Effective Personal Selling
Why effective selling matters
The personal selling process
Effective selling and hiring effective sales
representatives
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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
3
The personal selling
process
Prospecting
Classifying Leads
Pre-call planning
Approach/relating
Needs discovery
Presentation
Handling Objections
Closing
Follow-up and servicing
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Prospecting:
Building a prospect (suspect) list
Direct inquiries
Directories
Referrals
Cold Calling
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Qualifying Prospects
Needs
Buying Authority
Ability to pay
6
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 (what’s being delivered/loading dock)
What am I going to say?
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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
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Needs Discovery
Permission
Fact finding
Feeling finding
Checking
Using open and closed-ended questions
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The Presentation: basic
selling process models
Stimulus-Response presentations
Need Satisfaction presentations
Problem-Solutions presentations
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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
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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.
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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
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Handling Objections
Real objections
Pseudo-objections
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Closing
When to close
Closing techniques
alternative choice
summary close
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Follow-up
Supporting the buying decision
Managing implementation
Dealing with dissatisfaction
Enhancing the relationship
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How salespeople spend
their time
Face-to-Face Selling
33%
Phone Selling
Account
Service
Coordination
16%
16%
Administration
Travel
Internal
Meetings
10%
20%
5%
SOURCE:
William A. O’Connell and William Keenan, Jr., “The Shape of Things to Come,”
Sales & Marketing Management, January 1990, pp. 36-41.
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