SALES & DISTRIBUTION

MANAGEMENT
Unit I: Personal Selling & Salesmanship
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
 Understanding Personal Selling, Sales Management and
Salesmanship Relationship
 Buyer-Seller Dyads
 Selling Theories
SALES EXECUTIVE RESPONSIBILITIES

SOCIETY CUSTOMER

SALES EXECUTIVE

SALES VOLUME

FAMILY ORGANISATION

BUSINESS GROWTH

PROFIT CONTRIBUTION
SALES MANAGEMENT, PERSONAL SELLING &
SALESMANSHIP

SALES MANAGEMENT

DIRECTS

PERSONAL SELLING EFFORT

LARGELY THROUGH SALESMANSHIP

ACHIEVE SALES OBJECTIVES

DEFINITIONS
 Personal Selling: Personal presentation by firms sales
force for purpose of making sales and building
relationships. [Kotler & Armstrong]

 Salesmanship: Art of successfully persuading

prospects or customers to buy products or services
from which they can derive suitable benefits, thereby
increasing their total satisfaction.
SALES MANAGERS RESPONSIBILITIES
 Organizing Sales Effort
Within Company – builds organization structures
[formal & informal]
Outside Company –Key contact with customers &
publics, develop / build distribution structure.
Also play role in preparing information for
marketing decisions e.g. budgets, quotas, territories
etc.
SALES MANAGEMENT - OBJECTIVES

Sales Volume

Contribution to Profits

Continuing Growth
BUYER - SELLER DYAD
 Buyer seller dyads represents the relationship between the seller
and the buyer, consumer and the marketer, advertiser and the
client.
 we cant imagine sales management without buyer seller dyads
because selling is always a two way process.
 Fundamental to understanding salesmanship is recognition that
it involves buyer seller interactions.
 Sociologists use the term “dyad” to describe a situation in which
two people interact.
 The salesperson and the customer interacting with each other
constitute one example of buyer seller dyad.
BUYER - SELLER DYAD
 Whatever possible, sales personal should be assigned to
prospects whose characteristics are similar to their own, thus
improving the chance of successful dyadic relationships.
 Pairing salespersons with customers of similar backgrounds is
more easily accomplished in industrial selling, where there are
fewer prospects about whom information is needed, than in
consumer goods selling, where the number of prospects and the
customers per salesperson is much larger.
 In addition to the physical characteristics and personality, the
customer’s perception towards behavior should be a necessary
condition for the continuation of dyadic interaction.
DIVERSITY OF PERSONAL SELLING SITUATIONS
SERVICE
SELLING INSIDE ORDER TAKER …e.g. salesman at ARROW
counter at Shoppers Stop.
DELIVERY SALESPERSON .. Mainly engages in delivering
the product e.g. milk, bread, eggs, DOMINOS.
ROUTE / MERCHANDISING / VAN SALESPERSON :
Operates as an order taker but works in the field-the soap or
spice salesperson calling on retailers is typical. e.g. Britannia,
Amul, Coca Cola, Nestle
MISSIONARY SALESPERSON: aims only to build goodwill
or to educate the actual or potential user and is not expected to
take an order; for example, the distillers missionary and the
pharmaceuticals company’s “detail person” e.g. Medical Rep.
TECHNICAL SALESPERSON: emphasizes technical
knowledge; for example, the engineering salesperson, who is
primarily a consultant to “client” companies. e.g Voltas Central
Air Conditioning, HMT
DIVERSITY OF PERSONAL SELLING SITUATIONS
…CONTD.

DEVELOPMENTAL
SELLING

CREATIVE SALES PERSON FOR TANGIBLES …e.g. Eureka

Forbes, Maruti Car, Encyclopedia Britannia.

CREATIVE SALESPERSON FOR INTANGIBLES…e.g. ICICI

Prudential, Max Life Insurance, Educational Programs such as Brilliant
Tutorials.
DIVERSITY OF PERSONAL SELLING SITUATIONS
…CONTD.
DEVELOPMENTAL SELLING
REQUIRING CREATIVITY
POLITICAL/INDIRECT/BACK-DOOR SALESPERSON: sell
big-ticket items, particularly commodities or items with no truly
competitive features. Sales are consummated through rendering
highly personalized services to key decision makers. e.g.
Commodities with personalized service like at golf clubs, health
clubs, cricket matches.
MULTIPLE SALES SALESPERSON: sales-involves sale of big
ticket items where the sales person must make presentations to
several individuals in the customers organization, e.g. selling to
committees and One person can say YES, but all say NO….
Accounts Executive of Lintas.
THEORIES OF SELLING
 There are Four main theories of personal selling,
which are as follows:
 AIDAS Theory
 Right Set of Circumstances Theory
 Buying Formula Theory
 Behavioral Response Theory
AIDAS THEORY
 This theory is based on the premise that during a sales
presentation, the prospect consciously goes through five
different stages: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action and
Satisfaction.
 Attention: The salesperson should attract the prospect to his
presentation before he actually goes into the details of the same.
 Interest: He/she should maintain the interest of the prospects
throughout the presentation.
 Desire: The next step in the sales process, as per the AIDAS
theory, is to create a strong desire in the prospect’s mind to
purchase his product.
 Action: Once the salesperson has been successful in taking his
prospect through the three stages, as discussed above, he should
induce the prospects into actually buying the product.
RIGHT SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES THEORY
 The advocates of this theory speak out that all the
circumstances, which led to the sales, were appropriate or
“right” for the sales to have taken place. In other words, if the
salesperson is successful in securing the prospect’s attention,
maintaining his interest and inducing his desire to buy the
product, sales will result. Moreover, if the salesperson is highly
skilled, he will take control of the presentation, which would
lead to sales.
BUYING FORMULA THEORY
 The buying formula theory is based on the analysis of the sequence of events
that goes on in the buyer’s mind during the sales presentation. Thus, the
theory emphasises on the factors internal to the prospect and the factors
which are external, i.e., influence of the salesperson on his prospect’s
decision to buy his product. The theory is based on the presumption that the
salesperson will take care of the external factors.
 The sequence of events in a prospect’s mind can be represented as

Need Solution Purchase

 There are all the chances that a continuous relationship will develop between
the prospect and the salesperson. As a result of sales, the satisfaction will also
come in the sequence. This sequence can be presented as

Need Solution Purchase Satisfaction

BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE
THEORY
 Behavioral Response Theory: J.A. Howard
explained buyer behavior in terms of the
purchasing decision process, viewed as phases of
learning process.
 Elements being:
 Drives: strong internal stimuli impels response.
 Innate Drives: comes from physiological needs.
 Learned Drives: like status. Acquired when paired with

satisfying innate drive. In high income groups.

BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE THEORY (CONTD.)
 cues: weak stimuli that determine when buyer will
respond.
 Triggering cues activate purchase process.
 Non-triggering cues influence process but do not activate.
Are product cues and informational cues.
Some product / informational cues can operate as
triggering cues e.g. price
 Response: action taken by buyer.
 Reinforcement: any event that strengthens buyers
tendency to make a particular response..