Personal selling occurs where an individual salesperson sells a product, service or solution to a client. Salespeople match the benefits of their offering to the specific needs of a client. Today, personal selling involves the development of longstanding client relationships.
Prospecting is all about finding prospects, or potential new customers. Prospects should be ‘qualified,’ which means that they need to be assessed to see if there is business potential, otherwise you could be wasting your time. In order to qualify your prospects, one needs to:
This is the preparation that a salesperson goes through before they meet with the client, for example via e-mail, telephone or letter. Preparation will make a call more focused.
It is best to be enthusiastic about your product or service. If you are not excited about it, don’t expect your prospect to be excited.
Focus on the real benefits of the product or service to the specific needs of your client, rather than listing endless lists of features.
Try to be relaxed during the call, and put your client at ease.
Let the client do at least 80% of the talking. This will give you invaluable information on your client’s needs.
Remember to ask plenty of questions. Use open questions, e.g. TED’s, and closed questions i.e. questions that will only give the answer ‘yes’ or the answer ‘no.’ This way you can dictate the direction of the conversation.
Never be too afraid to ask for the business straight off.
Objection handling is the way in which salespeople tackle obstacles put in their way by clients. Some objections may prove too difficult to handle, and sometimes the client may just take a dislike to you (aka the hidden objection). Here are some approaches for overcoming objections:
This is a very important stage. Often salespeople will leave without ever successfully closing a deal. Therefore it is vital to learn the skills of closing.
So this is the Five Stage Personal Selling Process. Now have a go at it yourself by completing the lesson.
In comparison to other marketing communications tools such as advertising, personal selling tends to:
There are exceptions of course, but most personal selling takes place in this way. Personal selling involves a selling process that is summarised in the following Five Stage Personal Selling Process. The five stages are:
1. Prospecting.
2. Making first contact.
3. The sales call.
4. Objection handling.
5. Closing the sale.
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