Personal Selling

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the changing nature of the personal selling function, referring to the importance of organization adopting a relational outlook rather than a traditional transactional marketing philosophy. It incorporates the contribution that personal selling makes in terms of achieving organizational objectives and the changing role of the salesperson. It also involves a brief discussion of the selling process and how knowledge of this can be utilized in order to influence the consumer decision-making process. It examines the main objectives that personal selling can achieve and the function of personal selling in terms of implementing marketing strategies.

From the Paper:

"The selling process has evolved in such a way that it has increased the importance of the sales team in the eyes of the buyer (Wotruba, 1980,). One of the biggest factors to have influenced the changing role of the salesperson is technological innovation (Anderson, 1996). Companies such as IBM have introduced electronic notebooks and electronic data interchange in order to improve communication between sales managers and the sales team. In order to define the changing nature of the personal selling function, it is necessary to distinguish the six phases of the selling process as described by Jobber and Lancaster (2000). The six phases are: the opening of the sale, need and problem identification, the presentation and demonstration, dealing with objections (although this can occur at various stages in the selling process), the negotiation, closing the sale and following up the sale. In relation to Noonan's (1998) statement, certain phases of this process will be of increased importance in terms of implementing marketing strategy and tactics at the customer interface."

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