The ultimate personal selling approach for Administration

How to create outlook signature

hi all this is a little basics of marketing and sales lecture my name is Mina Mary Jo scurry I come from the University of artha from the department of marketing and I will be holding this lecture today today we will speak about personal selling and sales force management the structure of this lecture is as follows we first talked a little bit about the nature and role of personal selling we talked about personal selling process and finally we talked about sales force management so let's look at the nature and role of selling sales is the single most important link between company and its customers for many customers the salespeople represent the company and the other way around the sales people represent the customer to the company for example for the research and development it may be the sales that get signals about customer needs and industry changes so the role of the sales is really important however the role of sales vary depending on the industry whether we speak about business to business or business to consumer contacts or it varies depending on products and services also sales may have a different role depending on the product life cycle or face of customer relationship for example often when the product is new to the market the personal selling has more emphasis than when the product is on the matura markets also our key customers may get extra sales support from our company in order to make the sales process smooth and quick sales organization is typically expensive for the company so it is important strategic decision to think how the sales is organized marketing and zealous is not definitely free and the sales usually aims not only to one-time transactions but to build long-term relationships of course there's a lot of difference between business contacts and industries on a strategic level we can use a metaphor to say that marketing is this function that lays the seeds to the market and selling is the function that harvests them in practice in every day level we often talk about sales funnels we're marketing and sales have different roles and tools in different phases the digitalization may change the tools of selling but the core stays the same there are lots of typical positions in sales I'm sure you have seen a lot of sales representatives that maybe have called you there are different kinds of sales persons you see titles as account managers or key account managers there are sales managers both and sales directors but in a way it's good to note that we all do some kind of sales and personal sellings we might be sales person in a company but also we all the time we sell our ideas and our argumentation we try to pressure other people so really we all do sales at some point so next let's look more deeply into personal selling process the personal selling process consists of several steps that the salesperson must master the steps focus often on getting new customers and orders from them we call this transaction oriented model as most of the steps need to make a transaction aiming the customer to make an order or to buy however much of the work of the salesperson is not only in getting new customers but in maintaining existing customers and building profitable relationships there are several models of personal selling the main difference that relates to the type of business is whether you wait somewhere for the customers to come and then you will start by welcoming the customer or whether you start by prospecting suitable customers this is often a case that differs between business to consumer selling and business-to-business selling the model in the left focuses on customer to customer selling it starts from welcoming the customer questioning for understanding the customer needs presentation objection handling closing and follow-up the model in the right starts already earlier it starts from prospecting and qualifying the leads free approach and approach it includes presentation and demonstration handling objections closing and follow-up as you can see the early phases differ a little bit and the latter phases are pretty similar let's look at each of these phases in turn first prospecting and qualifying as well as pre approach one of the main questions is whether you should target anybody or should you choose your customers here we can come back to the segmentation and identifying potential customers often the company may have potential leads that the pre-sales person can contact but much of the work of the salesperson is also to find prospects sometimes the salesperson just calls potential customers this is called cold calling you find a source is a phone number somewhere and just call your existing company may also provide referrals for you often trade fairs are a place to collect prospect information and follow those later on by definition prospecting is the setting it is that part of the selling process in which the salesperson identifies qualified potential customers prospects are often called leads nowadays the digitalization has changed a lot of prospecting a phone call or a letter that is sent from the customer is called outbound marketing we reach out from the company but there is a strong tendency towards inbound marketing the company aims to provide valuable information for example through web pages blogs emails videos and so on this is content marketing the aim is that the customer will contact the company while browsing through web and looking for information the customer may for example leave their contact number to website this produces a lead and after that the sales person can contact the customer who already is interested about products and services that the company sells however inbound marketing is not only about content marketing when customer reaches towards the company whether calling through web or walking inside to the company it can be classified as inbound many companies use both outbound and inbound strategies qualifying prospects means that you identify the good leads and screen out the bad ones how should you qualify leads you can for example review the financial ability volume of a business location special needs or maybe possibilities for growth nowadays there are also several companies that sell software that may help you to identify leads the pre approach is the step in selling process in which the salesperson learns as much as possible about the prospective customers before making the contact this is what we call making your homework before conducting customers of course again there are huge differences between companies and leads concerning this phase some companies emphasize cold calls other investors persons time to really qualify leads and make a strategy how to approach them once you have qualified your leads it's time for the opening or the approach there's a saying that you never have a second chance to make a first impression and how right is that it takes only a few seconds to form an opinion about something or somebody it takes a lot longer to change that first impression even if it turns to be false this is called confirmation bias it is the tendency to search for interpret favor and recall information in a way that confers or strengthens the prior personal beliefs that's why it is important to think what kind of manners you have how do you look what kind of clothes you wear how have you been dressed the aim at this phase is to build trust between you and the customer in the finished context is very important and to have an eye contact and smile you should have I am here for you attitude when you are welcoming the customers the next phase is questioning or understanding the customer needs the questioning is all about understanding the customers situation there are several selling techniques models explaining different ways to use open-ended clothes or maybe leading questions to understand what the customers really want an American Marketing professor Neil Rackham studied successful sales managers in order to find out what they do in order to understand customer needs in his research and top-selling sales book called spin selling he opens up the questioning system to understand customer problems so that they can provide solutions for those problems the questions proceed in four phases the first questions are something that are called situation questions the situation questions ask for background information or facts from the customer for example how would you describe your current situation what kind of products or services are you using right now the problem questions are questions which ask about prospects problems difficulties and dissatisfactions for example what kind of problems are there in your current situation and how often does that happen implication questions are questions which ask about problem consequences effects or impacts for example how has that problem impacted you how does that make you feel need payoff questions are questions which ask about the value importance or usefulness that FD fren solutions for the challenges for example if this problem would be solved what would be the benefit for you or for your company so all in all the aim is to understand the needs and also the payoffs that the customer has as I said before there are several questioning techniques this is not for every situation this spin selling sometimes the customers do not do not know what they want or they don't want to open up for the salesperson however a good salesperson can sense this and change techniques to suit different kinds of customers and different kinds of situations the next phase is to present the solution for customer problem if you only understand the customer needs the presentation should be tied into these needs and how the new solutions may help in need satisfaction if the customer has not revealed anything you might present the top-selling products or present products in different categories and reflect on customers behavior a good hint is to use arguments that are or seems to be meaningful for the customer also one attribute or feature many may mean different things to different people a model called is gives means connects a concrete product attribute or feature to the meaningful benefit for the customer let's take an example of a car that has a 200 horsepower engine what that is that means that the 200 horsepower is a technical feature what it gives the technical ability results a benefit what is the benefit of that size of the motor it accelerates better maybe if rely results in the strong tiger like morning or because it is a big engine it doesn't have to be serviced so often and finally what does that benefit enable the customer to do what does that benefit mean to the customer some customers may consider that 200 horsepower engine gives power and acceleration and that acceleration means more safety while bypassing others and again this gives security and safety to the whole family some customers consider that the load morning's give you a feeling of power on the road something some some customers think that service free engines give easiness and convenience actually as you can see from the picture these links result in different values as well to safety the status and convenience so the same attribute may mean different things to different customers a successful salesperson understand this and is able to find out which are the benefits that the customers value the most customers often have worries and also objections objections part of the sales negotiation is about discussing with customers to understand these worries and respond to the objections there are different ways to handle the objections and different selling styles to do this differently is the salesperson for aggressive transaction-oriented selling or for building long-term profitable relationships we see these both and a lot in between on the market more the salesperson can create an open and positive and trustful atmosphere more he is have more he has a chance to handle the objections so it is really important to listen to the customers there are also specific techniques that can be deployed the Strait denial means that if the customers a chest that the product is difficult to clean the salesperson might say that well no actually is not see let me show you and so on to first tell the objection means that the salesperson knows beforehand what might be the objection and takes this into account already when keeping the presentation he might say for example well some might think that this is a difficult to clean but actually it's not let me show you in trial close the salesperson may say for example that if I can convince you that this is easy to clean would you buy it however this method requires sensitivity an assumption that there is only one objection to handle West earning the objection means that the salesperson tries to understand the grounds for that objection for example if the customer says I don't like the look of this car the salesperson might ask could you explain a little bit more what exactly you don't like if the customer continues for example saying I don't like the materials used on these seats the salesperson may reflect on this passage estin well actually I have another option here that you might like or actually we can order these also with different patterns agree and counter means that the salesperson agrees with the objection at least to some extent and puts forward account argument for example if the customer says that this man she cost so much more than the one from the competitor the salesperson may agree and counts by saying yes you are right it is initially more expensive but when you consider the lifetime value and the service that we provide this is a very affordable option finally the hidden objections mean that sometimes the customers don't want to reveal the objections then the salesperson may ask if there is anything so far that the customer is unsure about or if there is anything on customers mind it is good to notice that sometimes the beautiful exit for both is the best solution this may be relationship building if the salesperson has not any value to offer at this time the beautiful exit might build an image of an honest salesperson and the customer might even come back because of that later on closing is said to be one of the critical steps in the sales process and that is a step that makes some sales person succeed and some not if the customers say they will take this it cannot get much easier sometimes it may require some negotiations but still the customer is an active part and makes the decision but often it is the salesperson who needs to take the initiative they are again some techniques that can be used the first one is simply to ask for the order shall I reserve this for you would you like to buy it another technique is to summarize and ask for the order you the salesperson can remind about the main points in the sale arguments and imply that the buying is a natural extensions of the proceedings for example well we have now agreed that this model meets your requirements of low noise high productive and driver comfort at the cost you can afford may I go ahead and place an order for this model the consistent choice means the consistent clothes means that you keep one concession in reserve to use as a final push towards agreement for example if you are willing to place an order now I am willing to offer an extra two point five percent discount the alternative choice means that the salesperson assumes the deal is on and go on to asking about the next choice for example would you like a blue or red one or would you like it delivered on Tuesday or Friday the objection close means that the salesperson uses an objection as a stimulus to buy for example if I can convince you that this model is the most economical in its class will you buy it finally the action agreement sometimes it may be inappropriate to obtain to close the sale for many industrial goods the sales cycle is long and the salesperson who attempts to close the sale at early meetings may cause annoyance then the aim might be to agree on next action for example the next meeting there are several several methods and techniques in personal selling process to close the deal there are differences in industries as well as companies and sales styles here you had some examples of those techniques after closing the deal the work does not end the salesperson needs to take care of the paperwork well nowadays the computer work it should be noticed that even in this face the salesperson is still selling customers may feel a little unsecure about their choice they feel cognate dissonance have you ever noticed how sometimes the salesperson reassures your choice when you are paying or waiting for the product later on depending on the company processes the sales person may have a responsibility to make sure that the develop processes work as in many cases the selling is not only about one-time transaction the salesperson needs to take action to take care of the business relationships both online and offline the third part of this lecture is about Salesforce management we can define the Salesforce management to be the analyzes planning implementation and control of Salesforce activities it includes designing Salesforce strategy and structure recruiting and selecting salespeople training salespeople compensating salespeople supervising salespeople and evaluating salespeople let's again look at each of these in phases the first one is sales force strategy we should consider questions like should we use our own salespeople or hire sales as service how should the sales people and they tasks be structured how big should the sales force be should salespeople work in teams and who should be involved should they sell in the field or from distance for example use web conferencing telephones or emails there are different kinds of Salesforce structures that we can consider first of them is a territorial or geographical Salesforce structure this means that each salesperson is assigned to an exclusive geographic territory in which salesperson sells the company's full line the territorial structure is the simplest and most common method the salesperson are responsible for performing all the activities necessary to sell all the products it has compared to other ones the lowest costs and the travel time and expenses are minimized in this structure the sales administration and overhead costs are also quite kept pretty low however it does not provide benefits associated with specialization of Labor an example of the company who uses this kind of structure is for example Air France another structure is a product sales force structure this means that the salespeople specialize in selling only some of the company's products or product lines these salespeople must effectively selling methods for single or related products they often have closer alignments of sales and production sales management controls allocation of selling efforts across the line however there might be some duplication of efforts an example of the company who uses this kind of structure is a Finnish company for ioan the customer sales force structure means that salespeople specialize in selling only to certain customers or industries this is a natural extension of marketing concept and strategy to move market segmentation it implies better understanding of customer needs it has increased familiarity with certain businesses and increased control over allocation of selling efforts however there's a possible higher selling and administrative costs key account management structure is an example case of customer sales for structure and of course there might be some other complex sales for structures that uses different parts of these other structures another question we need to decide is a sales force size salespeople constitute one of the company's most productive but also most expensive assets so it has to be thought carefully also we might consider whether we have outside sales force those salespeople that travel to customers but also how about our inside sales force those people who conduct business from their offices via telephones or web conferences they also might have visits from prospective buyers sales teams are the people that together take care of the certain customer groups especially in key account management structure there are often sales teams in companies that take care of the large accounts then there's also team selling that take care of the large complex accounts for example there might be a reason to team up with people from different functions such as sales marketing engineering finance law technical support or even upper management the next phase is recruiting and selecting salespeople so what makes a good sales person several study is fine that good salespeople have a lot of enthusiasm persistence initiative self-confidence and job commitment they have strong customer orientation they are independent self-motivated and excellent listeners they are team players rather than lonely wolves they have intrinsic motivation and they have a disciplined heart hard-working style they have the ability to close a sale this is the one we already talked earlier but also they have the ability to build relationships also we need to think that the good salesperson has to fit our company and it's calm customers so how to recruit salespeople what is good for the company when recruiting the company should analyze the sales job itself and the characteristics that it needed for that job is it a traveling job or more web-conferencing job if there are lots of paperwork is it about building owns and relationship or does it focus on transactions does the selling process take a long time maybe months or years or is it is this a it's just one phone call away often companies use different kind of tests to find out whether the person is suitable for the job remember a good salesperson can be really productive for the company but salespeople are an expensive assets and care should be taken in recruiting salespeople some years ago there was a survey about skills needed in sales management positions the researchers asked asked B sales many is that when a company has an open sales position many factors come into play in making the decision of whom to hire below is a list of factors one may consider when making that hiring decision please rate the importance of the skills and knowledge factors they had about 250 in sales managers answering this survey and they found out that the in the highest level importance in success factors they found out where listening skills and follow-up skills also the ability to adapt sales style from situations to situations with where in the highest level importance tenacity sticking with the task so persistence well organizing so the self-management verbal communication skills and proficiency in interacting with people at all levels of customer organization then there was a research where around 1000 finished consumer customers were asked about what they thought that the good salesperson is like they found out that the characteristics of a good salesperson is that they are knowledgeable expert on the area they are friendly and willing to service they are patient they are calm convincing and thorough they also ask that what character is what characteristics are the most annoying and the finished consumer said aggressiveness indifference towards customers they are not knowledgeable they mumble they don't clear they are not clear in speaking they are too persistent too active and too enthusiastic the next phase in the sales force management process is training salespeople ing to code Armstrong which is American book the average initial training period period is around four months ranging from few days to several months of course the training depends heavily on the industry and the skills needed the most important question is probably that is the emphasis on training on companies products and services or is it about sales skills the compensating salespeople is an important phase with the Salesforce management the company need to think what is a motivating compensation plan most often there are different ways to combine salaries you might have a fixed salary a commission or bonus only base salary or you have a fixed salary and Commission or bonus on top of that most companies use some kind of fixed salary and on top of that they have different incentives the next phase in the Salesforce management process is supervising salespeople and of course companies vary greatly in their supervision the most common is however setting the sales objectives the sales quota per person this is a standard that states the amount a salesperson should sell and how sales should be divided among companies products usually there is supervision in finding customers and qualifying lead especially in the beginning of the sales career also there might be need for time management and prioritizing work tasks phases it's very common to have different kind of team meetings sales contents and positive incentives to keep up the motivation for sales finally this evaluating salespeople face remember what you measure that you get that's why you need to be careful with your evaluating goals the strategic goals and get performance indicators should guide both sales targets and sales evaluations they are again several ways to evaluate people you use sales reports expense reports customer satisfaction reports and so on one more thing before we finish this lecture there's the question that how has digitalization affected their sales processes in the company indeed it has nowadays more and more companies use marketing automation and sales force automation this means that some of the things that that before were done by humans are now done automatically there's a tendency from outbound to inbound marketing and sales as we discussed earlier there are lots of different kinds of software to help in lead generation customer relationship management systems are used in many ways to build relationship with the customers the digitalization may affect the whole supply chain management of the company and more and more marketing and selling is based on knowledge and analytics thank you for listening to this lecture