Marketing Management, Millenium Edition - epiheirimatikotita.gr

Principles of Personal Selling 309check that salespeople know and observe the law. For example, under U.S. law, salespeople’sstatements must match the product’s advertising claims. In selling to businesses,salespeople may not offer bribes to purchasing agents or others influencing asale; they may not obtain or use competitors’ technical or trade secrets throughbribery or industrial espionage. Finally, salespeople must not disparage competitors orcompeting products by suggesting things that are not true. 26PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL SELLINGPersonal selling is an ancient art that has spawned many principles. Among these arethree major aspects we will examine here: sales professionalism, negotiation, and relationshipmarketing (see Figure 5-17). 27Sales ProfessionalismIn the course of instilling professionalism, all sales-training approaches try to converta salesperson from a passive order taker into an active order getter. Order takers operateon the assumption that customers know their own needs, resent attempts to influencethem, and prefer courteous and self-effacing salespersons. There are two basicapproaches in training salespersons to be order getters—a sales-oriented approach and acustomer-oriented approach. The sales-oriented approach trains the person in the stereotypedhigh-pressure techniques traditionally used in selling automobiles. This form ofselling assumes that customers are not likely to buy except under pressure, that theyare influenced by a slick presentation, and that they will not be sorry after signing theorder—or, if they are, that it doesn’t matter.The customer-oriented approach trains salespeople in customer problem solving.The rep learns to listen and ask questions in order to identify customer needs andcome up with sound product solutions. This approach assumes that customers havelatent needs that constitute opportunities, that they appreciate constructive suggestions,and that they will be loyal to sales reps who have their long-term interests atheart. Clearly, the professionalism of this customer-orientation is more in keeping withthe marketing concept than are the hard-sell and order-taker approaches.No approach works best in all circumstances. Yet most professional salestrainingprograms agree on the major steps involved in any effective sales process(see Figure 5-18).Here is how these steps are applied in industrial selling: 28➤Prospecting and qualifying. The first step in selling is to identify and qualify prospects.Companies can generate leads by examining data sources (newspapers, directories,CD-ROMs, Web sites); exhibiting at trade shows to encourage drop-bys; invitingcustomers to suggest the names of prospects; cultivating referral sources such asFigure 5-17Managing the Sales Force: Improving Effectiveness