Personal Selling & Salesmanship

Sales management, personal selling, and salesmanship are

all related
Personal selling is a broader concept than salesmanship

Personal selling ,along with other marketing elements

such as pricing,advertising,product development and

research, marketing channels, and physical distribution,
is a means for implementing marketing programs
Salesmanship is one aspect of personal selling
 Salesmanship
Salesmanship is the art of persuading prospects or customers

to buy products or services from which they can derive

suitable benefits, thereby increasing their total satisfaction

It is one of the skills used in personal selling

Earlier the emphasis in salesmanship was almost wholly on

persuasion but today the emphasis is on the benefits

attractive to prospects and customers

 Benefit –oriented salesmanship is known as “Consultative selling” – creating long

term relationships with customers by helping them to improve their profits through
products and services
 It is the seller-initiated effort that provides prospective buyers with information and

other benefits ,motivating or persuading them to decide in favour of the seller’s product
or service
 Sales personnel interact in diverse ways with different customers ,they have to know

the product and its application’s thoroughly, needs to be a psychologists ,human

computers, counselors or advisors and personal friends wherever it is needed.
 Effective sales personnel adjust their personalities with every call so that it is

compatible with each prospect’s personality

 Advertisement is “Salesmanship In Print”

 Personal selling and advertising make use of salesmanship techniques

 Buyer – Seller Dyads
Buyer –seller interaction

Sociologist use the term “Dyad” to describe a situation in

which two people interact

Another is the interaction of a seller using advertising with

a particular prospect in the reading, listening or viewing

audience
Both in advertising & personal selling ,the seller seeks to

motivate the prospective buyer to behave favourably

towards the sellers
 The Buyer-Seller Dyad
Good communication is a key to successful marketing, and
it is particularly important for positive personal selling
results.
The buyer-seller dyad is flexible and efficient, closes
sales, and provides feedback.

1. Salesperson determines consumer needs.

2. Salesperson presents information Consumer

Salesperson
and answers consumer questions.

3. Salesperson and consumer

conclude transactions.
Diversity Of Personal Selling situation
 Helps to distinguish between service and developmental selling

 Service Selling-

 Aims to obtain sales from existing customers whose habits and patterns of thought are

already conductive to such sales

 Developmental Selling-

 Aims to convert prospects into customers.

 It seeks to create customers out of people who do not currently view the salesperson’s

company favourably, and who likely are resistant to changing present sources of supply
 Different sales positions require different amounts and kinds of service and

developmental selling
 MuMurry and Arnold classified positions on a spectrum ranging from the very simple

to the highly complex

 The easiest sales are self-service sales:customers know their needs,know the products

capable of satisfying these needs,sell themselves,and go through the checkout line

  Varying Sales Responsibilities / Positions / Jobs

Sales Position Brief Description Examples

• Delivery salesperson • Delivery of products to business • Milk, newspapers to households
customers or households.
• Also takes orders. • Soft drinks, bread to retail stores.

• Ordertaker • Inside order taker • Behind counter in a garment

(Response selling) shop
• Telemarketing salesperson takes • Pharma products’ orders from
orders over telephone nursing homes
• Outside order taker. • Food, clothing products’ orders
Also performs other tasks from retailers

• Sales support • Provide information, build • Medical reps. in pharma industry

• Missionary selling goodwill, introduce new products
• Technical selling • Technical information, assistance • Steel, Chemical industries

• Order-getter • Getting orders from existing and • Automobiles, refrigerators,

(Creative, Problem-solving, new household consumers insurance policies
Consultative selling) • Getting orders from business • Software and business solutions
customers, by solving their
business and technology problems
 Group A (Service Selling)
Insider Order Taker

 “waits on” customers

Delivery Salesperson

 Mainly engages in delivering the product

Route or Merchandising Salesperson

 Operates as an order taker but works on the field

Missionary

 Aims only to build goodwill or to educate the actual or potential user, and is

not expected to take an order

Technical Salesperson

 Emphasizes technical knowledge

  Group B (Developmental Selling)

 Creative Salesperson Of Tangibles

 Salespersons selling vacuum cleaners,automobiles,encyclopedia

 Creative Salesperson Of Intangibles

 Salespersons selling insurance, advertising services and educational programs

 Group C (Basically developmental selling , but requiring unusual creativity)

 “Political”, “Indirect”, or “Back-Door” Salesperson

 Sells big-ticket items, particularly commodities or items with no truly competitive features

 Sales are consummated through rendering highly personalized services to key decision makers in

customers’ organizations
 Salesperson Engaged in Multiple Sales

 Involves sales of big-ticket items where the salesperson must make presentations to several

individuals in the customer’s organization -usually a committee, only one of which can say
"yes” ,but all of whom can say “no’
 Theories Of Selling

Is Selling a science with easily

taught basic concepts or an art

learned through experience?

 THEORIES OF SELLING

Selling is considered as an art by some and a

science by others.

This has produced two contrasting approaches to

the theory of selling.
Contrasting Approaches To The Theory
Of Selling
 Selling learned-through-experience psychology and their ability to

apply it in sales situations

◦ Emphasis is on “what to do” and “how to do” rather than the “why”

◦ Experiential knowledge from years of “living in the market”

accumulated
 Findings from the behavioral sciences

◦ “Buying Formula” theory

◦ AIDAS Theory

◦ Right Set Of Circumstances Theory

◦ The Behavioral Equation

 AIDAS and “Right Set Of Circumstances” are seller

oriented theories.

 “Buying Formula” theory of selling is Buyer oriented.

 The “Behavioral Equation” theory emphasizes the buyer’s

decision process but also takes the salesperson’s influence

process into account

THEORIES OF SELLING

AIDAS Theory:
 ATTENTION
 INTEREST
 DESIRE
 ACTION
 SATISFACTION
 AIDA and the Hierarchy of Effects
Purchase
Conviction

Preference

Liking

Knowledge

Awareness

Attention Interest Desire Action

 AIDAS theory of Selling
A-Securing attention.

I-Gaining Interest.

D-Kindling desire.

A-Inducing Action.

S-Building Satisfaction.
“Right Set of Circumstances”
Theory can be summarized as “Every thing was
right”

This theory is also known as “Situation-

response” theory.

If the salesperson succeeds in drawing attention

& gaining interest of the prospect, if he/she
presents proper stimuli or appeal, the desire
response will result
 A sales person needs to be well skilled to handle the set
of circumstances.
 Set Of Circumstances –
External factors
Internal factors
Eg.”Let’s go out for coffee”
Salesperson and the remark- External factors
Internal Factors-
1)To have a cup of coffee
2) To have it now
3)To go out
4)To go out with the salesperson
 Tend to stress on external factors and at the expense of internal factors

 Salesperson experience difficulties tracing the internal factors and the

factors are not readily manipulated

 This is a seller-oriented theory: it stresses the importance of the sales

person controlling the situation

 Does not handle the problem of influencing factors internal to the prospect
BYUING FOMULA THEORY OF
SELLING
 The name “buying formula” has been given by the late
E.K. Strong

 Buyer’s need and problem needs major attention

 Salesperson’s role is to help the buyer to find a solution

 “What thinking process goes on in the prospect’s mind

that causes the decision to buy or not to buy?
Emphasizes the prospects response ,strongly

influenced by internal factors

It is a step-by-step explanation of the buyer’s needs.

Reduced to its simplest form, the mental processes

involved in a purchase are

need solution purchase

 After adding the fourth element, it
becomes

For long term relationship

Need(or problem) solution purchase

satisfaction

Solution- 1)product / service

2)Trade Name
After modification in the solution and
satisfaction, the buying formula becomes

need product and/or service and trade name

purchase satisfaction/dissatisfaction
 After adding adequacy and pleasant
feelings, it becomes
adequacy adequacy

need product and/or service and trade

pleasant feelings pleasant feelings

name purchase

satisfaction/dissatisfaction

 Buyer’s buying habit is established, he/she knows that the

product/service is an adequate solution to the need and the trade
 Buyer’s buying behavior is challenged by a friend’s remark ,with a

competing salesperson’s presentation or competitor’s

advertisement ,the buyer need reason to defend the purchase

 Reasons (adequacy of solution) and pleasant feelings constitute the

elements of defense in the buying habit. As long as they are present, repeat

buying occurs.

 Where emphasis should be placed depends upon a variety of

circumstances
 Differences in emphasis upon the elements in the formula
 If the prospect does not feel a need or recognize a problem that can be satisfied by the product or
service, the need or problem should be emphasized.
  
 If the prospect does not think of the product or service when he or she feels the need or recognizes
the problem, the association between need or problem and product or service should be emphasized
  
 If the prospect does not think of the trade name when he or she thinks trade name should be
emphasized.
  
 If need or problem, product or service, and trade name are well associated, emphasis should be put
upon facilitating purchase and use.
  
 If competition is felt, emphasis should be put upon establishing in the prospects’ minds the adequacy
of the trade-named product or service, and pleasant feelings toward it.
  
 If sales to new prospects are desired, every element in the formula should be presented.
  
 If more sales to old customers are desired, the latter should be reminded.

(Developing new uses is comparable to selling to new customers.)

“Behavioral Equation”
Theory
 Using a stimulus response model and incorporating
findings from behavioral research, J.A. Howard
explains buying behavior in terms of the purchasing
decision process, viewed as phases of the learning
process.

Four essential elements of the learning process included

in the stimulus-response model are:
1. DRIVES:
 Are strong internal stimuli that impel the buyer’s response

a) INNATE DRIVES-
Physiological needs
b) LEARNED DRIVES –
Striving for status or social approval
2. CUES:
 Weak stimuli that determines when the buyer will respond
 Triggering Cues (activates the decision process )
 Non-triggering Cues( Influence the decision process but do not
activate it)
a) PRODUCT CUES ( external stimuli received from the
product directly ,e.g. colour,weight or price)
b) INFORMATIONAL CUES(external stimuli that
provide information of a symbolic nature about the product e.g.
advertisements, conversation with other people)
c) Specific product and information cues may function as triggering cues
 Price triggers the buyer’s decision

3. RESPONSE
 Is what the buyer does
4. REINFORCEMENT
 Any event that strengthens the buyer’s tendency to make a particular
response
Howard incorporates these four
elements into an equation
B =P * D * k * V
Where
B= response or internal response tendency
(Act of purchasing a brand/ patronizing a supplier)
P= predisposition or the inward response tendency
(Force of habit)
D= present drive level
( amount of motivation)
K= incentive potential
(Value of the product/its potential satisfaction to the buyer)
V= intensity of all the cues
( triggering, product or information)
 Buyer –seller Dyad and reinforcement

 Economic aspects and social features

 Salespersons attempt to receive rewards (reinforcements) either in sentiment or economic

by changing their own behavior or getting buyers to change theirs

 Salesperson’s influence process

 B =P * D * k * V

 Salesperson’s Role in reducing buyer dissonance

 An established product-an ongoing salesperson-client relationship

 An established product-a new salesperson-client relationship

 A new product-an ongoing salesperson-client relationship

 A new product-a new salesperson-client relationship

Two ways through which salesperson facilitate the buyer’s

dissonance reduction:

To emphasis the advantages of the product

purchased ,while stressing the disadvantages of the

foregone alternatives
To show that many characteristics of the chosen

item are similar to products the buyer has

foregone, but which are approved by the reference
groups