Selling is the key part of the marketing function. Selling can be through different ways for example direct selling, selling on the internet, selling on retail stores or personal selling.
Personal selling involves person in selling activity.Personal presentation by the firm’s sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer relationships is called Personal selling.
There are two main parts of this definition:
- Personal presentation
- Customer relationships
Personal presentation means face to face interaction of sale person to the customer.
Customer relationship refers to the long term relation with the customers.
Salesforce goes to the customers:
Salesforce goes to the customer by two ways described below:
- In Person sales calls (Outbound)
- Contact by mail or telemarketing (Inbound)
In Personal Sales Calls or Outbound Sales:
In this method sales force directly goes to the customer and built relationships by actually meeting them face to face.
Contact by Mail or Telemarketing or Inbound:
In this method sales force contact to the new, existing or former customers by telemarketing. It is cheaper than direct selling. Inbound refers to when customers contact with the company to resolve their issues and problems related to company and products.
Business to Business selling or B2B selling:
Producers and wholesaler mostly sell their products to other businesses which are also known as business to business (B2B) selling. B2B selling also refers to the making sales to major or corporate clients but some producer and wholesaler directly sell their products to consumers by any means.
Personal Selling Must Have:
- Human element
- Customer confidence
- Customer response
- Customer needs
Human Element:
As the term human element itself defines that person selling must involve the physical presence of sales person and customer.
Customer Confidence:
Customer confidence means the customer must have decision power so that sales person does not feel that his/her efforts are going to be a waste.
Customer Response:
Customer must have a response towards the offering either in positive or negative. It is necessary for personal selling because the main reason of personal selling is to get the customer response at the spot.
Customer Needs:
Customer must have a specific need to be fulfilled. If a customer does not have a need there is no meaning of personal selling. It is nothing more than throwing a stone in the dark.
Here is the FLOWCHART of above-explained terms:
Changes in Personal Selling:
As customers are changing, their needs and wants are also changing, by accounting this trend personal selling is also changing now Personal selling includes:
MARKETING CONCEPT and TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)
Marketing Concept:
- Customer orientation:
Now in changing trend customer is getting more sharp and knowledgeable in order to get the customer, organizations are identified the customer need by face to face dealing. - Coordination of customer-related activities:
Now organizations look upon customers activities e.g.: spending pattern, background etc.
By analyzing this information they are able to identify right customer for their product and they can easily provide them customer care, partnering and after sale services etc. - Profit/ Loss:
Organizations do all these activities for the sake of profit. And successful organizations decide their profit and go to next step.
Total Quality Management (TQM):
As the customer is changing and has more opportunities, information, substitutes, alternative products etc. It is difficult to retain customers for the lifetime.
For this purpose, organizations are more focused towards better quality and reduction of cost.
Organizations are trying to maintain quality in following fields:
- Customers
- Identify needs
- Product planning
- Design engineering
- Pricing
- Promotional planning
- Records orders
- Manufacturing
- Production
- Scheduling
- Shipping
- Warehousing
- Installation
- Service
It is necessary to maintain quality at each step because loosing quality at one step whether it is first or last can create a big difference between you and competitor.
