Personal Selling: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Process
Advantages of Personal Selling
Personal selling is a one-to-one activity where customers receive personalized attention. This provides an opportunity to understand customer needs better and make an effective sale. The sales team has a good opportunity to respond directly and promptly to any customer queries and concerns. It helps in passing on large amounts of technical data or other complex product information to the customers. This indirectly educates the customers and updates them on the latest happenings in the industry, company, and new products. It gives the sales force a chance to demonstrate the product effectively and clarify any doubts on the spot. Frequent meetings between the sales force and customers provide an opportunity to build long-term relationships.
Disadvantages of Personal Selling
The cost of employing a sales force (recruiting and maintaining) is expensive. They need to be offered incentives in order to achieve sales. A salesperson can meet only one customer at a time, which makes it a costly affair to reach a large audience.
Selling Process
- Prospecting
- Communicating
- Handling objections
- Selling
- Servicing
Qualities of Successful Salesmen
- Very good knowledge about the products
- Zeal to give an effective presentation to customers
- Ability to clinch the orders/deals fast
- Ensuring prompt and quality service to the customers
- Good listening skills to understand the customer’s requirements better
- Inviting more questions from the customers and handling objections by giving convincing answers
- Organizing the place of work in a better way
- Having wide contacts within the industry
- Creating a good impression and getting more business
Salesforce Management
- Recruiting and selection of salesmen
- Training
- Supervision
- Motivation
- Evaluation
- Control
Industrial Selling Environment
This necessitates that industrial marketers respond to such an environment with proper planning, organizing, influencing, and controlling their sales efforts. They need to identify their potential buyers and the main decision-makers among them, give them a sales presentation, and then develop a continuous rapport. Their internal environment of the organization, like production, marketing, finance, etc., and the external environment, like the government, technological changes, etc., play a vital role in influencing their behavior.
Other Important Decisions
The size of the salesforce, designing the territories, organizing the salesforce.
Advertising of Industrial Products and Services
Of all the promotional mix elements, personal selling is the most important because industrial products are technical in nature and involve a lot of direct interactions by company people with the industrial customers.
Industrial Communication Program
- Establishing the objectives of communication
- Identifying the target audience
- Determining the promotional budget
- Affordable method
- Percentage of sales method
- Competitive parity method
- Objective and task method
- Developing message strategy
- Media selection
- Evaluating the Campaign
Role of Advertising in Industrial Marketing
Advertising is used to a good extent by industrial marketers to assist their sales force and intermediaries to generate more leads. Advertising plays an important role in industrial marketing strategy by supporting and supplementing personal selling efforts.
Objectives of Industrial Advertising
- Create awareness
- Reaching inaccessible places
- Improve sales
- Reduce cost
Limitations of Industrial Advertising
It cannot substitute personal selling, but it can definitely support, supplement, and complement that effort. It can and should be used only for creating awareness and providing information. It cannot create any product preference as this requires live demonstration with explanation. It cannot achieve the task of creating conviction and purchase. Such tasks are achieved by personal selling.