The Sales Process.
Project: Create a vision of what the sales process should be for your product and communicate it to your sales staff. Read workshop 2 and the following article. http://edwardlowe.org/index.elf?page=sserc&storyid=0229&function=story
Design a sales process training lesson in either narrative or outline form.
Personal selling is a promotional method in which a salesperson uses skills and techniques for building personal relationships with another party which results in both parties obtaining value. In most cases the “value” for the salesperson is realized through the financial rewards of the sale while the customer?s “value” is realized from the benefits obtained through the product. However, getting a customer to purchase a product is not always the objective of personal selling. For instance, selling may be used for the purpose of simply delivering information.
Among marketing jobs, more are employed in sales positions than any other marketing-related occupation. In the U.S. alone, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that over 14 million or about 11% of the overall labor force are directly involved in selling and sales-related positions. Worldwide this figure may be closer to 100 million. Yet these figures vastly under-estimate the number of people who are actively engaged in some aspect of selling as part of their normal job responsibilities. While millions of people can easily be seen as holding sales jobs, the promotional techniques used in selling are also part of the day-to-day activities of many who are usually not directly associated with selling. For instance, top corporate executives whose job title is CEO or COO are continually selling their company to major customers, stock investors, government officials and many other stakeholders. The techniques they employ to gain benefits for their company are the same used by the front-line salesperson to sell to a small customer. Consequently, our discussion of the promotional value of personal selling has implications beyond marketing and sales departments.