Study Unit 1

SELING AND THE SELLING

ENVIRONMENT
EVERYONE SELLS, EVEN YOU
 Everybody sells because each one of us develops techniques to get
our way in life.
 You are involved in selling when you want someone to do something
and you use personal persuasion skills to persuade someone to
agree with your point of view.
 The skills and knowledge gained from a sales course can be used in
any type of business and in any career, such as retailing, supply
chain, law, healthcare, journalism, advertising, sponsorship,
accounting and sport.
 Any business that wants to successfully tender for a contract and
attract investments or recruit the best employees has to use selling
skills.
What is personal selling?
Personal selling is defined as the interpersonal
(direct, face-to-face) communication process
between two or more people in which the selling
party learns as much as possible about the buyer’s
needs and wants in an attempt to offer the buyer
the most appropriate goods or service that will
satisfy the buyer’s needs.

See video: https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHXlahT1uFk
The nature of personal selling

 Personal selling is a flexible form of

communication, which means that the message
can be altered and changed according to the
customer’s needs and the situation at hand.
Unlike with advertising where the same message
is conveyed throughout the process, the message
is adapted according to the conversation,
objections and feedback received from the
customer in personal selling.
The nature of personal selling

o Personal selling helps to establish relationships,

not only between the salesperson and the
customer, but also between the organisation and
the customer. The organisation expects its
salespeople to manage the customer’s account
and deliver good service consistently in order to
ensure that the customer returns to the
organisation for future purchases, resulting in a
long-term relationship.
The nature of personal selling
o Personal selling, on the one hand, allows for more
effective communication, since it is a two-way
communication process enabling customers to ask
questions and make objections if they do not
understand the message. And in response, personal
selling allows salespeople to explain the message
again or demonstrate the product again. All
uncertainties and confusion could be resolved there
and then. Advertising, on the other hand, is a one-way
form of communication, which means that a message
is conveyed and customers might struggle to
understand it and ask questions; or find out that it is
too much effort.
The nature of personal selling

o Personal selling is a form of dyadic communication,

which means that the communication is taking
place between two people; the salesperson and the
prospective buyer. Because this form of
communication is direct and face-to-face, it allows
salespeople to customise the message according
to what the customer wants. It breaks through
clutter (noise), since the customer usually pays
attention to what the salesperson has to say; and
the salesperson receives direct feedback from the
customer, allowing him/her to respond
appropriately to the feedback received.
The nature of personal selling

 Personal selling is an expensive communication

element to use, since organisations invest a lot
of money in recruiting, training, supporting and
rewarding salespeople who sell on a one-to-one
basis. As a result, personal selling has a very
high cost per contact, versus advertising which
reaches the masses at a much lower cost per
contact. However, it is not necessarily a bad
thing that personal selling is an expensive
communication medium as long; as the cost
involved justifies the expenses paid. As long as
the value and profit that the salesperson brings
 CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE
SALESPEOPLE
Effective salespeople possess the following
characteristics (Van Heerden & Drotsky
2014:8):

• They are excellent communicators.

• They are optimistic and have positive attitudes
towards their customers and their business.
• They are prepared to listen attentively and are
also very articulate.
• They are knowledgeable about their products,
their business and the industry in which they
operate.
 Cont…..
CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE SALESPEOPLE

Effective salespeople possess the following

characteristics (Van Heerden & Drotsky
2014:8):

• They are honest and trustworthy.

• They are self-motivated and disciplined.
• They are able to cultivate a good buyer-seller
relationship by: dealing honestly and openly; and
they are customer-oriented, competent, dependable
and likeable.
Advantages of personal selling

Personal selling provides a detailed explanation or

demonstration of the product.
• The sale message can be varied according to the motivation
and interest of each prospective customer.
• Personal selling should only be directed towards qualified
prospects.
• Cost can be controlled by adjusting the size of the sales
force in one-person increments. On the other hand,
advertising and sales promotion must be purchased in fairly
large amounts.
• The most important advantage is that personal selling is
considerably more effective than other forms of promotion in
obtaining a sale and gaining a satisfied customer.
Disadvantages of personal selling

• Cost per contact is much greater than for mass forms of

communication; and leading firms are highly selective about
where and when they use salespeople.
• If the sales force is not properly trained, the message that is
provided could be inconsistent and inaccurate. Therefore,
continuous sales force management and training are
necessary.
• Salespeople could convince customers to purchase
unneeded products or services. This might result in increased
levels of cognitive dissonance among buyers if a salesperson
is being pushed to meet certain quotas.
A career in sales
 Sales is a good career with many different types of sales
jobs, including:
 In-store retail salespeople, who sell to walk-in customers;
 direct sellers, such as Tupperware sellers;
 telephone salespeople, who sell to people over the phone;
 wholesalers, who sell to other businesses for resale;
 ales representatives, who visit businesses to make sales;
 and also people who sell services, not goods.
A career in sales cont…
 The actual process of selling can be broken down into a
number of different tasks, some of which may be handled
by different people. These include:
 generating new business leads by tele-canvassing, data
mining, or other methods;
 getting the order by persuading potential buyers to make a
purchase;
 taking orders from regular customers – more an
administrative than a sales task, but nevertheless very
important;
 sales support or maintaining existing customers; and
 delivering the orders.
Earning potential of a career in
sales
 Some salespeople are paid a good salary that
they can depend on every month – and benefits.
 But some sales personnel, particularly sales
representatives, get only a very small basic
salary, and need to earn commission to get by.
 Some salespeople only get income from sales.
 But good salespeople can earn a lot of money if
they work hard and are successful.
DIRECT SELLING
 Direct selling is a form of personal selling, but not all personal
selling is direct selling.
 The term direct selling encompasses classical direct selling,
multi-level marketing – also referred to as network marketing –
and referral marketing.
 It also includes door-to-door selling and home demonstration
parties such as Tupperware.
 Direct selling is the sale of a consumer product or service,
person-to-person, away from a fixed retail location, marketed
through independent sales representatives who are sometimes
also referred to as consultants or distributors.
 Direct sellers are not employees of the company and do not
earn a fixed salary.
 Ethical issues in personal
selling
 There are a number of ethical issues that must be addressed in
personal selling such as psychological manipulation of potential
 customers into buying a product that they cannot afford or
don’t even need.
 Salespeople who were pushy, made unrealistic claims about the
product and gave improbable guarantees, and who just did not
take ‘no’ for an answer. Such behaviour gives the sales
profession a bad name.
 Dishonest behaviour like faking expense accounts,
moonlighting by doing other work on company time.
 Even seemingly
 innocent acts, like giving samples that are meant for
prospective clients to family and friends, is ethically dubious.
 Pyramid schemes
 Ponzi schemes