The Personal Selling Process Read the overview below and complete the activities

Question

The Personal Selling Process

Read the overview below and complete the activities that follow.

The following activity highlights the various steps of the personal selling process through the story of Kirsten (a fictional person). After being solicited quite regularly by television producers and documentary filmmakers, Kirsten, a photographer, created a business selling collections from her extensive photo library to show to production houses. Review the story about how Kirsten landed the biggest client of her career and then assemble the stages of the personal selling model as instructed.

Match the item, which describes a detail from Kirsten’s story, to the corresponding step of the personal selling process.

1. worked trade show

2. researched production company

3. showed photos

4. confirmed biggest order of date

5. sends postcards

Explanation / Answer

Matching of the items, which describe a detail from Kirsten's story, to the corresponding steps of the personal selling process, is as follows:

1. Worked trade show - Generate and qualify leads.

2. Researched production company - Preapproach.

3. Showed photos - Sales presentation.

4. Confirmed biggest order of date - Closing the sale.

5. Sends postcards - Follow up.

Let us now see in detail Kirsten's story and the logic behind the above matching.

Kirsten has landed the biggest client of her career by following the standard steps of an effective personal selling process/model.

The first step she has followed is ‘Generating and qualifying leads’. The different ways in which this is done are as follows:

(i) Perusing data sources like newspapers, trade journals, telephone directories, internet and others, for names of prospects.

(ii) Putting up a stall in trade shows, to display one’s products. This is exactly what has been done by Kirsten.

(iii) Inviting current customers to recommend names of prospects.

(iv) Contacting organizations (here production houses in Kirsten’s case) to which prospects belong.

The leads that are qualified can be classified as hot prospects, warm prospects and cool prospects.

The second step she has followed is ‘Preapproach’. In this step, the salesperson needs to find out the maximum possible information about the prospect company and its buyers. She has rightly done so by researching the production company. For this she may have consulted standard sources (marketing research companies like AC Nielson, rating agencies like Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and others), internet, relatives, friends and other acquaintances, to find out about the company.

The third step she has followed is ‘Sales presentation’. Here, the salesperson Kirsten must have narrated the product “story” (here that of her photographs) to the prospective buyer following the AIDA model of gaining ‘attention’, holding ‘interest’, arousing ‘desire’ and obtaining ‘action’. The sales presentation technique that she has used is the oldest technique, i.e., canned technique. This technique is based on stimulus-response thinking, where the buyer is usually passive and can be persuaded to purchase by using the right stimulus, here this being Kirsten’s photographs, which were shown by her to the buyer.

The fourth step she has followed is ‘Closing the sale’. One has to understand the precise psychological moment to close the sale. A salesperson should be familiar with recognition of closing signs from the buyer, such as physical actions, statements or comments, questions and others. The salesperson can adopt various techniques like asking for the order, recollecting the points of sales agreement, indicating what the buyer will lose in case of non-placement of an order at this very moment, and others. Here Kirsten must have been bold enough to ask for the order from the production company, and which the company agreed to finalize.

The fifth and final step that Kirsten has followed is ‘Follow up’. This step has to be followed to guarantee customer satisfaction and repeat business. Kirsten has implemented this step by sending postcards to the buyer production company to maintain long-term relationships and also to ensure that the company does not hesitate to come back to her for repeat purchase.

Thus, Kirsten has meticulously followed the 5 standard steps of personal selling process to land the biggest client of her career. She must have put in tremendous time, effort and dedication to bag the biggest client till date.

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