Answer:
Personal selling is a part of promotional- mix and it is an art of person-to-person communication for persuading prospects or consumers in the sales process.
For introducing effective marketing system, balancing of other marketing elements like, product development, pricing, distribution system, advertising etc. should be organised along with implementation of personal selling methodology.
“Personal selling is an ancient art. Effective sales persons have more than instinct; they are trained in a method of analysis and customer management. Selling today is a profession that involves mastering and applying a whole set of principles”.
(P. Kotler)
Personal selling may assume different styles and all the styles may not be consistent with the marketing concept.
Personal selling is a part of promotional- mix and it is an art of person-to-person communication for persuading prospects or consumers in the sales process. For introducing effective marketing system, balancing of other marketing elements like, product development, pricing, distribution system, advertising etc. should be organised along with implementation of personal selling methodology.
In modern marketing philosophy, a long term relationship and understanding with the consumer should be developed through consultative selling process. Personal selling helps consumers to realise the suitable benefits of the product and services offered to satisfy their needs.
To analyse the diversified personal selling situations, distinction should be made between service and developmental selling. Service selling is targeted to the existing customers whose behavioural and purchase pattern are already known to the sales people. For example, in the course of delivery of necessary products like, bread, milk, fuel or gas, the delivery person and the consumer are known to each other. The other form of personal selling is known as developmental selling.
Developmental selling shall aim at converting the prospects into customers. In this process, the people who do not currently view the company’s product or services favourably, and purchasing similar product from other sources, should be convinced and changed favourably.
It is the creative aspect of sales persons to offer the satisfactory services. Developmental selling may be organised for tangible products like, automobiles, vacuum cleaners, washing machines etc. and also for intangible products like, insurance, bank-schemes, advertising services etc.
One key decision on person selling strategy is that on the kind of sales personnel to employ. It requires consideration of the company’s qualitative personal selling objectives i.e., what contribution should be expected from those performing selling jobs towards the company’s long term overall objectives? What should be their duties and responsibilities of such individuals? How should their job performance be evaluated? The management must squarely face up to these problems when it decides the kind of Sales Personnel to employ.
It is clear and beyond doubt that each company’s individual requirements as to the kind of sales personnel are different because the qualitative personnel selling objectives of each company have some degree of distinctiveness. In addition, each company deals with a unique set of marketing factors, such as the strength and weaknesses of its products, the motivations and buying practices of its customers and prospects, its pricing strategy, the competitive setting (pure competition, monopolistic competition, Oligopolistic competition, etc.,) and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the competitors.
Moreover, different selling jobs require different levels of selling and non-selling abilities, training and technical and other knowledge.
In determining the kind of sales personnel best fitted to serve the company’s marketing needs, we must understand what we expect from them i.e., the job objectives, the duties and responsibilities, and performance measures. Each salesperson has different job even in the same company. Knowing the salesperson’s job means knowing the particular job for particular sales person. Knowing the particular job helps the management to fit the person to the job and job to the person.
