Reviewing Ziglar On Selling : The Ultimate Handbook For The Complete Sales Professional

Honestly, I really did not think I would learn much from this class. I have been in different sales ventures many times in my life. In my life I have taken different sales jobs to supplement my husband’s income. Most of these jobs were doing home parties. I sold Mary Kay cosmetics, Aloette cosmetics, and House of Lloyd collectibles just to name a few. I thought I knew a lot about sales, I was wrong. During this class I learned why many of those sales ventures did not work out for me. First, I did not even have a goal except to sell. I basically thought the products would sell themselves. I can’t help but think to myself if I would have taken a class in sales twenty years ago; I could have achieved so much more. Many of the sales techniques in this class would have helped me be a better sales person. I could have used: Planning a sales call as chapter 7 teaches us to pre-approach plan. I would have had my own sales presentation, instead of just the company plans. I would have known about trial closing a prospective customer. With the information in this class I think I could have closed many more of my sales. I also would have followed up with my customers and built relationships.

Personal selling is an important marketing component. In the glossary of our textbook, personal selling is defined as “personal communication with an audience through paid personnel of an organization or it agents in such a way that the audience perceives the communicator’s organization as being the source of the message.” (Ingram, LaForge, Avila, Schwepker, Jr. & Williams, 2015). Personal selling is trying to communicate with or convince a potential customer, usually through face-to-face contact, that your service or product is the best product or service that can satisfy or meet his or her product or service needs. Some examples of personal selling include real estate agents, retail clerks, insurance agents, automobile salespersons, telephone

In this week’s readings and content there were three principles that impacted me: the “Act as If” principle, how to build confidence, and the theory of “Learned Helplessness”. All three of these principles or ideas can have a big impact on a sales career or even just any career in general. They each have a lot to do with mindset, attitude, and are ways that we act.

We need to critically evaluate the performance of the individual sales agents so as to identify the loopholes and plug them accordingly. Following are some of the metrics on the basis of which we evaluate individual sales agents and accordingly we need to make changes with respect to allocation of areas,

The customer interacts with the sales representative to get help during sales process and after the purchase is completed

The author continues to argue that commissions are a great way to “ inject sales motivation into the workforce”( Meyer, 2010) but too many companies fear that it will detract from customer service and customer relationship. In fact, when a customer accepts a product or service that is offered through aggresive selling, the customer satisfaction level actually improves because the firm was able to offer a product or service, the customer did not know he/she needed it ( Meyer, 2010). Anticpating customer wants and needs before they themselves are aware of it is the true key way in building an effective sales force.

The communication barriers between the sales managers and staff have been exacerbated by the unfolding of the personal relationship between the sales managers over the last six years. To further complicate matters, Acacia Alloys has made the common mistake of replicating a sales plan without a long-term strategy (Havlícek & Roubal, 2013).

Sales are the ultimate driver for every successful business, which makes it such an important job. Since sales is so important for business the job is filled with pressure, uncertainty and a negative perception. These difficulties can be overcome through learning the sales process and practice. The sales cycle is an eight step process beginning with prospecting, pre-call planning, approach, need identification, presenting solutions, handling resistance, gaining commitment, and finally follow up. The hardest step in the sales process is handling resistance. Many sales representatives struggle with this step because the sales rep handles resistance personally, they don’t know the answers, and it is an

Another important step in personal selling is approach where a sales person has to make their first impression to be the best impression. The sales person has to treat the customer by smiling , by properly greeting . First of all the sales person needs to introduce himself and focus on the product . Once we come to know the customer is interested in the product then the sales person needs to do a presentation. They needs to explain clear about the features and all about the product. Then the sales person has to handle the questions from a customer in this regard. Before the sales person moving to close the sales they have to answer to any query from the customer.

The phone calls are quite brief (it is noted that a sale completed over the phone results in just a 5-minute phone call) and if a salesperson does not have a strong grasp of how people form perceptions, the customer will likely hang up on the phone and simply order the same product over the internet. Moreover, the success of the salesperson is a learned skill, one that is not instinctual and requires a cognitive understanding of the sales techniques that reliably appeal to the consumer; the product is clearly one that does not sell itself since Great American Northern Company has vast competition. Given that the salespeople compete against the internet market, the main

The oldest form of selling of any kind has always been one person selling something to another person who wanted it. One on one, face to face in which a seller has something to sell and a buyer wants to buy it. Throughout the years a seller would attempt to sell something and use his good name and reputation to sell it. The same can be said in business. While this form of selling does not work in my line of business to customer retail it does work for companies in business to business relationships. This Essay will describe the Personal Selling concept from a business standpoint. It will highlight the advantages and disadvantages of personal selling and give basic information for teaching, training and managing a personal salesperson.

As learned throughout this chapter, relationship selling is very important for success. Relationship selling allows the salespeople to understand customers needs and wants and allows them to provide solutions. These solutions are value-added, which may be information and services as shared in the book.

Approaching, this is the third step where by a sales professional comes into contact with prospects face to face, in this stage sales man should put up effort in order to catch prospect attention on product. In this there is the existence of direct interaction and hence sales professional is in position to acquire more customers as possible, the main objectives in this stage is persuading and getting customer attention on the product he/she brought to him. Thus a successful approach stimulates more sale for profit maximization. There are different methods of approach in selling the products some includes customer benefit approach, small gifts, stock approach.

In 1976 Spiro, Perreault and Reynolds described the sales interaction as a process that is governed by the buyer and the salesman. If their expectations and needs differ, the seller has to revise his sales objectives and strategy in order to adapt to the respective situation. In 1978, Weitz presented the ISTEA model, introducing a so-called adjustment stage, giving the salesperson the possibility to alter his way to communicate the marketing message several times during the sales interaction based on his evaluation of the customer’s reaction. Building on this insights, Weitz, Sujan and Sujan defined adaptive selling as “the altering of sales behaviors during customer interaction or across customer reactions based on perceived information about the nature of the selling situation” (1986, p. 175). Thus, a salesman who varies his sales presentation regularly engages highly in adaptive selling. A salesman that, on the contrary, uses the same sales presentation all the time shows no engagement.

However, the major disadvantage of personal selling through face to face communication is the cost of employing a sales force. Sales people are expensive. In addition to the basic pay package, a business needs to provide incentives to achieve sales, such as commission, bonus arrangements, and the equipment , such as car, travel and mobile phone, to make sales calls (Personal selling, 2005). Moreover, there is not a cost-effective way of reaching a large audience in now faster society. A sales person can only call on one customer at a time. In other words, salespeople need to go to the prospective customer in order to demonstrate or illustrate the particulars about the product or service. For reaching a large customer; salespeople will be taking a lot of time to achieve the goal (The Importance of Good Communication, 2005).