A-Selling
Overview of Professional Selling
• What is Professional Selling?
– Personal communication by a rewarded (usually financially)
individual(s) with another individual(s) with the express purpose of
eventually persuading the other party/parties to (1) believe the
communicator’s message comes from his/her organization, and (2)
exchange something of value (usually money) for the product,
service or idea being offered.
– Or….Getting people to buy stuff
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A-Selling
• Remember the 4 P’s? (Product, Place, Price
and Promotion)
– Sales falls into promotion
• Creativity, skill levels and pay vary
depending on the complexity and
importance of the type of sales job
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A-Selling
Communicating with Customers
Impersonal Personal
Advertising Professional
Selling
Publicity Word of Mouth
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A-Selling
Overview of Professional Selling
• What do salespeople do?
– Locate and qualify prospective buyers
– Convert potential buyers to customers
– Understand customers’ needs, wants, and goals
– Help customers question their needs, wants, and goals
– Provide solutions to customers’ problems
– Translate customers’ needs to own company
– Help customers resell their products to their customers
– Help customers use products
– Collect and provide company and customer with market
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information
A-Selling
Overview of Professional Selling
• Types of sales jobs:
– Inside sales--(1) the customer comes to you (usually order-takers),
or (2) manage daily interaction with long-term buyers
• Retail sales
• Catalog sales / teleseller
• Industrial sales (sales service)
– Outside sales--you go to the customer (more likely to be order
getters)
• wholesale selling
• selling for a manufacturer
– Account Representative / National Account Manager
– Sales Engineer
– Manufacturer's representative
– Service Support
– Sales trainee 5
A-Selling
Seven Sales Job Categories
Inside Entry Level Creative Creative
Outside Sales
Retail Consumer Missionary Sales of Sales of
Delivery Engineers
Sales Goods Tangibles Intangibles
Order (Increasing Complexity and Difficulty) Order
Takers Getters
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A-Selling
Some Necessary Skills
• Motivation
• Verbal communication (including presentation)
• Ambition
• Problem recognition and resolution skills
• Self discipline
• Ability to work both independently and in teams
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A-Selling
Professional Selling is a form of
communication that is HIGH in:
• Cost per contact
• Flexibility
• Ability to make quick adjustments
• Amount of information conveyed
• Ability to demonstrate product
• Ability to hold customer’s interest
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A-Selling
The Selling Process
Prospecting Determine Objections
Pre-Approach Address Objections
Approach Trial Close
Presentation Close
Trial Close Follow-up
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A-Selling
Where do Sales People Spend Their Time? It’s
all about golf, right?
Weekly Time Expenditures
Traveling / Service
Waiting Calls
18% 11%
Selling
Admin. Face-to-
15% Face
Selling over 31%
the Phone
25%
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A-Selling
Typical American Sales Person Profile
33 years old Average length of service—
71% male 6.3 years
29% female Mostly paid:
18% black, Hispanic, Asian 20% salary
81% some college or degree 30% commission
9% graduate degree 50% combination
Most likely to leave after Trainee makes $33,000;
4.3 years experienced makes $80,000
Costs $22,000 to train
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A-Selling
Profile of the American Salesperson
Length of training—3 Spends 41 hours per week in
months selling activities within the
Sales call cost—$95.00 to territory
$400.00 Spends 18 hours per week in
Sales calls per day—6.5 nonselling activities, such as
Number of calls to close—5 paperwork and planning sales
calls
Field expenses cost—
$30,000 Turnover rate: 20% per year
Value of benefits—$16,000
Average sales volume—
$600,000
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A-Selling
A Sales Career Path
President
Vice president of marketing
National sales manager
Divisional sales manager
Regional sales manager
District sales manager
Key account salesperson
Salesperson
Sales trainee
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A-Selling
Compensation and Expenses by Industry
Travel and
entertainment
Compensation* expenses† Total
Top-level salesperson
Consumer goods $ 80,000 $16,606 $ 96,606
Industrial goods 110,000 16,880 126,880
Services 85,000 15,000 100,000
Sales superior
Consumer goods $ 82,000 $28,000 $110,000
Industrial goods 112,000 29,200 141,200
Services 87,000 28,198 115,198
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A-Selling
Main Elements in the
Customer Relationship Process
Analyze
customer
needs
Maintain Recommend
and grow the solution and
relationship gain commitment
Implement
the
recommendation
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A-Selling
Benefits and Drawbacks of Selling Career
• Benefits
– Compensation potential
– Challenge
– Responsibility
– Flexibility in work activities
– Rewards from making a tough sale
– Learning the business
– Opportunity for senior management positions
• Drawbacks
– Limited supervision
– Potential conflict between company and customer demands
– Depression form lost sales
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– Discomfort from asking people to buy
A-Selling
Trends
• Springboard to leadership
• Every sales job is different
• Competition is intense for top sales positions
• Sales doesn’t necessarily last forever
• Technology is having an impact
• May require extensive travel
• Entry level jobs moving from F500 to growing companies
• Financial services and franchise sales are areas of growth
• Often cited good companies to sell for:
– AT&T (NY) HP (Palo Alto, CA)
– Coca-Cola (Atlanta) Kimberly Clark (Irving, TX)
– Westinghouse (Pittsburgh) Adolph Coors (Golden, CO)
– Cummins Engine (Columbus, IN) P&G (Cincinnati, OH)
– Du Pont (Wilmington, DE) 17
A-Selling
Trends
• From Transactions to Relationships
• From Individuals to Teams (in some areas)
• From Sales Volume to Sales Productivity
• From Management to Leadership
• From Local to Global
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A-Selling
Questions to think about
• Myth or not?
– Salespeople do not serve a useful role in society.
– Sales people are born, not made.
– Selling is just a big bag of tricks.
– A salesperson should never take no for an answer.
– A good salesperson can sell anything to anyone.
• What are some rewards of a selling career?
• Why are some outstanding sales people poor managers?
• Why do many people have a negative opinion of
salespeople?
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A-Selling
So What Do I Need To Know?
• You need to know about your own company!
• You need to know about your own products/services!
• You need to know how your channel of distribution works!
• You need to know other parts of the promotion strategy!
• You need to know your competition and your industry!
• You need to know what you can and cannot do in pricing!
– Discounts
• Quantity discounts
– Cumulative
– Non-cumulative
• Cash discounts
• Trade discounts
• Consumer discounts 20