Personal Selling, Sales
Management, and Direct
Marketing
Chapter Objectives
• Understand the important role of personal
selling within the context of the promotion
mix
• List the steps in the personal selling
process
• Explain the role of the sales manager
• Understand direct marketing
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Real People, Real Choices
• IBM (Esther Ferre)
• IBM must prioritize investment of resources to
achieve revenue and profit targets.
 Option 1: reduce sales and support resources for a specific
customer or business segment.
 Option 2: maintain current level
 of resources.
 Option 3: evaluate lower-cost
 ways to provide sales and
 support resources.
3
Personal Selling
• Occurs when a company representative
interacts directly with a (prospective) customer
to communicate about a good or service
 “Personal touch” is more
effective than mass-media
appeal.
 Selling/sales management
 jobs provide high mobility,
 especially for college grads
 with marketing background.
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The Role of Personal Selling
• Personal selling is more important:
 --when firm uses push strategy.
 --in B2B contexts.
 --with inexperienced consumers who need hands-on
assistance.
 --for products bought infrequently (houses, cars,
computers).
• Cost per contact is very high.
5
Technology and Personal Selling
• Customer relationship management
(CRM) software and partner relationship
management (PRM)
• Teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and
improved corporate Web sites
• Voice-over Internet protocol
• Assorted wireless technologies
SALESFORCE.COM
6
Types of Sales Jobs
• Order taker
• Technical specialist
• Missionary salesperson (stimulate clients
to buy)
• New-business salesperson and order
getter
• Team selling and cross-functional team
7
Approaches to Personal Selling
• Transactional selling:
Putting on the hard sell
High-pressure process that
focuses on making an
immediate sale with no
concern for developing longterm customer relationship
8
Discussion
• Professional selling
has evolved from
hard-sell to
relationship selling.
--Is hard-sell still used? If so, in
what types of organizations?
--Can hard-sell still succeed –is
transactional
selling still appropriate?
--If so, when?
9
Approaches to Personal Selling (cont’d)
• Relationship selling
 Process of building long-term customers by
developing mutually satisfying, win-win relationships
with customers
10
Figure 14.1: Steps in the Creative
Selling Process
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The Creative Selling Process
• Step 1: Prospecting and
qualifying
 --Prospecting: developing a list of
potential customers
 --Qualifying: determining how likely
potential customers are to become
customers
LINKEDIN.COM
12
The Creative Selling Process (cont’d)
• Step 2: Preapproach
 Compiling background information about prospective
customers and planning the sales interview
 --Purchase history, current needs, customer’s
interests
 --From informal sources, CRM system, customers’
Web sites, and/or business publications
13
The Creative Selling Process (cont’d)
• Step 3: Approach
 Contacting the prospect
 Learning even more about prospect’s needs, create a
good impression, and build rapport
 --“You never get a second
 chance to make a good
 first impression.”
14
The Creative Selling Process (cont’d)
• Step 4: Sales presentation
 Laying out benefits and added value of product/firm
and its advantages over the competition
 Inviting customer involvement in conversation
15
Group Activity
• Your group are field
salespeople for a firm that
markets university
textbooks.
• As part of your training, your
sales manager asks you to
outline what you’ll say in a
typical sales presentation.
--Write that outline.
16
Step 5: Handling Objections
• Anticipating why prospect is reluctant to
make a commitment
• Welcoming objections
• Handling objections successfully to move
prospect to decision stage
17
Step 6: Closing the Sale
• Gaining the customer’s
commitment in the decision
stage
--Last-objection close
--Assumptive or minor-points close
--Standing-room-only or buy-now close
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Step 7: Follow-Up
• Arranging for delivery, payment, and
purchase terms
• Making sure customer received delivery
and is satisfied
• Bridging to next purchase
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Individual Activity
• What are the pros and cons of personal
selling as a career choice for you?
 --List them in two columns, and be as specific as you
can in explaining each.
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Figure 14.2: The Sales Force
Management Process
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Sales Management
• Setting sales force
objectives
What sales force is expected to
accomplish and when
Customer satisfaction, loyalty,
retention/turnover, new-customer
development, new-product
suggestions, training, reporting on
competitive activity, community
involvement
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Creating a Sales Force Strategy
• Establishing structure and size of a firm’s
sales force
• Sales territory: a set group of customers
 Geographic sales force structure
 Product-class sales territories
 Industry specialization and
 key/major accounts
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Recruiting, Training, and
Rewarding the Sales Force
• Recruiting the right people
 Good listening and follow-up skills
 Ability to adapt style from situation to situation
 Tenacity
 High level of personal organization
• Sales training: teaches salespeople about
firm, its products, how to develop skills,
knowledge, and attitudes to succeed
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Discussion
• Will sales training and development needs
vary based on how long salespeople have
been in the business? Why or why not?
• Is it possible (and feasible) to offer
different training programs for salespeople
at different career stages? Why or why
not?
25
Recruiting, Training, and Rewarding the
Sales Force (cont’d)
• Paying salespeople well to motivate them
 Straight commission plan
 Commission-with-draw plan
 Straight salary plan
• Running sales contests for short-term
sales boost
• Call reports: which customers were called
on and how call went
26
Discussion
• Based on the compensation figures in the
chapter, do you think professional
salespeople are appropriately paid? Why
or why not?
• What do salespeople do that warrants the
compensation indicated?
27
Discussion
• What is a sales manager’s best approach
for determining the appropriate rewards
program?
• What issues are important in developing
the program?
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Evaluating the Sales Force
• Is sales force meeting its objectives?
• What are possible causes of failure?
Measuring individual salesperson performance
Monitoring salesperson’s expense account for travel and
entertainment
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Direct Marketing
• Any direct communication to a consumer
or business recipient designed to generate
a response in the form of an order, a
request for further information, and/or a
visit to a store or other place of business
for purchase of a product
DIRECT MARKETING
ASSOCIATION
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Direct Marketing (cont’d)
• Mail order
 Catalogs: collection of products offered for sale and
described in book form, usually consisting of product
descriptions and photos
 Direct mail: a brochure/pamphlet offering a specific
good/service at one point in time
31
Discussion
• Some experts think consumer catalog shopping
has increased because of poor service in retail
stores.
 Evaluate the quality of most retail salespeople you meet.
 How can retailers can improve the quality of their sales
associates?
LANDSEND.COM
32
Direct Marketing (cont’d)
• Telemarketing: direct marketing conducted
over the telephone
 More profitable for business than consumer markets
 In 2003, FTC established National Do Not Call
registry
FEDERAL DO NOT CALL REGISTRY
33
Direct Marketing (cont’d)
• Direct-response advertising: allows
consumer to respond by contacting the
provider with questions or an order
 Direct-response TV (DRTV): short commercials, 30minute-plus infomercials, and home shopping
networks
34
Direct Marketing (cont’d)
• M-Commerce: promotional and other ecommerce activities transmitted over
mobile phones/devices
 Short-messaging system marketing (SMS)
 Spim: instant-messaging version of spam
 Adware: software that tracks Web habits/interests,
presenting pop-up ads and resetting home page
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Discussion
• M-commerce allows marketers to pinpoint
where consumers are and send them
messages about a local store.
 --Do you think consumers will respond positively to mcommerce?
 --What benefits do you think it offers them?
36
Real People, Real Choices
• IBM (Esther Ferre)
• Esther chose option 3: evaluate lower-cost
ways to provide sales and support
resources.
 Minimized impact to customer and improved cost
structure of sales team.
 Maintained customer satisfaction with lower cost.
 Resulted in increased revenue over time.
IBM.COM
37
Marketing Plan Exercise
• In developing her marketing plan, Esther Ferre
at IBM must use marketing communication mix
elements (1) in an integrated way that (2) best
invests her promotional dollars.
• --Should personal selling be a high priority in
Esther’s marketing plan? Why or why not?
• --Is there a role for direct marketing in her plan?
If so, what is it?
38
Marketing in Action Case:
You Make the Call
• What is the decision facing Eli Lilly?
• What factors are important in
understanding this decision situation?
• What are the alternatives?
• What decision(s) do you recommend?
• What are some ways to implement your
recommendation?
39
Keeping It Real: Fast-Forward to Next
Class, Decision Time at Darden Restaurants
• Meet Jim Lawrence, Vice President,
Supply Management & Purchasing.
• Volatility in the supply chain threatened
food supplies to restaurants.
• The decision: A new model for supply
chain management?
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