presentation on personal selling

What is Personal Selling? Ways to Humanize Sales Conversations

• November 18, 2023
• Curiosity Corner

85% of B2B buyers make purchase decisions based on relationships

Personal selling is all about building trust and relationships

Today, it’s just one of the many options available to sales professionals, but you would be surprised to learn that even when we are so obsessed with AI and Siri and Alexa

In this blog, I shall explain personal selling in detail, cover the types of personal selling, and touch base on the various strategies out there. 

I shall also talk about the advantages and disadvantages of personal selling and provide some personal selling examples for your understanding.

What is Personal Selling?

So, let’s first get the personal selling definition right.

As per  Wikipedia , personal selling is a face-to-face interaction between a salesperson and a prospective client, where the salesperson understands the client’s needs and aims to fulfill them by presenting a solution in the form of a product or service.

Personal selling is more about having an honest, friendly conversation with your customer, with the sole purpose of helping him out and, in the process, making a sale.

It’s like when you go to a store, and the salesperson helps you find the perfect pair of shoes , considering your style, size, and preferences. They are there to answer your questions, address your concerns, and guide you through the buying process.

If you want to excel in personal selling, several educational paths, including marketing, business administration, and communications, cover it as part of the curriculum.

For some extra help with your studies, you can use a service that can help in writing research paper , for example, in the areas of sales techniques and customer relationship management.

Apart from traditional degrees, there are numerous certification programs and workshops available. 

Importance of Personal Selling

Personal selling is crucial in various aspects of business and customer relationships. Some key points highlighting the importance of personal selling are:

Building relationships.

As a salesperson, scoring the opportunity to engage in an open and honest conversation with a customer is like hitting the jackpot. In these moments, you can dig deep and truly understand their needs and wants, which is key to establishing trust and loyalty – the deal maker in your line of business.

Effective Communication.  

Imagine encountering a friendly, knowledgeable salesperson – it’s like finding a guiding light in a maze. They are your go-to source, ready to tackle your questions, soothe your concerns, and guide you toward the perfect choice tailored to your individual needs. Similarly, an  MBA essay writing service  acts as your academic support, providing expert assistance to help you achieve your educational goals. With their professional guidance, you can navigate the complexities of academic writing and ensure your assignments are of the highest quality.

Personalization.  

Sometimes, finding products or services tailored precisely to your needs becomes crucial. A skilled salesperson not only explains the complexities of customization but also navigates you through the process, ensuring your unique requirements are met.

Objection handling.  

Engaging in personal selling offers the unique advantage of addressing objections immediately. When you encounter doubts or concerns, a proficient salesperson is equipped to guide you through them, offering detailed information and eliminating any worries you may have.

Feedback.  

Personal selling is a two-way street. Salespeople get immediate customer feedback, which is like gold for a business. 

It helps you understand what your customers want and what’s happening in the market. That info can help you shape your strategies and offerings.

Personal selling isn’t just about selling stuff; it’s about creating awesome  customer experiences , understanding their unique needs, and ensuring they’re happy. 

Types of Personal Selling

It’s time to break down the different flavors of personal selling! Trust me, it’s more like picking your favorite playlist from Spotify than decoding complex strategies. Each has its distinct features and objectives. I’ve tried to keep it light and easy.

In-Store Sales:  When you walk into a store and there’s someone to help you find what you need, That’s in-store sales. The salesperson is available to converse with you, respond to inquiries, and persuade you that those shoes are essential.

Outside Sales:  These sales reps hit the road, meeting clients face-to-face. It’s like taking the store experience wherever the customer is. Perfect for B2B deals and building those personal connections.

Telemarketing:  It is like chatting with potential customers over the phone. The sales rep’s job is to be super convincing and handle any concerns the customer throws their way. It’s all about turning a chat into a win-win deal!

Door-to-Door Sales:  This one’s old-school, but it still happens. A sales guy is knocking on your door with a product to sell. It’s like a mobile store that comes to you. It’s less common nowadays, but it used to be a thing.

Trade Shows and Exhibitions:  It is a sales party for professionals. Salespeople set up shop at events, like trade shows . They get to show off their products, conduct demonstrations, and try to build relationships with prospects. 

Online Personal Selling:  personal selling has gone online. Sales reps use video calls, live chat , and all that good stuff to guide you through buying something without ever leaving your couch.

Consultative Selling:  This is where the sales guy understands your requirements. They’re not just pushing a product; they are more like consultants. They want to know your needs and offer a solution for you. 

Types of Online Personal Selling

Personal selling isn’t just about handshakes and boardrooms any more. It’s about combining the personal touch with the efficiency of online platforms like Shopify .

Digital Consultative Selling

It’s like traditional consultative selling, but now you’re doing it through video calls, emails, or even chat. Dive into clients’ needs, understand them deeply, and offer solutions, all from the comfort of your digital space.

Virtual Product Demonstrations

Instead of a physical demo, think virtual. Utilize webinars, live videos, or interactive management presentations to showcase your products or services. It’s like bringing the showroom experience right to the client’s screen. Among SaaS companies, the most common form of virtual demonstrations are interactive demos which are essentially guided tours that give prospects a feel of your product. These demos are usually created using specialized software like Navattic or a Navattic alternative .

Online Proposal-Based Selling

Crafting proposals doesn’t have to involve a printer anymore. Use online tools to create compelling proposals that can be easily shared and discussed in virtual meetings. It’s your pitch, just in a digital format.

Upselling and Cross-Selling

Your online platforms provide the perfect space for upselling and cross-selling. Recommend additional products or upgrades during the online purchasing process, just like that friendly suggestion at the checkout counter. You can refer to these smart upselling and cross-selling techniques to make the most of online personal selling. 

Social Media Relationship Building

Social media is your new networking event. Engage with potential clients on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, or even industry-specific forums. It’s about building relationships, just with a digital twist.

Live Chat for Immediate Engagement & Sales

No more waiting on hold. Use live chat on your website to engage with potential clients in real-time. It’s about being there when they need us instantly.

Online Networking Events

Trade shows and conferences have gone virtual. Attend online events , network with potential clients through digital platforms, and explore business opportunities without leaving your desk. Here,  digital business cards  are handy, as they let you include contact details and homepage links for easy sharing with event attendees, extending networking beyond the event

Email-Based Relationship Building

Email is still a powerhouse. Craft personalized emails to nurture relationships, provide valuable content, and keep clients in the loop. 

Personal Selling Process

Selling isn’t just about luck—it’s a process with different steps. Each step brings them closer to hitting that ‘buy’ button or saying ‘yes.’ Following each step would lead to a higher close rate and ultimate customer satisfaction.

Step 1: Prospecting

The first step of personal selling is looking out for potential customers. You can do  prospecting  through various methods like cold calling, networking, social media channels like Linkedin, inbound marketing, etc. 

Lead qualification is one of the crucial parts of prospecting. It is a step to determine whether you and your potential customer are a match. Before you dial those digits, do your homework. 

Nearly  67% of missed sales  opportunities happen when sales reps skip the lead qualification process before completing the sales process.

Step 2: Pre-approach

Pre-approach is the backstage hustle before the main show. Here, you have to dig deep into your prospect’s world. 

You are talking about needs, preferences, business, buying habits, and those pesky pain points. 

Then comes customizing the sales pitch. You need to customize your words to fit exactly what your prospect wants and needs. 

Step 3: Approach

This is where your sales team steps into the spotlight. Whether it’s a friendly phone call, a virtual face-to-face, a chill email, or an old-school in-person meet-up, you are making that first move. 

The vibe here is all about creating a positive first impression. You are not just saying ‘hi’ but building a connection. The goal is to know your prospects inside out.

This is where your sales guys should start asking questions to determine if your product is the perfect fit for the prospect’s pain. It’s all about asking the right questions and cracking the code to make their lives easier.

Step 4: Presentation

Time for the presentation, where you can show off your product or service using a presentation folder like this along with an online slide deck. You can make it super interesting with demos, pictures, or good explanations. You can customize a  10 minute presentation as per your prospect’s need. 

Throughout this show-and-tell session, your sales team can focus on how your product can make your prospect’s life better. 

Remember all that info you had gathered before? During the pre-approach & approach step. 

You should ensure your presentation hits the bullseye and makes sense for your prospect. And that’s what they are looking for.

Step 5: Objection handling

In this step, you should hear out what’s on their mind, any worries or doubts. Your sales team should be well prepared with the responses. They should have ready-to-go answers. 

Here, the purpose is not to force the prospect into buying but to understand your prospect better, figuring out how you can make their day.

Even if you don’t get answers, that’s fine. Take the initiative; give them a nudge. “Hey, anything you want to chat about? We are here to help.” It’s all about making it a smooth ride to the solution.

Step 6: Closing the sale

Next, it’s time to seal the deal! You can gently steer your prospect toward a decision – it could be as simple as asking them directly or helping them navigate the purchase process. 

If there are any last-minute hesitations, you can tackle them head-on. 

The deal-closing stage includes all the stuff like negotiations, payments , invoices , paperwork, etc. It is the part where you make things official.  

Step 7: Follow up

After the sale, it’s like giving a little shout-out to your new customer. You want to say thanks and ensure everything’s smooth and fine on their end. 

This is also the perfect time to chat more. You are not just saying thanks but asking, “How was your experience?” It’s like getting the inside scoop on how you did and if there’s anything else on their mind.  

You are not just about the one-time thing; you are laying the groundwork for a lasting relationship. 

Personal Selling Strategies & Techniques

Succeeding in personal selling can be challenging. To enhance your team’s sales approach, consider incorporating these personal selling strategies & techniques.

Just be yourself and friendly.

Start by finding something you both like or can talk about. Trust comes when you’re real. Listen carefully to what your customer says and show that you’re genuinely interested. 

Respond with genuine thoughts and ask your team to do the same. 

It’s all about creating a two-way street in your relationships. When you connect personally, sharing success stories and building that trust is easier. Keep it natural, and just have a good chat!

Know your customers

Get to know your buyers personally – what makes them tick, what they’re into. Customize your talks to fit their vibe. If your company usually goes after folks with a specific budget or team size, stick to that groove.  Whether you’re working with Pathlabs programmatic agency or another partner, tailoring your approach can make a big difference.

It’s tempting to try and sell to everyone but trust me, it’s way cooler to focus on the ones who get you. 

When you connect with suitable leads, you’re not just boosting your chances of making the  sale by 50%  but also saving 33% on costs. 

PBR Approach 

The PBR (Personalization – Benefit – Request) approach in personal selling is about connecting with your customers in a way that feels personal and tailored just for them. 

Personalization: First, you get to know your customers. It’s like you are adjusting your dance moves to match your partner’s style. You learn about their needs, preferences, and what makes them tick.

Benefit: Then it’s your chance to shine on the dance floor! Instead of just listing your features like rehearsed steps, you highlight how your product or service specifically meets their needs. Showcasing your benefits.

Request: Then it’s time to finish. After demonstrating how your offer can solve their problems or meet their needs, you make a clear and engaging ask—whether it’s for the sale, a demo, or the next step in the process.

Get them talking with lots of questions.

Ask questions that need more than just a nod or a head shake. Go for those open-ended ones that really get the conversation flowing. 

The biggest mistake that sales reps make is to have a list of questions and start shooting them as if it were a murder investigation. Don’t do that. So, with the flow. If you pose good open-ended questions, most of the time, you will get answers, even without asking the question.

That’s the key to determining what the customer needs and wants. 

Now it’s time to put your listening hats on—sometimes, you must zip it to get the lowdown on what the customer is after. They won’t be able to help or sell anything if they don’t know what’s on the customer’s mind. 

Show the product’s benefit – what your product can do.

Break it down for your customers. Let them know how your product or service can fix their problems. 

Add in some real-life stories to make it all relatable. Once your team learns the customer’s needs, have them understand how your thing can improve their lives. 

Try listing out all the benefits your product brings to the table. That way, your reps can chat with customers instead of doing the old talk-at-them routine. Preparation is key to keeping it real with your customers.

Deal with customer concerns and build trust.

Be there for your customers by really getting what’s on their minds. If they have concerns, let them know you hear them and tackle them.  

You can add some industry insights, case studies, or useful resources. When your team is in action with potential customers, think of them as the personal advocates of the group. 

If there are any bumps in the road or burning questions from prospects, your reps should jump in and deal with each one like a personal mission.

This trust-building move puts your team in the customer’s good books and nudges them closer to hitting that ‘purchase’ button. In periods of change,  88% of customers  feel that trust becomes increasingly crucial.

Pop the question and seal the deal.

Surprisingly,  48% of sales  calls wrap up without even giving it a shot, and that’s a buzzkill for success.

Once you’ve tackled their concerns or objections, it’s game time. Lead the customer down the decision path by acting like you are both on the same page, ready to seal the deal. 

Get your team comfortable tossing out different closing lines – see what clicks and feels right for them now. Try throwing in a line like, “So, when are you thinking of jumping on board with our service?”

Keep the connection alive after they buy.

Send a big thanks their way for picking your product or service—let them know you appreciate it. Ask how their experience has been and remind them you have their support for ongoing support. 

Don’t be shy about checking in on your customers, whether it’s a quick call, a friendly email, or a face-to-face catch-up. 

Just because they’ve made a purchase doesn’t mean the friendship is over. Believe it or not,  nearly half  of sales guys skip the follow-up. 

Advantages & Disadvantages of Personal Selling

Like any sales approach, personal selling comes with its advantages and disadvantages. Let’s break them down:

What are the advantages of Personal Selling?

Customization.

You know that one size doesn’t fit all. You can tweak your words and presentation to match exactly what your customers need and like.

Relationship Building

It’s like making friends but with a purpose. Going one-on-one lets you build those strong & personal connections. Trust and rapport with your prospects become way easier to work up in a face-to-face chat.

Instant Feedback

You can get the lowdown from customers on the spot. Real-time info is very important for tweaking the sales game, tackling concerns, and perfecting that pitch.

Complex Product Demonstration

Personal selling allows you to show off your product or service. You can give live demos, break down features, and lay out the benefits in a hands-on way.

Flexibility

As a salesperson you can switch things up based on how your customers react, what objections pop up, and the feedback they get during the sales chat.

Negotiation

Personal selling sets the stage for some real-deal negotiation. Sales wizards can hash out terms, conditions, and prices on the spot, making the whole dance more dynamic and flexible.

What are the disadvantages of Personal Selling?

Personal selling can hit your wallet. Travel, training, and the time it takes for your sales squad—all of that adds up. 

For businesses juggling limited resources, it might not be the most wallet-friendly move.

Limited Reach

Personal selling is not the best way to reach the masses. It takes time and trying to connect with a big crowd at once.

Dependency on the Salesperson

The success of personal selling depends pretty heavily on your sales team’s skills. If turnover is high or training is lacking, it’s like taking a hit in sales.

Time-Consuming

Personal selling can take up time. Building those relationships and guiding customers through the sales maze. 

Takes a lot of hours. It’s great for quality but not so great if you aim for high-volume sales.

Personal Selling Examples

For your better understanding, let’s check out some examples of personal selling.

Real Estate

Imagine a real estate agent with a young couple who dream of their first home. This agent isn’t just about houses; they are all ears about the couple’s lifestyle, wishes, and plans. 

Personalized property tours where every nook and corner aligns with the couple’s wishlist. And when it’s time to talk money, negotiations revolve around their budget and long-term dreams.

B2B Software

A software sales guy lines up a hands-on demo for a corporate client. They are not just talking features; this sales ninja is getting into the client’s project pain points. 

The demo is like a tech playground, showing how the software fits seamlessly into the client’s workflow. Post-demo, it’s a proposal customized to the client’s budget and growth plans.

Luxury Fashion

Heading to a high-end fashion boutique, where a salesperson spots a regular customer gearing up for a special event. 

The associate isn’t just pulling clothes off the rack but curating exclusive, limited-edition pieces that scream the customer’s style. A private fitting session turns into a style workshop, with tips and suggestions flowing. 

It’s all about creating an exclusive and unforgettable shopping vibe, complete with personalized attention to every detail.

Financial Services

Financial advisor getting deep into a financial planning session with a client targeting retirement. The advisor starts unpacking the client’s investment world, retirement dreams, and risk appetite. 

The strategy is customized to the client’s vision of a balanced and secure retirement. The talk isn’t generic; it’s a personalized discussion about financial products, with recommendations that match the client’s financial story. 

Medical Equipment

A salesperson for medical gear setting up a special time for a hospital that wants to upgrade its diagnostic tools. It’s not just a demo; it’s like getting into what the hospital needs for better imaging. Incorporating these needs into a comprehensive medical practice business plan can ensure that the upgrades align with the hospital’s long-term goals and operational strategies, such as investing in charging Inogen One G5 portable oxygen concentrators.

They even do a live test with pretend patients, showing how the equipment can meet their expectations. 

When it’s time to talk business, the salesperson doesn’t just push a one-size-fits-all deal; it’s like a special package with training and help made just for that hospital.

Think about going to a car shop where a sales expert greets a family looking for a big, safe car. 

They don’t just talk about the car’s power or tell you to use the motorcyle turn signal . They chat about the family’s daily life and plans for the future. 

The test drive isn’t just about going fast it’s about pointing out safety, comfort, and all the family-friendly features. 

Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL;DR)

Did you miss out on reading in between?

We have got you covered. Here is a summary of personal selling.

Personal selling is more about having an honest, friendly conversation with your customer, with the sole purpose of helping him out and, in the process, making a sale. Like when a salesperson helps you find the perfect shoes in a store.

Why does it matter? 

Personal selling is about relationships and customized communication. It involves understanding your customers’ needs and desires to create a great experience. There are various types, from in-store to online selling, meeting customers wherever they are.

The process starts with finding potential customers and ends with follow-ups. Success lies in being genuine, understanding customers, showcasing product benefits, and addressing concerns. Maintaining the connection post-purchase is key.

Its advantages include customization, relationship-building, feedback, demos, flexibility, and negotiation. However, it can be costly, has limited reach, relies on the sales team, is time-consuming, and can be inconsistent.

Think of it as the engaging, customer-focused side of sales, aiming to make the buying journey seamless and friendly.

Give your sales process a human touch with personal selling. 

Adding personal selling to your marketing strategy can make your customers feel more connected. It’s like giving a personal touch to how you sell things! But to do it right, you’ll need the tools and resources that SmartReach offers. 

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Personal Selling: How To Build Better Customer Relationships and Close More Deals

Successful sellers need to make personal, emotional connections with prospects.

Marcus Chan

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People don’t buy things — they buy feelings. And while the world has become comfortable making purchases without any human interaction, the personal touch is more important than ever for making a successful sale.

Consumers often don’t consciously know why they make the purchases they do, and 95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious, according to Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman . This means that emotions drive consumers to pull out their credit cards, not a list of product features.

Tapping into how customers feel is the key to stellar sales and the basis of personal selling. (Think about the marketing of a full-service resort that elicits feelings of status and self-worth.) And making human connections are essential. Once you meet a prospect in person and develop a rapport, it becomes a relationship instead of a transaction.

Read on to learn everything you need to know about personal selling — and how to sell the sizzle instead of just the steak.

What you’ll learn :

What is personal selling, why personal selling is important, advantages of personal selling, disadvantages of personal selling, the heart framework: 5 steps for personal selling, personal selling skills, examples of personal selling, level up your game with ai conversation insights.

Sell smarter using Einstein Conversation Insights — with customer signals and next-step guidance to help you close.

Personal selling is selling directly to another person or to groups of people. It’s often used in industries where the products or services are complex and require detailed explanation. Personal selling requires a salesperson who understands everything about the products or services they’re selling — and who can build genuine trust and rapport with customers.

In personal selling, a sales rep will meet with potential customers and guide them through the sales process by uncovering their biggest challenges and providing solutions to solve their problems. This can take place in person, over the phone, or with video calls. During the meeting, the rep will also address any objectgions the prospect may have. If they’re successful, the rep will negotiate terms to close the deal.

Successful sellers need to make personal, emotional connections with prospects. A seller must have a deep understanding of the customer’s needs in order to influence them to make a purchase.

( Back to top )

Salespeople are often hyper-focused on one thing: closing the sale . This can happen pretty quickly when people click to buy something online, or when people go to an auditorium to watch a presentation. But personal selling requires a bit more time and care to finesse.

In sales, a lot of people try to build relationships using superficial things they have in common. For example, let’s say you’re in a place where a football game is on TV, and you say to the prospect, “Hey, I see you’re here to watch the game.”

Cheesy, right?

When you build relationships in personal selling, you are positioning yourself as someone of high value who can solve the prospect’s problems as a trusted advisor. That means you’re coming to the table prepared. You’re asking questions. You’re genuinely curious and looking to solve problems. That’s a much better business relationship than asking a prospect about a key fourth-quarter penalty.

Addressing problems and relating on a personal level is powerful. Now, the prospect trusts you both logically and emotionally. If you want a sticky business with minimal churn, the experience the client feels with you is a big part of the process. When you can carry that feeling all the way through, the client feels a personal connection. And over time, that personal touch will increase upsells and the lifetime value of the sales opportunity.

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This type of selling brings a lot to the table. Here are a few of its advantages:

• Customization: Sales reps can tailor their approach to each individual customer, addressing their specific needs, preferences, and concerns. This kind of customized service is in demand: 71% of customers expect a personalized interaction from companies, and 76% get frustrated when one isn’t there, according to McKinsey
• Building relationships: With direct, one-on-one interactions, sales reps are in a better position to build strong relationships with customers. They won’t just remember your facts and figures; they’ll remember you . And these relationships can foster loyalty, repeat business, and positive word-of-mouth referrals.
• Immediate feedback: Sales reps can instantly gauge customer reactions, address objections, and adjust their sales pitches on the fly. This allows reps to tweak their sales strategies for better outcomes in the future.
• Demonstration and explanation: Live demonstrations can help customers better understand the benefits of the product or service being sold. The rep can also offer customers detailed explanations and answer questions in real time.
• Overcoming objections: Most customers hesitate before buying. And if their concerns aren’t addressed immediately, it may mean losing the sale. With personal selling, reps can address objections directly and have a better chance of closing the deal.
• Building trust: Credibility counts with customers. Reps who build trust with buyers are more likely to persuade them to make a purchase — especially with high-value products or services.
• Higher conversion rates: Personal selling often leads to higher conversion rates . And addressing customer concerns directly can significantly increase the likelihood of closing a sale.

While it offers many advantages, there are a few disadvantages. Some of these include:

• Time-consuming: Building relationships with individual customers and guiding them through the sales process takes time. Potentially, this can limit the number of customers that a sales representative reaches.
• Inconsistent results: Depending on the personality, communication style, and biases, the success of the sales rep may vary wildly. This may lead to inconsistencies in the sales process and customer experience.
• Limited availability: For products or services with low profit margins or mass-market appeal, personal selling may not be a great match because of the investment of time and human resources. Other sales channels, such as mass marketing, may be more efficient and cost effective.

In personal selling, one of the biggest roadblocks any seller faces is when a prospect hesitates to close the deal. But objections are actually an opportunity to show prospects that you and your product or service are worth the investment. Sales need a personal touch. And by following the HEART framework — hear, elaborate, acknowledge, re-clarify value, and transition to close — you are in a position to address any objections and save the sale.

An example of a typical stall objection might be a client saying, “Hey, this looks amazing. We love the program, and the pricing is right. But we want to delay the purchase by a month.”

Here’s how to systematically eliminate objections using the HEART framework:

• H: Actively listen to — or hear — the client’s objections.
• E: Ask the client to elaborate on the objection. “Can you help me understand what you mean specifically when you say you want to wait a month?” The client might explain that they’re wrapping up another program and that they have a lot on their plate. They suggest that once everything is done in a month, they may sign.
• A: Acknowledge the client’s concerns. Then, ask them if there are any other reasons for their reluctance. They might respond with, “No — not at all.”
• R: Ask them to re-clarify value. “Remind me again. What did you like most about the program based on what we discussed?” They’ll run through a list, saying, “I love this” and “this is great.” They’re basically selling themselves. You’re just verifying their beliefs.
• T: Then, transition to close . Tell the client, “Your biggest worry is that you want to wait a month so that you can wrap up this other program. But if it wasn’t for that program, you’d say, ‘Let’s go!’ Is that right?” The client agrees, so you continue, “What I’d be willing to do is give you access for a month at no extra cost. This way, your team can preview the program, you’ll get support — and it’ll save both you and me the time of having to hop on another call a month from now.”

Using the HEART framework, your client is more likely to say “yes” to the deal because you did your homework up front.

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As I said earlier, personal selling is all about building relationships and earning trust. Here are some of the fundamental sales skills you’ll need to succeed:

• Active listening: Ask your customer high-value questions and focus on what they tell you. The aim here is to understand their needs and offer tailored solutions.
• Product expertise: Know your product inside and out. You need to clearly understand the customer’s problems and how your product or service can resolve those issues.
• Trust-building: This requires frequent communication and follow-ups. If a customer isn’t satisfied with your product or service, you’ll need to come up with an alternative solution.
• Value focus: Understand how to demonstrate your product or service’s value to your customer. Even if it costs more than the competition’s, know how to make your case for why it’s worth a premium.

Personal selling works in both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) operations. Common examples include:

• Transactional selling: Typically has a very short sales cycle and requires quick decision-making. The prospect may not need much of a sales pitch. The buyer often enters the transaction ready to make their purchase. Think Black Friday sales during the holiday season.
• Consultative selling: Focuses on a deep understanding of customer needs and is more solution oriented. This type of sale requires more of a conversation. You’re asking the prospect questions to learn about their needs and finding a solution for their problem. An example of this would be when a customer goes to an appliance store to buy a stove.
• Strategic selling: This is the most complex type of personal selling, involving multiple stakeholders and a longer sales cycle. The process may involve other members of the team, all coordinating to close the sale. For example, a startup that offers a Enterprise SaaS platform needs a strategic selling approach.
• Solution selling: Zooms in on identifying the customer’s specific problems and offers comprehensive solutions. Sales reps work closely with customers to understand their pain points. Then, they present their product or service as the ideal solution. Door-to-door is an example of solution selling.
• Relationship selling : Prioritizes building strong, long-term relationships with customers based on trust, loyalty, and mutual respect. Salespeople focus on understanding the customer’s business and personal preferences, staying in regular contact, and providing ongoing support and assistance. An example of this would be a client who goes to the same hair salon every six months and has a chummy relationship with her stylist.
• Social selling : Leverages social media platforms to engage with prospects, build relationships, and drive sales. Salespeople use social media to share valuable content, engage with prospects and customers, and establish themselves as industry thought leaders. Think of LinkedIn Thought Leaders as an example.
• Cross-selling and upselling: Cross-selling involves recommending additional products or services that complement the customer’s original purchase, like the classic example of a waiter suggesting fries with a shake at a fast food restaurant. Upselling involves persuading the customer to upgrade to a higher-priced product or service, such as when a sales rep suggests buying wireless earbuds instead of wired headphones.

Prioritizing the human touch in sales

In a world increasingly dominated by virtual transactions, the importance of the human touch in sales is more vital than ever. Personal selling requires effort. But ultimately, you want to treat people how you want to be treated. The key to success in personal selling is thinking that way and using the platinum rule: You have to truly believe that your solution can sell a product. It’s about finding a good balance of emotional intelligence and working with your customer’s timeline.

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Marcus Chan is the Founder of Venli Consulting Group. He helps account executives sell and earn $100,000+ each year through his coaching and training programs. Marcus is an official member on the Forbes Business Council and has also been featured in Forbes, Yahoo! Finance, MarketWatch, and more. He ... Read More is a 3X Salesforce Top Sales Influencer and Wall Street Journal Best Selling author of Six-Figure Sales Secrets.

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Personal Selling: Definition, Real-Life Examples, and Strategies

Melissa Williams

What Is Personal Selling?

Personal selling advantages & disadvantages, types of personal selling, how to piss people off: the opposite of personal selling, personal selling process, how to get started with personal selling, 5 personal selling examples that are endorsed by prospects.

It’s hard to give a personal selling definition when there are so many out there.

You can browse online for a minute — or ten — and it’s still very unclear.

Let’s look at the best answer plus real-life examples, processes, and how to get started.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• The Opposite of Personal Selling
• 5 Personal Selling Examples

Personal selling is an approach where sellers humanize themselves and show they’re there to help prospects, not sell at them. The approach involves one-on-one interaction between buyer and seller and can be via email, phone, video, or in person (face-to-face).

So instead of taking a megaphone to share features far and wide, you take a step back and turn your head to listen.

This applies to both in-person and virtual meetings. When you don’t have your prospect there to tell you what they want, you can still take a first step.

Read on for 5 examples of personal selling that take place over email. All of them involve the action you need to take when you haven’t spoken yet: looking them up online.

When you identify their responsibilities, interests, and needs, you take one giant leap for sales kind.

Although there are immense benefits of personal selling, there are some disadvantages to this type of selling. Let’s look at both the advantages and disadvantages below.

Personal Selling Advantages

• Creates two-way communication which helps you resolve objections easier
• Builds rapport and forms lasting business relationships
• Helps you convey more information and value

Personal Selling Disadvantages

• Takes more time, effort, and is ultimately more expensive
• Your reach is more limited and you talk to fewer prospects
• Contributes to a longer sales process

Personal selling can typically be categorized into three types of sellers: order takers, order creators, and order getters.

• Order Takers: Order takers serve as the point of contact for customers; they handle customer requests and inquiries. Their primary responsibility is to identify customer requirements and help fill their needs. An example of an order taker is a retail sales rep.
• Order Creators: Order creators don’t complete the transaction themselves; they persuade customers to promote the business’s offering. Examples of order creators include pharmaceutical reps and brand reps working with retailers.
• Order Getters: Order getters reach out to potential buyers directly in hopes of persuading them to buy their product/service. Examples include B2B sales , telemarketing, door-to-door sales, and consultative sales.

We’ve all been there.

Something that, by its nature, irks you happens again, and again, and again — but you brush it off because you can just focus on other things.

Until someone totally calls it out for you, and you’re like, “YES!”

The bad news: You might be the thing annoying your prospects right now (whoops). We get it, you have a quota. But there’s a person on the other end of that email, and your “respectful persistence” is actually pissing them off. To the point that you’re hurting your chances of getting them to take a meeting with you.

The good news: You can actually become the person who identifies what’s annoying them and shows them that there’s a way to totally eliminate it. More on this later.

What to Avoid When Personal Selling

For right now, just remember that you need to avoid these sources of frustration :

• Leading with who you are and what your company does instead of their situation.
• Telling them that you want to talk rather than asking them if they are interested.
• Personalizing a line to them while still being pushy — that’s just putting lipstick on a pig.

With each of the scenarios above, your recipient reads your email the same, no matter what it actually says: “Hi faceless prospect, I have a quota and am worried about me. Confirm a meeting time or else.”

Not the most appealing, right?

We already spend 35% of our workday in meetings that we schedule and we are required to attend. Why would we add another?

Getting to “yes” with a meeting request requires two things: 1) that they agree with you that their time is worth it, and 2) their preferred mode of communication to gather info is to have a call.

Studies show that introverts make up one-third to one-half of the population, and they dislike having meetings where they haven’t info-gathered on their own first. Booking a meeting just to tell them more is not their cup of tea.

What to do about it:

• Read over any professional email before you send it, and ask yourself: If I were the person receiving this email, would I say “yes” to this request?
• If you do ask for a meeting, be specific about what they would get out of that phone call that they can’t learn on their own.
• Think through your tendency to ask for a call. Is there a more engaging way to ask, or a better way to start a conversation that qualifies the match for both of you?

1. Prospecting

Prospecting involves identifying and qualifying ideal buyers for your product/service. This can be done through networking events, referrals, cold outreach, social media, and more. Lead qualification is essential here to narrow down your pool of leads to the prospects that are most likely to turn into paying customers.

2. Pre-approach

Next, research is necessary before contacting/meeting with your leads. That way, you’re entering the conversation prepared with knowledge of their background, business, and market.

3. Approach

The goal of the approach stage is to understand the prospect’s wants, needs, and pain points. You should ask open-ended questions to gauge as much information as possible about the prospect so that you can tailor your pitch to their specific needs.

4. Presentation

Now it’s time to show the prospect why you’re the right fit to solve their problems and help them succeed. This is where you show them your product/service and demonstrate its benefits and how it can help solve their specific pain points .

5. Handling Objections

Sales objections are inevitable. This is where you should be ready to alleviate any concerns they may have and address them head-on. This may include answering unresolved questions, providing further information, and offering tailored solutions.

If all has gone to plan, you’ve built rapport with this prospect and developed a relationship. Now, it’s time to close the mutually beneficial deal. This step involves finalizing contracts, payments, and invoices.

7. Nurturing/Following Up

Last but not least, always follow up with the customer. This is where you ensure the customer is happy, is receiving an effective onboarding process, and is satisfied with the product/service. This step is important to show the customer you still care, even after the sale has been closed.

How can you stop nagging your prospect and become a friendly, useful note in their inbox?

Personalization — Find an interest or need to create affinity bias and remove negativity bias.

Benefit — Show them the end picture; don’t just spell out your features.

Request — Doesn’t have to be their time. It could be a question to open up a conversation.

As emailing individuals, we’re trained to 1) have a disdain for sales emails and 2) like people who are similar to us.

Turn 1 into 2 by showing them that you aren’t just a seller; you’re a human being who is just like them, and you recognize their needs.

This brings us to 3: our brains are wired to love talking about ourselves . Use this to your advantage by focusing on them to start a conversation with your prospect.

Personal Selling Strategy: PBR Approach

How to get started with the PBR approach right now :

Third — Relate this back to your value prop.

Here’s how it works in an email:

• Start from where they are. (Ex. “I noticed XX” — where XX is where they are).
• Add context. (Why you bring it up)
• Connect the dots. (What’s in it for them?)
• Get to the point — make your ask.

Hint : It’s a waste of time (and sabotage to your email) to make an unwarranted request. Yes, your goal might be to book a meeting, but sometimes it’s worth nurturing with questions first. Because their silence to repeated requests to book time isn’t really silence, is it? It’s them saying “Nope, I’m good.”

To help you get started, below are five real personal selling emails that booked meetings.

Tip: Perfect your sales outreach with these data-backed findings.

1. The Candid Close — Give Them a Reason Why

Nothing’s worse than being invited to a meeting without an agenda that truly applies to us.

It’s estimated that we spend 31 hours in unproductive meetings every month. And in every meeting, 73% of people do other work because they don’t relate to the content.

When we’re in control of deciding whether or not to go, we’re going to say no.

Unless we’re given a good reason why it’s worth our time.

In the email below, a Yesware account executive adds two clear reasons for a meeting that help him transition from his Benefit to Request:

Email tracking revealed to this sender that this email was opened multiple times and the link was clicked. So he probably wasn’t surprised when he got this back:

Pro Tip: If your recipient published anything on LinkedIn recently, reference it, link to it, and show you read it with a connecting statement (all in the first paragraph above).

2. Crash My Calendar (Seller Turned Singer-Songwriter)

Hearing our favorite song makes us feel good. Neuroscientists at McGill University discovered that it releases dopamine, a chemical that controls our reward and pleasure centers.

“These findings provide neurochemical evidence that intense emotional responses to music involve ancient reward circuitry in the brain,” says Dr. Robert Zatorre, neuroscientist at The Neuro. “To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that an abstract reward such as music can lead to dopamine release.”

Which is why emailing a prospect with lyrics from a favorite song — adjusted to them and their business needs — puts a smile on their face and a reply in your inbox.

Here’s an example from one of our account executives:

And what Luke got back:

How to do it: Find their favorite band (try Facebook). Look up a song by said band, then tweak the chorus to your value prop.

3. Everyone Has the Same Achilles Heel: Competitors

We’re all constantly working to meet the needs of our target market and stay ahead of competitors at the same time.

It’s a difficult task, and it comes up on all teams across all industries.

Because it’s universal, you can use it for any prospect you’re emailing.

Give their pain point a nudge, then show them how you can fix it.

Here is a good example of personal selling from a Sr. Business Development Rep at Influitive:

There are two important things that Josh does well:

• Goes beyond simply naming a competitor by pointing out a very specific weak spot. This is what delivers true value, along with a very specific way to solve the problem.
• Asks a question instead of requesting my time. This is a good technique to use if you’re creating a drip campaign that you’ll automate. Work up to asking for a meeting.

How to do it on your own:

• Find their competitor.
• Identify one weak spot where you can help, and make it specific.
• Ask a question that is relevant, would likely be answered by a “no,” but should be a “yes.” If it’s clear you have the intel to get them to “yes,” boom – there’s their incentive to answer.

4. Connecting on a Human Level — What’s Bothering Them?

Some days, it can feel like the world is out to get you.

Personal selling lets you turn this around for someone by showing them you’re on their side.

Check out this email from our Account Executive Clare Durkin:

How to do it on your own: Find something that’s been bothering your prospect (ideally outside of work), then use a high-level connecting statement to tie it to a pain point on their team. Here, the connection is wasted time. In this case, it’s okay to ask for a meeting, because:

It’s the fastest way to help them solve the problem.

Here’s what Gloria replied back:

5. Bringing In Their Favorite Movie

What’s your favorite movie?

Think about it.

Now, how would you feel if someone acknowledged your love for this movie and geeked out with you about it?

You’d probably be impressed, and if it came through your inbox, it would be a welcome reprieve from typical business emails.

Here’s an email sent by our sales consultant Alex (and the reaction he got back):

How to do it: Find their favorite movie (try Facebook and Twitter). Identify a character and at least one well-known attribute that you can relate back to your own product or service (through metaphor). What end benefit do they both share?

Here’s how it works in Alex’s email:

Character : Jedi → Salespeople at JBX

Attribute 1 : Lightsaber → Sales enablement tool

Attribute 2 : Mind tricks → Engagement data

Shared end benefit : Success (whether it’s conquering the sith or scaling and growing a team).

Note: This technique works best for movies where there’s a clear protagonist and antagonist.

That’s all for now. Do you have any examples of emails that worked for you? We’d love to hear from you!

• “Personal selling” = Finding out who they are & what their needs are, then catering your initial outreach to that. Your first email should start a conversation where you listen .
• Move away from features and identify your value prop. What’s the end benefit?
• Lead with them, not you.
• Use a tool like email tracking to see when they’re opening your emails.

This guide was updated on October 10, 2023.

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What is Personal Selling and Why is it Important?

Discover personal selling, why it’s important, and how it can help your business increase sales.

Customers like to do business with people they know, like, and trust, which is why personal selling is such an important technique in sales and business.

Personal selling is a marketing technique that involves direct, face-to-face interaction with potential customers. Not only does this technique build relationships, but it also improves customer satisfaction, builds trust, and helps build brand awareness.

Personal selling involves person-to-person communication, which requires interpersonal skills and expertise to persuade leads to buy products and services.

There are many different types of personal selling, including retail sales, business-to-business sales, and telemarketing. Personal selling is especially effective with high-end products like cars and homes but is just effective with smaller purchases, especially for repeat sales and sales referrals.

Having a personal selling strategy is important for many reasons. Continue reading to learn more about the personal selling process and how it can benefit your customer relationships.

What is personal selling?

Personal selling is a type of marketing strategy that involves one-on-one interaction with prospective customers to sell a product or service.

While personal selling is a part of marketing, there are several key differences between the two. Personal selling and marketing are both important components of building a brand strategy , but they differ in their approach and objectives.

Marketing entails a broader set of activities that are designed to create awareness of a company's products or services, generate interest among potential customers, and ultimately lead to sales. Marketing can involve a wide range of tactics, including advertising, public relations, content marketing, email campaigns, social media, and more.

Personal selling is a technique that involves face-to-face selling between a sales rep and a prospective customer. With personal selling, sales representatives try to persuade a potential customer to purchase your product or service. This technique helps to build relationships with customers and ensure customer satisfaction.

Types of personal selling

There are several types of personal selling, each with its own features and objectives. Here are some of the most common types:

• Retail sales : This is the most common type of personal selling. It involves experienced salespeople selling products directly to consumers in retail stores or online. The salesperson is responsible for explaining the features and benefits of the product, answering any questions the customer may have, and closing the sale. Examples of retail sales include a salesperson at a clothing store, electronics store, or car dealership.
• Business-to-business (B2B) sales : B2B sales involve selling products or services to other businesses. The salesperson may need to work with a team to understand the needs of the business and to tailor their sales pitch to meet those needs. Examples of B2B sales include a salesperson selling office equipment to a company or a sales representative selling industrial machinery to a manufacturer.
• Telemarketing : Telemarketing involves sales reps making sales calls to potential customers over the phone. The salesperson is responsible for making a persuasive sales pitch and overcoming any objections the customer may have. Examples of telemarketing include a salesperson calling customers to sell them credit cards, insurance policies, or subscriptions to a service.
• Direct selling : Direct selling involves salespeople selling products or services directly to consumers in their homes. The salesperson typically demonstrates the product, explains its features and benefits, and helps the customer place an order. Examples of direct selling include a salesperson selling cosmetics, kitchenware, or cleaning products to customers in their homes.
• Consultative selling : Consultative selling involves salespeople acting as consultants to their customers, helping them to identify their needs and offering solutions to meet those needs. The salesperson may need to conduct a needs analysis, provide product demonstrations, and offer customized solutions to the customer. Examples of consultative selling include a salesperson selling software solutions to a business or a financial advisor helping a client plan for retirement.

Why is personal selling important?

Personal selling is important because it involves direct communication between a salesperson and a prospective customer, with the aim of persuading them to purchase a product or service or increase revenue through personalization .

Personal selling typically happens with face-to-face meetings, but it can also be conducted via phone, video conferencing, or other communication channels.

The focus of personal selling is on building relationships with customers and tailoring the sales approach to their specific needs and preferences. Examples of personal selling might include a car salesperson meeting with a potential customer to show them different car models and features, a real estate agent giving a tour of a property to a prospective buyer, or a financial advisor meeting with a client to discuss investment options. Personal selling can also help you build a personal brand strategy .

The focus of marketing is on reaching as many people as possible and generating interest and demand for a product or service, which you can do by using personal selling techniques.

Personal selling process

The personal selling process typically includes several steps, each designed to move the potential customer closer to making a purchase. Understanding these personal selling techniques is crucial so you can optimize the selling process.

By following these steps, salespeople can effectively move prospects through the customer journey and increase their chances of making a successful sale.

Prospecting

So, What is the first step in the personal selling process?

The first step in the personal selling process is prospecting . This involves identifying potential customers who may be interested in the product or service being sold. Prospecting can be done through various means, such as referrals, cold calling, networking events, or social media.

Pre-approach

Once potential customers have been identified, the salesperson needs to do some research and preparation before making contact.

This involves gathering information about the customer, such as their needs, preferences, and buying habits, as well as information about the product or service being sold.

The salesperson may also prepare a sales presentation or demonstration to use during the approach stage.

The approach stage is where the salesperson makes initial contact with the potential customer. The goal is to make a good first impression and establish rapport with the customer. The salesperson may use various techniques, such as a warm greeting, a compliment, or an opening question to engage the customer and start a conversation.

Presentation

Once the salesperson has established a rapport with the customer, they will move on to the presentation stage. This involves showcasing the product or service being sold and explaining its features, benefits, and value proposition.

The salesperson may use various presentation techniques, such as product demonstrations, testimonials, or case studies, to illustrate the product's benefits and persuade the customer to make a purchase.

Overcoming objections

During the presentation, the potential customer may raise objections or concerns about the product or service being sold. The salesperson needs to be prepared to address these objections and provide satisfactory answers that alleviate the customer's concerns.

This may involve providing additional information, offering solutions, or addressing any misconceptions the customer may have.

The final stage in the personal selling process is closing the sale. This involves asking for the customer's business and finalizing the transaction. By the closing stage, you should have formed a personal connection with the customer.

The salesperson may use various closing techniques, such as offering a discount, creating a sense of urgency, or emphasizing the benefits of the product or service, to encourage the customer to make a purchase.

After the sale, following up with the customer to get feedback after the purchase is key to strengthening the personal relationship and nurturing future sales.

It's important to note that not every sales conversation will lead to a sale, but by understanding the personal selling process, salespeople can increase their chances of success, build stronger customer relationships, and improve the customer experience.

Advantages and disadvantages of personal selling

Personal selling advantages and disadvantages may come into play when deciding to use this concept for your business. It can be a very effective component of a well-designed marketing strategy, so knowing the pros and cons is essential.

• Customization: With personal selling, you have the power of personalization at your side. For example, a salesperson selling office equipment to a business can identify the specific needs of the business and provide customized solutions that meet those needs.
• Relationship-building: A financial advisor who engages in personal selling can build a strong relationship with clients by providing personalized financial advice, answering questions, and demonstrating a genuine interest in the client's financial well-being. This can lead to long-term business relationships and referrals.
• Immediate feedback: A salesperson who is selling a new product can observe the customer's reactions and adjust their sales pitch accordingly. For example, if the customer seems hesitant about the price, the salesperson can explain the value of the product and offer additional information to address the customer's concerns.

Disadvantages

• High cost: Personal selling strategies can be expensive. For instance, a company that employs a sales team to sell industrial machinery to other businesses may incur significant costs associated with travel, equipment, and salaries. This can be particularly true if the sales cycle is long and requires multiple visits.
• Limited reach: With personal selling, you may not reach as many people as you would with other marketing techniques. For example, a salesperson selling cosmetics to customers in their homes can only reach a limited number of customers at a time. This can make it difficult to generate significant sales or reach a wider audience.
• Inconsistent quality: A company that relies on untrained or inexperienced salespeople to sell its products may encounter issues with quality and effectiveness. This can result in missed sales opportunities and negative customer experiences. For example, if a salesperson is not knowledgeable about a product, they may not be able to answer customer questions or provide effective solutions.

Humanize your sales process with personal selling

You can improve your customer experience by adding personal selling to a well-thought-out marketing strategy. But to get started with personal selling for your business, you need to have the right tools and resources, which you can get with Mailchimp.

Mailchimp has all the tools and resources you need to seamlessly strengthen your business, build your brand, and humanize your sales process. Contact us today to get started.

Personal Selling – Definition, Types, Techniques, Examples, Pros & Cons

Personal selling was one of the leading techniques for a very long period in history. In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that it was probably the only form of product or service selling when business activities became common.

However, globalization and the advent internet and social media have reduced personal selling to one of many selling and marketing techniques. The selling technique may not be as common as it was before. Still, there are so many organizations that heavily rely on this selling technique.

Let’s find out in detail.

Table of Contents

What is Personal selling?

Personal selling is a face-to-face technique where a sales representative approaches a potential customer or the lead personally to sell a product or service. This technique is more common in the B2B arena, but it doesn’t mean B2C companies don’t incorporate personal selling in their overall selling strategies.

Personal selling becomes more important in the B2B industry because you need to convince another business. Statistically, companies lose 69 percent of their B2B customers just because of indifference or failure to show enough empathy and value. This is where a professional and skilled salesperson comes in because a personal touch can clear many ambiguities.

Features of personal selling

Technically, personal selling has six main features:

• It is a form of selling where both buyer and the seller meet each other face-to-face.
• Personal relationship development between the potential buyer and the salesperson is another feature. This leads to sales and long-lasting profitable connections.
• Both buyer and seller converse orally in this face-to-face meeting. Both parties talk about the features and benefits of the product or service.
• As the client/potential client has a face-to-face meeting will the salesperson, it allows a smooth and instant response to the queries from the buyer.
• Selling in-person is a great way to know about potential client’s preferences, likes, dislikes, etc.
• Making the sale is the last and most important feature of personal selling. The main purpose is to sell the product or service and not just inform the potential client.

Objectives of personal selling

Of course, the main objective of any sales is to sell the products or services and build a long-lasting, profitable relationship with the customer. But some major objectives of personal selling are described below:

• Attracting and Engaging the Potential Buyer/Lead. The first objective to attract a potential customer who has shown any interest in your product or service.
• Properly Educating the Potential Client. It involves properly educating the potential customer. This includes educating about the benefits, value-added features, price, and everything about a product or service.
• Urging or Convincing the Potential Client to Buy. Educating the potential client is not enough. A salesperson needs to convince the potential buyer that this product or service is the best solution to his/her specific need(s).
• Making the Sales. This is indeed the basic motive to conclude the sale. In fact, the number of sales is the measure of success in personal selling.
• Sales Repetition. As mentioned earlier, It is about making sales and building a long-lasting, profitable relation.

Types of Personal Selling/Roles in Personal Selling

Basically, there are three main types/roles in personal selling:

Order Takers

Order takers have two further categories:

• Inside order takers: They generally don’t meet the clients/customers directly. Retail Sales Assistants are a common example of inside order takers.
• Outside order takers: They visit the field and meet the customers directly.

Order takers are the salespersons whose job is solely transactional, i.e., they take orders from the customers. Their job is to answer the queries from the customers/potential customers, but they don’t directly increase sales.

Order Creators

These salespersons don’t make sales directly to the end consumers. Rather, they create orders for the companies. This type of personal selling is common in the B2B market.

For instance, pharmaceutical companies hire sales representatives that convince potential customers (medical practitioners, etc.) to promote their company’s product(s). These practitioners then prescribe that specific medicine (product) to the end consumers.

Order Getters

The front-line salespersons actually persuade/convince the potential customers to buy a product or service.

When to Use Personal Selling

Personal selling is not a technique that fits in all types of business. It works better if you incorporate it into your overall sales strategy. Still, there are many businesses where personal selling is a more suitable option, such as:

• When a company sells specialized, technical, or costly equipment/product such as software, homes, etc.
• Personal selling also works better when:
• You are selling a high unit value product
• When you are introducing a new product.
• When a product needs proper demonstration before usage.
• Businesses go for personal selling when they have a limited number of large-sized clients.
• This type of selling is also a favorable option for companies that cannot afford the advertisement of their products on different advertising channels.
• It is most suitable when a company has infrequent but valuable purchases.

Personal Selling Techniques

Personal selling is not just selling products or services. It is a process where salespersons built a long-term business relationship with the customers. Following are the techniques that salespersons use in personal selling:

Prospecting/Lead Generation

Strictly speaking, prospecting is the lead generation stage where salespersons search for “workable” potential clients. The term “workable” means those prospects that can be converted into actual clients if they are approached and managed properly.

Pre-Approach Preparations

After the lead generation, a salesperson needs to collect maximum information about the potential clients (individuals or companies). If you intend to target a company, you need stronger preparation. For instance, you need to know the products offered by the company, their sales volume, their managerial panel, etc.

Approaching Your Prospect

This is one of the most important stages in this process. The term “the first impression is the last impression” fits best in this context. Homer B. Smith has suggested some approaches that can help you during this stage:

• Ask your prospect a question most preferably related to the sales presentation.
• You can offer a free service or any benefit according to your prospect’s needs.
• A referral can be of great help.
• Acknowledge and appreciate any achievement of your prospect.

Presentation

Once you have successfully convinced a prospect for a sales presentation, it is time to “impress” them. Salespersons use different approaches according to their needs. However, canned presentation or stimulus-response learning theory is one of the oldest methods.

Canned presentation means you can convince a lead if you can expose them to the right stimuli such as pictures, terms, words, actions, etc.

According to 82% of B2B buyers , salespeople are not prepared and avoid these meetings as they consider it a waste of time.

Tackling Queries and Objections from Prospects

No matter how much you prepare for all possible questions, you will end up facing questions “out of syllabus.” This is the stage where your presence of mind will be tested. One thing you must do to tackle this situation is to have complete knowledge of the product you are selling.

Deal Closure

Closing a deal means asking for the order. Once a salesperson completes the presentation, the next step is to ask the customer to make the order at the end of the presentation. Asking for the order needs confidence and the ability to read the cues from the prospect.

After-Sales Service/Follow-Up

It is equally important to stay in touch with the customer after making the sale . A salesperson should inquire about the product and its functionality or if the prospect needs any assistance. A regular follow-up helps in building confidence and a long-term relationship with the customer.

Advantages of Disadvantages of Personal Selling

Examples of Personal Selling

Personal selling is very common in the B2B industry. There are so many examples of personal selling in the B2C market. Some of them are mentioned below:

Medical Representatives- B2B personal selling

Medical representatives are a very common example of personal selling. Mostly, medical companies such as GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) hire Salespersons that approach medical practitioners on behalf of their respective companies and persuade them to prescribe their products to end consumers.

Retail Stores

Many multinational/international retail stores such as Ikea, Walmart hire sales staff. This staff helps people in choosing suitable products according to their needs.

Food Manufacturers

Food manufacturing companies hire sales staff that approaches retailer and wholesalers to sell a company’s products in their stores.

About The Author

shaharYar Ahmad Ranjhaa

15.3 Steps in the Personal Selling Process

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• 1 List the steps in the personal selling process.
• 2 Describe each step in the personal selling process.

Step 1: Prospecting and Qualifying

The selling process is a seven-step process (see Figure 15.2 ) used for selling a product. The process can be multifaceted, lengthy, and complex, depending on the product and the prospect. While all salespeople are different, generally most sales professionals go through the same selling process.

The first step in the sales process is to find, or prospect for, strong potential customers. In prospecting, sales professionals will work to create and develop a database of potential customers, called sales leads through lead generation. Getting the names and contact information for the database is the act of prospecting. Each business or company has its own methods of prospecting and qualifying. For some companies, the process is rigorous and lengthy; for others, it can be nothing more than a quick phone conversation.

There are many methods of lead generation. Utilizing digital strategies is one example. Many companies may prospect leads through a digital advertising campaign that triggers potential customers to sign up for information about a product. Other forms of prospecting can include meeting potential customers at trade shows, use of a referral program, or purchasing a list of customers from a third-party company that meets the criteria for the target market.

Once the sales professional has a database of leads, the next step is qualification of those leads. Not all names in a database may be the right candidates for a company’s products. There are many reasons why a candidate may not be a good fit for a company’s products. For example, some leads may have recently purchased a competitor’s product, and others may not be in a financial position to afford the product. The sales professional wants to reduce the list to include only the leads who are a good fit and are more likely to be receptive to purchasing the company’s products. Qualification may also include making sure the contact has the authority to make the purchasing decision.

You might be asking yourself how a salesperson or company tracks these leads and keeps all the various communication touch points organized. They typically have two software tools to help them: sales force automation (SFA) and customer relationship management (CRM) software. SFAs are used to acquire a customer, and CRMs are used to retain and manage customers after the sale. 1

According to Salesforce , a company known for one of the most popular CRMs on the market, CRM software “is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships to grow your business.” 2

Link to Learning

Difference between crms and sfa.

Check out this short article from SelectHub that outlines in more detail the difference between CRMs and SFAs.

Step 2: Pre-approach

The pre-approach stage can best be described as a thorough analysis or research of the potential candidate. It is in the pre-approach stage that the sales professional will conduct a very detailed study of the prospect, which will often include information about specific product needs, what current brands they might be using, brand awareness, who the decision makers are, and general knowledge of personal interests and financial standing. The research findings are meant to help the sales professional to find out needs and wants as well as the best way to approach the prospect for the sales presentation.

Some of the research that sales professionals seek to review as part of their investigation may include interviews with other clients, financial reports, credit histories, and any sources of public information. Most companies with a sales force and sales process will use robust customer relationship management (CRM) databases to collect, filter, and track prospects through the stages of the sales process. Information that is uncovered during the pre-approach will be added to prospect records in the CRM system.

Step 3: Approach

Information gathered in the pre-approach helps the sales professional during the approach phase. Utilizing the insights they have gathered about the prospect, the sales professional seeks to contact the prospect to build rapport and gather more information on the needs and wants of the prospect. During this phase, it is very important for the sales professional to create a positive impression, ask the right questions, and begin building a relationship with the prospect.

A soft approach is generally the best strategy, as the goal is to build the relationship and not necessarily push product. Hard-sell tactics are often rebuffed during this early contact with the prospect. Ideally the role of the salesperson in this early stage is to ask questions and listen. It is through listening intently to the prospect that the salesperson can detect the fit for the product and ultimately the best way to sell the product. Information gathered during the approach will often be used in the presentation stage.

Step 4: Presentation

Once the prospect has made it through the approach stage, the sales professional is ready to present the product to the prospect. During the presentation stage, the goal is to showcase the features about the product that will be of most benefit to the prospect based on the needs uncovered during the pre-approach and approach stages. Often the presentation may include education on the aspects of the product that the prospect will find most beneficial to solve their problems. This is the time for the sales professional to highlight the benefits of the product and answer questions the prospect might have. For example, college admissions departments work with students to showcase the best of the university in an attempt to persuade them to enroll. Part of the presentation process includes tours of the campus, meetings with current students, attending classes, and experiencing campus life.

The best sales professionals are good listeners. Good listening strategies work to build rapport and create winning strategies. When you listen carefully to your prospects, they will tell you exactly how to sell to them. Using information provided by the prospect, a good sales professional will be able to turn it into a winning sale. Several methods of sale presentation include a stimulus-response format, formula selling, a need/satisfaction format, adaptive selling, and consultative selling.

Stimulus-Response Format

When a salesperson has done the research and they understand many of the issues that might be presented by the customer, they are able to provide a stimulus, and the customer provides a response. The skilled salesperson is able to counter every response with a new stimulus. The goal is to sell based on the response from the customer. To be effective, the salesperson must follow a script, which has been developed based on the pre-identified needs and wants of the customer.

Formula Selling Format

Advertising has typically been dependent on the customer going through a specific set of actions before responding. One of the most common consumer response models is the AIDA model , which encompasses attention, interest, desire, and action. Marketers often look to the AIDA model when putting together advertising campaigns. The AIDA model is also used for formula selling . The goal is for the salesperson to take the customer through the various stages of response until they get to the purchase of the product. The skilled sales professional will make sure they are providing stimuli and responses for each of the stages of AIDA.

Need/Satisfaction Format

The need/satisfaction format of selling is an approach where the sales professional opens the sales presentation by probing the potential customer with questions in an effort to uncover their needs. The sales presentation is then tailored to the customer by showing how the product/service will satisfy the customer needs.

For example, the owner of a busy café may be met with a question about scheduling from a salesperson who sells scheduling software. The salesperson may start with a question such as “This café is so busy; is it difficult to schedule your staff?” Once the café owner talks about the challenges of scheduling, the salesperson now has information they need to custom tailor the sales presentation about scheduling software to the specific needs identified by the café owner.

Adaptive Selling

Adaptive selling is one of the most customer-centric sales methods available to the sales professional. Using the adaptive selling approach requires the sales professional to adapt their selling strategy and even the product to meet the needs and solve the problems of the customer. To fully utilize this approach requires that the sales professional rapidly customize their approach to meet the needs of different customers. Many sales professionals are taking advantage of the big data that is now readily available to better target customers. Armed with data about what is going on in the market, the salesperson can now adapt their presentation with real time information.

Consultative Selling

Perhaps this method was best exemplified in the movie Miracle on 34th Street. In the movie, the Macy’s Santa Claus suggests a location, other than Macy’s, where a mother can get a toy for her son. Consultative selling makes the sales professional a consultant who develops a relationship with the customer and takes on an advisory role to help the customer solve their problems. Generally, the problem will get solved through purchase of the product, but it can also be solved in various other ways. The sales professional becomes the anchor to helping the potential customer solve their problems.

Step 5: Handling Objections

Preparation during the qualification, pre-approach, and approach stages of the sale process, provide the sales professional with the information they will need to handle objections. In many situations, seasoned sales professionals are able to successfully present the product and answer questions without having objections. Good research on the customer and an understanding of how the product will help them and solve their problems allow the sales professional to avoid objections. However, when the customer does present an objection, the skilled sales professional will need to be agile at handling them.

Typically, strategies for handling objections include listening, restating the question, and responding with additional questions. Price is generally always voiced as an objection. Knowing the common objections and having a strategy to handle them prior to the presentation will help advance to the close stage.

Step 6: Closing

Asking for the order is perhaps the hardest step in the sales process for many sales professionals. Up to the point of the close, the sales professional has spent a tremendous amount of time and energy with the prospect. Much of the work of the sales professional has been around building a relationship with the prospect. Asking for the order is a source of tremendous fear for many sales professionals because this is the point where all of their work could unravel. What if the customer says no? Then what?

Many sales professionals fear the possibility of rejection. They also consider that they may get the timing wrong. However, if the sales professional has prepared, they know that asking for the order is the point where they make the prospect a customer. One way to eliminate the guesswork of timing is to do a trial close by talking about things such as financial terms or delivery of the product. The customer’s response to the trial close questions will alert the sales professional to the prospect’s readiness to purchase.

Step 7: Follow-Up

After the order is placed, the real work begins. Upon closing a sale and signing the prospect as a customer, the sales professional is now tasked with onboarding the customer and ensuring that everything progresses smoothly with the sale of the product. Because it is much more lucrative for a company to keep current customers happy than to go out and prospect for new customers, the follow-up is a major step in creating lifetime customer value (LCV). Most salespeople would rather maintain their current clients than search for new clients. The follow-up after the sale is a critical step in getting repeat business, customer referrals, and upsells during the next order cycle.

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

• Handling objections
• Presentation
• Prospecting and qualifying
• Pre-approach
• Stimulus-response
• Consultative

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction

• Authors: Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht, Dr. Mark Green, Linda Hoffman
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Principles of Marketing
• Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/15-3-steps-in-the-personal-selling-process

© Jan 9, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

Personal Selling Mastery: Definitions, Tips & Top Examples

Unlock sales success with an in-depth look at personal selling. Learn key techniques, overcome objections, and follow top examples for mastery.

April 12, 2024

What's Inside?

Understanding Personal Selling

What is personal selling.

Personal selling is a marketing strategy where sales representatives engage directly with potential customers to persuade them to purchase a product or service. It involves face-to-face interaction or communication through other channels like phone calls or video conferences.

In personal selling, the salesperson typically identifies potential customers, establishes relationships with them, understands their needs and preferences, demonstrates how the product or service meets those needs, addresses any concerns or objections, and ultimately closes the sale.

This approach allows for tailored communication and customization based on individual customer requirements, which can lead to higher customer satisfaction and increased sales. Personal selling is commonly used in industries where complex or high-value products/services are involved, as it allows for detailed explanation and negotiation.

Why Personal Selling is Important?

Personal selling, characterized by direct interaction between sales representatives and potential customers, is a cornerstone of successful marketing campaigns. Let's delve into why personal selling is not just important, but indispensable in today's business world.

Building Lasting Relationships

At the heart of personal selling lies the ability to forge genuine connections with customers. Unlike impersonal digital interactions, personal selling allows sales representatives to establish rapport, understand individual needs, and cater to them effectively. By taking the time to engage directly with customers, salespeople can cultivate trust and loyalty, fostering long-term relationships that transcend mere transactions.

Tailored Solutions for Unique Needs

In a world where one-size-fits-all solutions often fall short, personal selling shines by offering customized experiences. Sales representatives have the flexibility to adapt their approach to suit the specific requirements of each customer. Whether it's addressing concerns, providing in-depth explanations, or offering tailored solutions, personal selling ensures that every interaction is meaningful and relevant.

Navigating Complexity with Clarity

Some products or services are inherently complex, requiring more than just a cursory glance to understand their value proposition. Personal selling excels in such scenarios, providing a platform for detailed explanations, demonstrations, and hands-on experiences. Through face-to-face interactions, sales representatives can demystify complexity, empowering customers to make informed decisions with confidence.

Flexibility in Action

In the dynamic realm of sales, adaptability is key. Personal selling offers the flexibility to pivot and tailor strategies on the fly. Whether it's addressing customer objections, negotiating terms, or seizing unexpected opportunities, sales representatives can adjust their approach in real-time to maximize success.

Driving Innovation Through Feedback

Personal selling isn't just about selling it's also about listening. By actively engaging with customers, sales representatives gain invaluable insights into their preferences, pain points, and aspirations. This feedback loop fuels innovation, empowering businesses to refine their offerings and stay ahead of the curve.

How Does Personal Selling Add Value?

Personal selling adds value in multiple ways, contributing to the overall success of a business:

• Customized Solutions : Personal selling tailors offerings to match individual customer needs, enhancing the relevance and utility of products/services.
• Expert Guidance : Sales representatives provide valuable insights and recommendations based on their expertise, aiding customers in making informed decisions.
• Trust Building : Direct interactions foster rapport and credibility, cultivating trust and loyalty between customers and businesses.
• Flexibility and Negotiation : Sales representatives adapt their approach to address specific needs and negotiate terms, creating a tailored and collaborative sales process.

Type of Sales Promotion

In personal selling, strategic sales promotions can elevate your approach and drive results. Here are key tactics tailored for personal interactions:

Custom Discounts : Tailor discounts to individual preferences, fostering immediate action and stronger connections.

Exclusive Coupons : Offer personalized coupons during interactions, creating a sense of exclusivity and urgency.

Referral Rewards : Incentivize referrals with rewards, leveraging personal endorsements for growth.

VIP Events : Host intimate events for loyal customers, deepening relationships and offering tailored recommendations.

Tailored Demos : Customize demos to showcase features aligned with customer needs, boosting engagement.

Limited-Time Offers : Create urgency with time-bound promotions, prompting swift decisions.

Cross-Selling & Upselling : Identify opportunities for additional purchases, enhancing the customer experience.

Follow-Up Promotions : Offer exclusive deals post-interaction, reinforcing commitment and encouraging repeat business.

By implementing these focused sales promotion tactics, you can maximize personal selling effectiveness and drive sustainable growth.

These are just a few examples of the diverse range of sales promotion strategies that businesses can utilize to drive sales, attract customers, and increase brand visibility. For a more detailed list check out our

The Pros and Cons of Personal Selling

personal selling stands out as a powerful tool for businesses looking to engage customers on a one-on-one level. However, like any approach, it comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Let's delve into the pros and cons of personal selling to understand its impact on businesses:

Pros of Personal Selling:

• Relationship Building : Direct interactions between sales representatives and customers foster personal connections and trust. Building strong relationships can lead to repeat business, word-of-mouth referrals, and long-term customer loyalty, contributing to sustainable growth.
• Achieving Greater Success Rates : Personal relationships established through personal selling significantly increase the likelihood of closing a sale. Studies show that salespeople are 50% more likely to make a sale with personalized interactions, leading to higher conversion rates at a fraction of the cost.
• Reducing Churn : Strong relationships built through personal selling result in satisfied customers who are less likely to switch to competitors. By consistently delivering on clients' needs and expectations, businesses can reduce churn and foster long-term loyalty.
• Demonstration and Explanation : For complex products or services, personal selling offers the opportunity for in-depth demonstrations and explanations. Sales representatives can showcase features, benefits, and use cases, helping customers understand the value proposition more effectively than through other marketing channels.
• Flexibility : Personal selling allows for flexibility in the sales process. Sales representatives can adjust their approach based on the customer's response, tailoring their pitch, pricing, or offerings to better suit the customer's needs and preferences, thereby increasing the chances of closing the sale.

Cons of Personal Selling:

• Cost : Personal selling can be expensive compared to other marketing channels. It requires investment in hiring, training, and compensating sales representatives, as well as covering expenses related to travel, accommodation, and entertainment, which can significantly impact the overall marketing budget.
• Time-Consuming : Personal selling is often time-consuming, especially for complex sales cycles that involve multiple interactions and follow-ups. Sales representatives must invest considerable time and effort in building relationships, guiding customers through the purchasing journey, and nurturing leads, which can slow down the sales process.
• Limited Reach : Unlike mass marketing channels like advertising or digital marketing, personal selling has a limited reach. Sales representatives can only engage with a finite number of customers within a given timeframe, restricting the potential audience size and scalability of the approach.
• Dependency on Sales Skills : Success in personal selling heavily relies on the skills and effectiveness of individual sales representatives. Inconsistent performance or inadequate training can lead to missed opportunities and lost sales, highlighting the importance of continuous development and support for sales teams.
• Resistance from Customers : Some customers may be resistant to personal selling tactics, perceiving them as intrusive or pushy. Building rapport and trust with these customers may require extra effort and sensitivity from sales representatives to overcome objections and objections.

In conclusion, while personal selling offers benefits such as customization, relationship building, and immediate feedback, it also presents challenges related to cost, time investment, reach, skill dependency, and customer resistance. Businesses must carefully evaluate these pros and cons to determine the suitability of personal selling in their overall marketing strategy and allocate resources accordingly.

Leveraging Techniques for Success

Best Personal Selling Strategies

Mastering personal selling strategies is crucial for building strong client relationships and driving business success. Here's a curated list of effective strategies to elevate your personal selling game:

1) Craft Compelling Stories

Engage your prospects by telling compelling stories that resonate with their experiences and aspirations. Be natural and personable in your approach, and use storytelling to illustrate the benefits of your offerings in a relatable and impactful way.

2) Focus on Targeted Leads

Direct your efforts towards identifying and engaging with prospects who closely match your ideal customer profile. By targeting the right leads, you can maximize your chances of success and ensure that your efforts are focused on individuals who are most likely to benefit from your offerings.

3) Exceed Expectations with Thorough Preparation

Preparation is key in personal selling. Take the time to research your prospects, understand their needs and pain points, and anticipate potential objections. By exceeding expectations through thorough preparation, you can demonstrate your commitment to delivering value and building trust.

4) Deliver Value During Meetings

Make every interaction count by adding value during meetings. Focus on providing insights, solutions, and personalized recommendations that address your prospect's specific challenges. By demonstrating the value of your offerings, you can establish yourself as a trusted advisor and differentiate yourself from competitors.

5) Keep Buyer Personas in Mind

Tailor your approach to align with the needs and preferences of your buyer personas. By understanding your target audience's demographics, motivations, and pain points, you can tailor your messaging and solutions to resonate with their specific needs and interests.

6) Emphasize Collaboration

Ensure your prospects understand that you're invested in their success and committed to working together towards achieving their goals. By making it clear that you're in this journey together, you can foster a sense of partnership and collaboration that strengthens your relationship with the prospect.

7) Ask Probing Questions

Gain valuable insights into your prospect's needs and priorities by asking probing questions during your interactions. By actively listening and seeking to understand their challenges, you can uncover opportunities to provide tailored solutions and address their concerns effectively.

8) Focus on End Benefits

Highlight the tangible benefits and outcomes that your prospects will experience by choosing your offerings. Focus on articulating the value proposition in terms of the end benefits they'll enjoy, rather than getting bogged down in technical product features.

9) Address Customer Concerns Personally

Address any concerns or objections raised by your prospects with empathy and understanding. Take the time to personally address their specific worries and provide reassurance, demonstrating your commitment to their satisfaction and success.

10) Close the Sale

Don't hesitate to ask for the sale when the timing is right. Clearly communicate the next steps and guide your prospect through the decision-making process with confidence and conviction.

11) Follow Up and Nurture Relationships

After securing a sale, follow up with your customers to express gratitude and ensure their satisfaction. Continue to nurture the relationship by staying in touch, providing ongoing support, and seeking opportunities for upselling or referrals.

12) Utilize Email Tracking Tools

Consider leveraging email tracking software to monitor the effectiveness of your outreach efforts and gain insights into prospect engagement. By tracking email opens, clicks, and responses, you can refine your approach and optimize your communication strategy for maximum impact.

Personal selling strategies can be best communicated through presentations, making it essential to have a reliable tool for crafting impactful sales strategy presentations. This is where Decktopus comes into play. Decktopus provides users with the capability to create professional presentations effortlessly, and it offers a variety of sales strategy templates tailored to meet your needs.

By utilizing Decktopus , individuals engaged in personal selling can streamline their presentation creation process and ensure they deliver compelling pitches every time. With features like PDF import, users can seamlessly transform existing sales strategy decks into engaging presentations. Moreover, Decktopus enables users to generate comprehensive sales decks through guided prompts, ensuring no essential elements are overlooked.

For those seeking to leverage Decktopus for their personal selling endeavors, our platform serves as a valuable resource for enhancing presentation quality, saving time, and effectively communicating key messages to prospects. Visit our templates page to explore our collection of sales strategy templates and discover how Decktopus can revolutionize your presentation game.

Personal Selling Examples

In this section, we'll explore several businesses that leverage personal selling. While personal selling is prevalent across various industries, we've handpicked examples that highlight substantial purchase decisions typically necessitating a close rapport between a salesperson and prospect.

1) Retail Sales : A salesperson in a clothing store approaches customers, assists them in finding the right size and style, and provides personalized recommendations based on their preferences.

2) Telecommunications : A sales representative visits businesses to discuss their communication needs, demonstrates different phone systems or internet packages, and helps them choose the best solution for their organization.

3) Financial Services : A financial advisor meets with clients to assess their financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment preferences. They offer personalized investment advice and recommend financial products such as mutual funds or retirement plans.

4) Hospitality Industry : A hotel sales manager meets with corporate clients to discuss event planning needs, offers customized packages for meetings or conferences, and negotiates contracts for room bookings and catering services.

5) Healthcare : A pharmaceutical sales representative visits healthcare professionals to promote new medications, provide product samples, and educate them about the benefits and features of the drugs they represent.

6) Automotive Industry : A car salesperson greets customers at a dealership, conducts test drives, explains the features and benefits of different vehicle models, and helps customers navigate the purchasing process.

7) Real Estate : A real estate agent meets with prospective homebuyers, shows them properties that meet their criteria, provides market insights, and assists with negotiations and paperwork when they decide to make an offer.

8) Business Consulting : A management consultant meets with executives to assess their company's operations, identifies areas for improvement, and proposes customized solutions to help them achieve their business objectives.

When to Use Personal Selling

While personal selling is a versatile strategy suitable for many business scenarios, its impact is particularly notable in specific circumstances. These include:

• Highly specialized offering : Personal selling is an effective way to introduce a specialized product, as it allows you to explain and demonstrate how the product is specifically tailored to your prospect’s needs. It also allows for more personalized conversations with potential customers, allowing them to ask questions and learn about the benefits of the product.
• Small market with a few large buyers : When there are only a few buyers in the market, you can reach them all through personal selling. Your sales reps can visit each buyer directly and provide detailed information about your product, convincing them of its value.
• High-end/complex product : Personal selling is especially useful when selling high-end or complex products. It allows you to explain why the customer should invest in this product, rather than settling for cheaper options available on the market. You can also demonstrate how the product works in detail, which is often necessary with more complicated items.
• Highly competitive market : You’ll need something to make your product stand out from the rest if you’re in a highly competitive market. This can be done through personal selling. Your sales rep can demonstrate how your product is different and has features that other products don’t.
• Lack of funds for other advertising channels : There are times when your company isn’t doing very well. But even if you can’t afford other advertising channels, such as TV or radio advertisements, you can still use personal selling to market your products.
• Trade show or an exhibition to leverage : Personal selling is perfect for leveraging trade shows and exhibitions, as you can use these events to introduce your product to a large group of people at the same time. Your sales reps can also go ahead and engage with each interested customer individually, explaining why they should choose your product over the competition.

Mastering the Art of Personal Selling

Learn advanced strategies and techniques to excel in personal selling with Decktopus. From building relationships to closing deals, discover how to elevate your sales game and create captivating presentations that drive results. Unlock the art of personal selling with Decktopus today.

Establishing Your Personal Selling Strategy

Unlock the power of personalized sales strategies with Decktopus. Learn how to analyze your target audience and adapt your approach to their unique needs and preferences. With Decktopus, you can easily tailor your sales tactics to resonate with your audience, increasing the effectiveness of your outreach and driving higher conversion rates. Start connecting with your customers on a deeper level and achieving greater sales success with personalized strategies powered by Decktopus.

1) What Is the Definition of Personal Selling?

Personal selling is the direct interaction between sales representatives and potential customers to persuade them to purchase a product or service. It involves face-to-face communication, phone calls, or video conferences, allowing salespeople to tailor their approach to individual customer needs. With Decktopus, explore the nuances of personal selling and its role in building strong customer relationships and driving sales success.

2) Why Is It Important to Use Personal Selling?

Personal selling is important because it allows businesses to build strong relationships with potential customers, fostering trust and loyalty. Through direct interaction, sales representatives can tailor their approach to address individual needs and preferences effectively. This personalized communication leads to higher customer satisfaction and increased sales. With Decktopus, explore how personal selling can significantly impact your business's success by driving meaningful connections and driving revenue growth.

3) How Can One Begin to Implement Personal Selling Techniques?

To begin implementing personal selling techniques, start by understanding your target audience and their needs. Research their demographics, preferences, and pain points to tailor your approach effectively. Next, develop strong communication skills to engage with potential customers confidently and build rapport. Utilize techniques such as active listening, empathy, and persuasive communication to address their concerns and showcase the value of your products or services. With Decktopus, you can create compelling sales presentations to support your personal selling efforts, enhancing your ability to connect with customers and drive sales success.

4) What Are Some Common Mistakes to Avoid in Personal Selling?

In personal selling, it's essential to avoid common pitfalls that can hinder your success. One common mistake is being too pushy or aggressive, which can turn potential customers away. Another mistake is neglecting to listen to customer needs and preferences, leading to ineffective communication. Additionally, lacking product knowledge can undermine your credibility and trustworthiness. Finally, failing to follow up effectively with prospects can result in missed opportunities for sales.

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Personal Selling: Definition, Techniques, and Examples in 2024

• March 4, 2024

Once upon a time, sales was 100% personal selling. But now, thanks to globalization, advances in technology, and the rising cost of travel, personal selling is just one of many techniques available to salespeople to warm up a lead and close a deal.

Personal selling should be part of a wider sales mix, alongside telesales, email marketing, sales promotion, advertising, and public relations. But personal selling must not be overlooked: it remains an extremely important part of a salesperson’s arsenal and is a skill every good salesperson must master.

What is personal selling?

Personal selling is when a salesperson meets a potential buyer or buyers face-to-face with the aim of selling a product or service. The most traditional form of sales, many salespeople are lured to the industry by the adrenaline rush of high-stakes personal selling; picture those whisky-swilling Mad Men, or the ultra-driven salesmen of Glengarry Glen Ross.

These days, there’s a lot more to sales than attending meetings.

Why? Simply put – the expense.

Think about it: each face-to-face meeting requires significantly more investment – from both sides – than just contacting a prospect via email or phone. Suddenly, you’ve got travel expenses. And the time it takes to prepare for, travel to, and take the meeting only adds to the cost. This is why it’s vital to consider the value and type of product you’re aiming to sell – as well as the likelihood of closing the deal – before automatically opting for personal selling.

But face-to-face meetings certainly still have their place. Consider this: 68% of B2B customers are lost due to indifference or perceived apathy rather than mistakes. Attending a sales meeting is a prime way to combat this issue by showing you care enough to invest time and money in your prospect on good faith.

Fifty-eight percent of buyers state that sales meetings are not valuable, and that there should be a greater focus on the value businesses can deliver to them. On the face of it, this doesn’t sound like great news for salespeople who shine in meetings. But it does mean that over 40% of prospects are open to sales meetings. The other 60% may just need convincing that a meeting will help you add real value to their business.

Personal selling Techniques

1. focus on the right leads.

With the extra time and monetary investment required for face-to-face sales meetings, it’s essential businesses lock down ROI by choosing the right prospects to meet in person through a comprehensive lead-qualifying process.

Not every meeting will lead to a sale, but you can get yourself closer to hitting those sales stats by asking yourself:

• What is the value of this potential sale?
• What is the size of the business you’re selling to?
• Is your product or service genuinely going to serve the business well?
• Could building a strong relationship with the DM lead to more business down the line?
• Is a sales meeting actually going to help close the sale? Perhaps the DM is extremely time-poor and prefers email or telephone communication?
• What value can you add in a sales meeting?

2. Exceed expectations through preparation

Salespeople who turn up to a meeting without preparing properly are a serious irritant for buyers. In fact, 82% of B2B buyers think sales reps are unprepared. This suggests that many prospects have been deterred from sales meetings – which they may consider a waste of time – due to negative past experiences.

It’s your job to change their mind.

Buyers don’t want to work with pushy salespeople. For buyers, a positive sales experience involves a sales representative who:

• listens to their needs
• is invested in the success of their business
• provides relevant information

Yet, just 13% of prospects believe a sales rep can understand their needs – suggesting salespeople have a reputation for not listening properly and just pushing ahead with a boilerplate pitch.

Active listening is of course vital for sales reps – not just in the meeting, but ahead of it. Note down every piece of information you receive via call or email and use this to your advantage in the meeting to prove you understand the business’s real needs. And practice active listening outside of meetings – when your mind is racing, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Put yourself head and shoulders above the competition by over preparing. Don’t just research the company so you can show off by reciting stats or dates in the interview – learn about their pain points, their budgets, and what they’re trying to achieve. You can then position your product or service as a solution that helps them achieve their wider goals.

Your presentation should never be boilerplate: use the information you’ve gathered through research and listening to tailor it specifically to the company’s goals and how your product or service slots into their strategy.

3. Add value in the meeting

These days, it’s drummed into sales reps that they must add value in meetings, demonstrating that they’ll continue to provide useful assistance should the client sign on the dotted line. Doing this successfully demonstrates that you know what you’re talking about, and also that you care about working with the company long-term to help them achieve their goals, thereby building trust.

But what are the best techniques for adding value in that initial meeting?

Sixty-nine percent of buyers state that providing primary research data that’s relevant to their business is the best way for reps to add value. Furthermore, 95% of customers choose to buy from providers that offer relevant content at every stage of the buying process.

The amount your company is willing to invest in research or content ahead of the meeting will no doubt vary depending on the size of the potential deal. But there’s always some level of research salespeople are able to do ahead of the big date.

Use your company’s tools to pull data surrounding the business and its competitors that the organization hasn’t gathered itself. Give an analysis of the top-level findings in your presentation, explain how your products and services can help with the challenges you’ve uncovered, and then send the DM the data and your analysis. Ask your content team to create a bank of assets surrounding regular FAQs and industry pain points – whether blogs, infographics, videos, or ebooks – so you’re able to send links to additional helpful information during or after the meeting.

4. Make it clear you’re in this together

The best-performing sales reps use collaborative words like “we” or “us” instead of words like “I” or “me.” This is a simple method for making the prospective buyer feel like you’re on their side and want nothing more than to see their business thrive.

Asking intelligent, in-depth questions surrounding their business challenges, and coming back with potential solutions related to your products and services, takes this a step further, as does turning up to the meeting with the research and data outlined above.

However you do it, make sure your client leaves the meeting seeing your relationship as a partnership.

5. Tell a story

An important stat to remember when crafting your pitch: following a presentation, 63% of prospects remember stories, but just 5% remember statistics. Storytelling hooks in prospects significantly more than a bunch of dry numbers.

Turn how you can add value to your client into a story, with a clear beginning (now), middle (how you’ll work with them) and end (the results they can expect).

Ensure case studies are told in story form, too. Where relevant, you can also tell the story of your company to gain buy-in: you’ll be seen less as a faceless entity, and more as a friendly brand.

When to Use Personal Selling?

Although personal selling can be used in most business scenarios, it is especially effective when you have a:

• Highly specialized offering: Personal selling is an effective way to introduce a specialized product, as it allows you to explain and demonstrate how the product is specifically tailored to your prospect’s needs. It also allows for more personalized conversations with potential customers, allowing them to ask questions and learn about the benefits of the product.
• Small market with a few large buyers: When there are only a few buyers in the market, you can reach them all through personal selling. Your sales reps can visit each buyer directly and provide detailed information about your product, convincing them of its value.
• High-end/complex product: Personal selling is especially useful when selling high-end or complex products. It allows you to explain why the customer should invest in this product, rather than settling for cheaper options available on the market. You can also demonstrate how the product works in detail, which is often necessary with more complicated items.
• Highly competitive market: You’ll need something to make your product stand out from the rest if you’re in a highly competitive market. This can be done through personal selling. Your sales rep can demonstrate how your product is different and has features that other products don’t.
• Lack of funds for other advertising channels: There are times when your company isn’t doing very well. But even if you can’t afford other advertising channels, such as TV or radio advertisements, you can still use personal selling to market your products.
• Trade show or an exhibition to leverage: Personal selling is perfect for leveraging trade shows and exhibitions, as you can use these events to introduce your product to a large group of people at the same time. Your sales reps can also go ahead and engage with each interested customer individually, explaining why they should choose your product over the competition.

Personal Selling Examples

An example of the importance of genuinely making your customer feel like you’re on their side and building trust comes from Andrew Peterson, CEO of Signal Sciences. While at college he worked at The North Face, and says his favorite customer interactions were always those where he’d recommend the customer go to another brand to find the product they needed.

Speaking to Inc , he said: “Don’t get me wrong, I loved The North Face and all of their products! But I was always more intent on getting the customer the best product for what they were looking for. When that wasn’t something from our company, I’d tell them what they should get instead and where to get it from. Funny thing was, they always ended up buying at least something from me because they were so shocked I wasn’t just pushing our products on them. A great lesson I learned from this is that the best salespeople are the ones you trust.”

When working in sales, Richard Nieset, chief customer officer at Pixlee, found a unique way to tackle one of his employer’s toughest clients in a brilliant example of personal selling. Having been warned that the contact was a “pain in the butt” who led on salespeople but never committed, he went to a meeting armed with a toy gun filled with six bullets.

Speaking to Inc, he explained: “Here was my deal: He could ask me for anything he needed from us and anything we could possibly do, we would do. But each time he asked, he had to give me one of those bullets. When I got all six bullets, I would get to ask for something in return. And you can probably guess what that was going to be. Eventually, I got him to agree, leading to one of the largest deals in our company history.”

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Overview of Personal Selling

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Overview of Selling.

Adding Value and Follow – Up Module Nine. IngramLaForgeAvila Schwepker Jr. Williams Professional Selling: A Trust-Based Approach Module 9 – Adding Value.

Chapter 1 Foundations of Information Systems in Business.

Management Information Systems

Learning Goals Understand the role of a company’s salespeople in creating value. Know the six major sales force management steps. Understand the personal.

What is an Information System? Input of DataResourcesProcessing Data Data Control of System Performance Storage of Data Resources Output of InformationProducts.

Students The number in the lower left corner of each slide is the page number in the O’Brien textbook to which the material refers. The slides in this.

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2004 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Chapter 19 Personal Selling and Sales Management.

Introduction to Sales and Distribution Management

Sales Management and Sales 2.0

Explain personal selling’s role in the marketing communications mix

1 Copyright © 2000 by Harcourt, Inc. All rights reserved. (1) 11 Evaluating the Performance of Salespeople Module 11 Evaluating the Performance of Salespeople.

Understanding Buyers.

Overview of Personal Selling Module Two. IngramLaForgeAvila Schwepker Jr. Williams Sales Management: Analysis and Decision Making Module 2: Overview of.

Chapter 10: Encouraging Customer Loyalty

Personal Selling and Sales Management

For use only with Perreault and McCarthy texts. © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 Irwin/McGraw-Hill Chapter 14: Personal Selling.

Copyright © 2004 by South-Western, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. All rights reserved. Chapter 17 Personal Selling and Sales Promotion.

Eleventh Edition 1 Introduction to Information Systems Essentials for the Internetworked E-Business Enterprise Irwin/McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2002, The.

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What is Personal Selling? Advantages, Process and Examples

What's on this page:.

Ever experienced a bartender who astounds you with their product knowledge, makes you feel like a welcome friend, and recommends and mixes the perfect cocktail for your taste?

When this happens, it truly enhances the experience. You might even become a regular. 

Personal selling, when done well, is like being that bartender, with the slight distinction that you’re selling your customers something that helps them prevent and stop the chaos, not create and relish in it.  

In this article, we discuss this sales approach, its advantages, various forms, and process. 

What is personal selling? 

Personal selling is direct communication between a salesperson and potential customers, which can happen in person, via email, phone, or video. Salespeople commonly use it for B2B and retail and trade selling. The goal is to build strong camaraderie with buyers and deeply understand their needs.

Through personal selling, B2B sales teams build relationships with buyers that stand the test of time.

To create this bond, a salesperson will hold several sales meetings throughout the process, preferably in person or over video calls .

Some defining features of personal sales are active listening, intelligent questioning, personalised messaging, and seamless back-and-forth communication.

As for who should use it, the high cost of staffing and training a personal selling team makes it best for companies selling higher-priced products or services to buyers with complex and diverse needs.

That said, any business can benefit from personal contact with prospective buyers.

Personal selling techniques can help your brand stand out in a world where cold sales emails , chatbots, and other automated approaches to sales bombard buyers.

Ultimately, B2B buyers buy from, and stay with, the people they like and trust.

It’s often the helpful salesperson the customer remembers when their contract comes up for renewal , not that cartoonish, servile chatbot named Harold who answered their question about pricing tiers!

How does personal selling add value? 

Experienced salespeople can enhance the customer journey by adding a personal touch to interactions.

Most significantly, personal sales turn the buyer journey into a learning experience, make prospects feel understood, and provides customers with a satisfying long-term partnership

Below, we’ll expand on three advantages of personal selling: 

1. Leads learn something new in your meetings

In personal selling, sales reps emulate teachers in a way. 

They come prepared to meetings and try to teach target customers something new, not just about their product, but about the lead’s specific problem or the environment in which it’s occurring.

As a B2B customer, it’s a fantastic experience to walk away from a sales meeting feeling like you’ve already gained value from the relationship.

Maybe that means a sales rep teaching them about a few simple, free best practices that could improve their situation. 

When prospective buyers feel they’ve learned something from your company — without paying a dime — they start thinking…

“If that’s free, imagine how much value I’ll get if I become a customer”, and so they become one.

2. Prospects feel understood

In B2B sales, prospective customers usually have complex problems that take some time to comprehend.

Unfortunately, with eyes on the prize, too many salespeople rush to say “I totally understand” and to start evangelising a solution that works with their sales pitch.

Perhaps that’s why a mere 13% of prospects believe a sales rep can understand their needs. 

In personal selling, experienced salespeople take time to explore each prospect’s situation leading to more satisfied customers.

Morgan Ingram , VP, GTM Talent and Development at Sales Impact Academy , says:

“Personal selling comes down to two things: relevance and personalisation. Relevance is what problems you solve for that customer without doing research. Personalisation is doing research on the company and prospect.”

They listen actively. They ask clarifying questions, along with challenging ones, to dig for information. They, in essence, attempt to understand the problem in even greater detail than the prospect does.

Shabri Lakhani , Founder and CEO of SalesWorks , says:

“Personal selling is about providing value by educating a customer on how something is going to help them. And it’s important because we’re increasingly seeing a desire for buyer-seller relationships to be built on trust and credibility.” 

“It’s a rough estimate, but around 90% of customers research products online before purchasing. So by the time they speak to an SDR or an AE, what they’re actually missing is the ‘why’. They’re missing that sales experience - the interactions and the value creation.”

With that said, reps equipped with a 360-degree view of customer challenges can successfully find a solution that matches each customer’s needs and, more importantly, articulate why their product or service is the right fit.

Thus, win rates rise. 

3. Customers want to stick around 

When you implement a personal selling strategy correctly, your buyers think of you more as a partner than a vendor.

They value your advice and insights. They rely on your content and customer success team to keep them abreast of new industry trends. They ask for your opinion on new strategies.

This partnership aspect builds long-term relationships with customers. That means high retention rates, more upsells, and better referrals.

Even if your service lags behind a competitor’s for a few months, they won’t mind — they’ve built a personal relationship with you and understand that it’s more than just a service. 

The 3 types of personal selling

There are three overarching categories of personal sales — order takers, order creators, and order getters.

One company might use all three types of personal selling to generate revenue; others might just use one. Below we’ll help you understand what these terms mean and their differences. 

1. Order takers

Order takers are the inbound sales reps who respond to requests or calls from interested leads and point them toward the best solution for their needs. 

A retail sales representative at Macy’s would also be considered an order taker. 

This is typically an easier type of personal selling because the customer is already interested in evaluating you as a partner or provider. 

2. Order creators

Order creators are reps who convince other businesses to recommend their solutions to their customers. 

For example, a salsa brand might try to persuade various supermarkets to display their salsa on the middle shelf. 

Even more than skilled persuasion or profit incentives, a strong relationship is often the best way to get someone to recommend your solution. 

Hence, pharmaceutical reps take doctors out to fancy dinners and baseball games.  

3. Order getters

Order getters are outbound salespeople who initiate contact with potential customers to get them interested in their business’s offer.  

Common examples include door-to-door salespeople, BDRs making outbound cold calls , and Account Executives attending networking events to find new leads. 

The personal selling process explained

The personal selling process generally includes the following steps — prospecting, discovery, meeting prep, sales presentation, objection handling, closing, and customer nurturing. 

Let’s explore the steps in personal selling:

1. Prospecting

Prospecting is finding and researching business leads and then contacting them via cold emailing, cold calling , or social selling on LinkedIn . 

In personal selling, it’s usually sales development representatives who handle this step of the process. But account executives and sales leaders might do some as well. 

The goal is to identify high-quality leads and their contact information and get them interested in your solution. 

To do this, you should take an individualised approach, researching the lead’s company and identifying their possible pain points before crafting your sales message. 

The most common marker that this step is complete is a booked meeting on the calendar. The prospect has agreed to learn more about your offer. 

2. Discovery 

In the discovery step, you try to accomplish two things simultaneously — 1) lead qualification and 2) lead research. 

Lead qualification means ensuring the lead fits your ideal customer profile and is worth pursuing.

Many reps follow a lead qualification framework like ANUM, asking questions about authority (buying power), needs, urgency, and money. 

After you’re sure the lead is a good fit for your product or service, focus on gathering more information about the lead’s situation. 

This discovery is either done on the same call or, if the problem is complex enough, a second one.  

In the personal selling process, it’s important to understand your customer’s problem, so take your time.

Intimacy with the prospect’s issue will help you recommend the right solution and craft a sales presentation (next step) that speaks to their hopes and desires. 

3. Meeting preparation

At this point in the buying process , you’ve gathered a lot of intel about the lead’s company, needs, pains, and overall circumstances.  

It’s time to build a sales presentation script/slideshow, or a demo flow, that will persuade your prospect that your solution is the best option for them. 

If you already have a presentation or demo template, you can adjust it to fit this specific buyer. 

For example, if the buyer cares a lot about feature X, but your original slideshow has no slide dedicated to X, you should create one. 

Otherwise, the prospect might lose interest, not to mention feel like you’ve been ignoring them. 

4. Sales presentation 

In the sales presentation stage, you deliver a winning pitch with a slideshow or a web demo to your prospective customer. 

That doesn’t mean reading off the slides. Personal sales emphasise 1:1 personal interactions, with both parties equally involved. 

So try to make this more of a conversation where the prospect can ask questions throughout the meeting. 

This back-and-forth will promote strong customer relationships. And it’ll ensure that the prospect learns all they need to know about your solution, making them feel comfortable to move forward with the sale. 

For large B2B sales, it’s typical for this step to last for multiple meetings, either with different stakeholders or to demonstrate different features. 

5. Objection handling 

After you’ve made your case for why the prospect should buy your solution, the prospect may have objections. 

A sales objection is an expression of concern or hesitation about your offer. For example, “I don’t think feature X is going to work well with our internal processes” is an objection. 

Addressing all objections may involve a series of phone calls.

The best framework for handling objections in personal selling is the LAER framework: 

• Listen: Actively listen to the concern and try to get into the prospect’s mindset. 
• Acknowledge: Verbally rephrase the objection so the buyer knows you listened and understand. 
• Explore: Ask questions to uncover the underlying cause of the objection. For instance, “we’re not ready to take this on” might actually mean “we think implementation is going to be too time-consuming.” If that’s a misconception, you can show why, but you must uncover it first.  
• Respond or Repeat: If you grasp the objection, respond with an evidence-based rebuttal that challenges their belief. If you don’t understand it, ask more questions. 

This framework will not only help you get to the root of the concern, but it will also help you use objections as an opportunity to build a strong relationship with the buyer. 

Through empathy (listen and acknowledge), understanding (explore), and intelligent rebuttals, you’ll both win them to your side of thinking and gain their respect. 

6. Closing 

Once objections are over with, it’s time for closing. 

This step usually involves asking for the sale — “Are you ready to move forward with a contract?” — and negotiating the terms of the agreement. 

It ends with a signed contract that both parties consider beneficial and fair.  

The length of this step depends on the complexity of the deal. For most B2B salespeople, the contract will turn around in just a few days. 

For complex sales, with lots of money on the line, you might receive pushback about various small details in the contract, from the payment terms to the Force Majeure clause. 

Regardless, it’s time to celebrate once that deal’s finished. You’ve just successfully closed a sales deal using a personal selling strategy!

7. Customer nurturing 

With the deal closed, you’ll onboard your client (which might include product training) and introduce them to their customer success representative (CSM). 

The CSM will now be in charge of ensuring the customer has the best experience possible. 

They’ll answer customer questions, troubleshoot issues, and provide guidance. 

They’ll use their deep product knowledge to help buyers get the most out of the solution and, in many cases, their charm and thoughtfulness to grow the relationship. 

In personal selling, you want to keep your customers happy. By doing so, retention rates rise, referrals come in, and upsells happen naturally. 

Personal selling examples 

Below, we’ll look at three common personal selling strategies that you’ll find in most repertoire: cold calling, social selling, and discovery calls . 

Cold calling

Cold calling is a popular prospecting tactic for B2B sales reps engaged in personal selling. Right off the bat, you’re speaking directly with a potential buyer. 

You’re cracking jokes, building rapport, asking hard-hitting questions, and taking an interest in their work. 

Compared to its usual complement, cold emailing, cold calling is a more personal way to connect with a buyer, provided that the rep has tailored their call script to each lead. 

Social selling 

Social selling is the ongoing process of forming relationships with leads on social media. In the B2B space, that’s usually LinkedIn. 

Sales reps connect with decision-makers, message them, comment on their posts, and even publish their own thought leadership posts to build credibility as industry experts. 

It’s a long game, but it pays off. According to LinkedIn, 78% of social sellers outsell their peers who don’t use this tactic. 

Discovery calls

A discovery call represents the exploratory part of the sale. During this meeting, sales reps ask buyers questions to identify their challenges, goals, and needs.

Like a good physician, the seller attempts to discover the underlying problems they need to solve in order to reach their sales goals . 

With this information, they can then recommend the right product or service. 

For more insights into selling on a personal level, listen to this episode of Revenue Champions 👇

Get more sales insights from Cognism!

Learn more about personal selling techniques that close more deals with Cognism’s SDR Zone! 

From prospecting cadences and cold calling scripts to on-demand training sessions, we have all the resources you need to book more meetings.

Check it out 👇

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Personal Selling: Meaning, Process, Objectives, Importance, Advantages and Disadvantages

In this article we will discuss about:- 1. Meaning of Personal Selling 2. Features of Personal Selling 3. Process 4. Objectives 5. Role and Importance 6. Functions 7. Requisites 8. Advantages 9. Disadvantages 10. Challenges.

• Challenges of Personal Selling  

Meaning of Personal Selling:

Personal selling is an act of convincing the prospects to buy a given product or service. It is the most effective and costly promotional method. It is effective because there is face to face conversation between the buyer and seller and seller can change its promotional techniques according to the needs of situation. It is basically the science and art of understanding human desires and showing the ways through which these desires could be fulfilled.

According to American Marketing Association, “Personal selling is the oral presentation in a conversation with one or more prospective purchasers for the purpose of making sale; it is the ability to persuade the people to buy goods and services at a profit to the seller and benefit to the buyer”.

In the word of Professor William J. Stanton, “Personal selling consists in individual; personal communication, in contrast to mass relatively impersonal communication of advertising; sales promotion and other promotional tools”.

Personal selling is a different form of promotion, involving two way face-to-face communications between the salesmen and the prospect. The result of such interaction depends upon how deep each has gone into one another and reached the height of the common understanding. Basically the essence of personal selling is the interpretation of products and services benefits and features to the buyer and persuading the buyer to buy these products and services.

Features of Personal Selling :

The main features of personal selling are:

i. It is a face to face communication between buyer and seller.

ii. It is a two way communication.

iii. It is an oral communication.

iv. It persuades the customers instead of pressurizing him.

v. It provides immediate feedback.

vi. It develops a deep personal relationship apart from the selling relationship with the buyers and customers.

Personal Selling Process:

The process of personal selling includes prospecting and evaluating, preparing, approach and presentation, overcoming objections, closing the sale and a follow up service.

1. Prospecting and evaluating:

The effort to develop a list of potential customers is known as prospecting. Sales people can find potential buyers, names in company records, customer information requests from advertisements, telephone and trade association directories, current and previous customers, friends, and newspapers. Prospective buyers predetermined, by evaluating (1) their potential interest in the sales person’s products and (2) their purchase power.

2. Preparing:

Before approaching the potential buyer, the sales person should know as much as possible about the person or company.

3. Approach and presentation:

During the approach, which constitutes the actual beginning of the communication process, the sales person explains to the potential customer the reason for the sales, possibly mentions how the potential buyer’s name was obtained, and gives a preliminary explanation of what he or she is offering. The sales presentation is a detailed effort to bring the buyer’s needs together with the product or service the sales person represents.

4. Overcoming objections:

The primary value of personal selling lies in the sales person’s ability to receive and deal with potential customers’ objections to purchasing the product. In a sales presentation many objections can be dealt with immediately. These may take more time, but still may be overcome.

5. Closing the sale:

Many sales people lose sales simply because they never asked the buyer to buy. At several times in a presentation the sales person may to gauge how near the buyer is to closing.

6. Follow up:

To maintain customer satisfaction, the sales person should follow up after a sale to be certain that the product is delivered properly and the customer is satisfied with the result.

Objectives of Personal Selling:

The major objectives of salesmanship are as follows:

(i) Attracting the Prospective Customers:

The first and foremost objective of a salesperson is to attract the attention of people who might be interested to buy the product he is selling.

(ii) Educating the Prospective Customers:

The salesman provides information about the features, price and uses of the product to the people. He handles their queries and removes their doubts about the product. He educates them as to how their needs could be satisfied by using the product.

(iii) Creating Desire to Buy:

The salesman creates a desire among the prospective customers to buy the product to satisfy specific needs.

(iv) Concluding Sales:

The ultimate objective of personal selling is to win the confidence of customers and make them buy the product. Creation of customers is the index of effectiveness of any salesperson.

(v) Getting Repeat Orders:

A good salesperson aims to create permanent customers by helping them satisfy their needs and providing them product support services, if required. He tries for repeat orders from the customers.

Role and Importance of Personal Selling:

Personal selling consists of individual and personal communication with the customers in contrast to the mass and impersonal communication through advertising. Because of this characteristic, personal selling has the advantage of being more flexible in operation.

A salesperson can tailor his sales presentation to fit the needs, motives, and behaviour of individual customers. He can observe the customer’s reaction to a particular sales approach and then make necessary adjustment on the spot. Thus, personal selling involves a minimum of wasteful efforts. The salesperson can select and concentrate on the prospective customers.

Personal selling helps in sales promotion. It is very important to manufacturers and traders because it helps them to sell their products. It also helps them in knowing the tastes, habits, attitudes and reactions of the people.

The manufacturer can concentrate on producing those goods which are required by the customers. This will further promote the sales. Moreover, a good salesman is able to establish personal support with customers. This way, the business gains permanent customers.

Functions of Personal Selling:

The important functions of a salesperson are as follows:

1. Personal selling is an important method of demonstrating the product to the prospective customers and giving them full information about the product. It is easier to persuade a person to buy a product through face-to-face explanation.

2. In most of the situations, there is a need of explaining the quality, uses and price of the product to the buyer to help him purchase the want satisfying product. Thus, salesmanship is also very important from the point of the buyers.

3. A good salesperson educates and guides the customers about the features and utility of the product.

4. If a product cannot fully satisfy the needs of the customers, the information is transmitted to the manufacturer who will take appropriate steps.

5. Salespersons can also handle the objections of the customers. Creative salesman are always ready to help the customers to arrive at correct decisions while buying certain products.

6. There is direct fact-to-face interaction between the seller and the buyer. The salesperson can receive feedback directly from the customer on a continuous basis. This would help him in modifying his presentation and taking other steps to sell satisfaction to the buyer.

Requisites of Effective Personal Selling:

It is not possible to describe exactly the kind of person who will make a good salesperson. Sales skill has no clear correlation to any combination of appearance, education, technical expertise, or even persuasiveness. There have been successful salesmen who knew little about the technical qualities of the product.

On the other hand, there are many examples of technical champs who could not sell. However, in the modern era of severe competition in the market, it is not easy to become an effective salesman. A business enterprise can develop effective salesman to promote its sales.

In order to achieve effective personal selling, the following requirements must be fulfilled:

1. Personal Qualities:

An effective salesman must possess certain physical, mental, social and vocational qualities.

2. Training and Motivation:

In order to achieve effective personal selling, it is essential to train and motivate the sales persons. The training programme for the sales persons should be designed keeping in view the requirements of the business. The training programme should also aim at imparting knowledge of various selling programme should also aim at imparting knowledge of various selling techniques among the trainees.

For instance, a salesman must be trained how to understand the nature of a customer, how to arouse his interest in the product, and how to close the sales. It is also essential that the person selected for selling has aptitude for this vocation. He has the inner motivation of developing himself into a good salesman. The employer can also motivate him by providing financial and non-financial incentives.

3. Wide Knowledge:

A salesman should have wide knowledge about the following:

The salesman must know himself in order to make use of his personality in selling the products. He should try to know his strong arid week points and remove his weak points through training and experience. He should continuously undertake his self- assessment to know what he requires in order to be an effective salesman.

(b) Employer:

The salesman is a representative of his employer. He should have a thorough knowledge of the origin and growth of the employer’s business. He must know objects, policies and organisational structure of the employer’s firm. This will enable the salesman to make use of the plus points of the firm selling the product.

(c) Product:

The salesman must have full knowledge about the product he sells. He must know what the product is and what are its special features and uses. He should also know the whole process of production so that he may be able to answer the customer’s queries and objections satisfactorily. Mostly, the customers are ignorant about the features, technical details, and benefits of the product and they expect the salesman to give them sufficient information about it.

(d) Competitors’ Products:

The salesman must have complete knowledge about the competitive products because buyers often compare several products before purchasing one of them. The salesman should know the positive and negative features of the various substitutes so that he is in a position to prove the superiority of his product.

(e) Customers:

Before selling something, a salesman must have sufficient knowledge about the customers to whom he is going to sell. He must try to understand the nature of customers, their habits and their buying motives if he is to win permanent customers. There are a number of considerations which make the prospect to buy a particular product.

These considerations may be grouped under two categories of motives, namely (i) product motives and (ii) patronage motives. Product motives explain why customers buy certain products and patronage motives determine why customers buy from specific dealers. A salesman can understand the motives of the customers by his intelligence and experience.

He should deal with the customer according to his nature. He can mix with a customer who is extrovert and remain reserved with a customer who is introvert. He should also try to know whether a customer intends to purchase for personal use or for business use.

Advantages of Personal Selling :

1. The key advantage personal selling has over other promotional methods is that it is a two-way form of communication. In selling situations the message sender (e.g., salesperson) can adjust the message as they gain feedback from message receivers (e.g., customer).

So if a customer does not understand the initial message (e.g., doesn’t fully understand how the product works) the salesperson can make adjustments to address questions or concerns.

Many non- personal forms of promotion, such as a radio advertisement, are inflexible, at least in the short-term, and cannot be easily adjusted to address audience questions.

2. The interactive nature of personal selling also makes it the most effective promotional method for building relationships with customers, particularly in the business-to-business market.

This is especially important for companies that either sell expensive products or sell lower cost but high volume products (i.e., buyer must purchase in large quantities) that rely heavily on customers making repeat purchases.

Because such purchases may take a considerable amount of time to complete and may involve the input of many people at the purchasing company (i.e., buying center), sales success often requires the marketer develop and maintain strong relationships with members of the purchasing company.

3. Finally, personal selling is the most practical promotional option for reaching customers who are not easily reached through other methods. The best example is in selling to the business market where, compared to the consumer market, advertising, public relations and sales promotions are often not well received.

Disadvantages of Personal Selling :

1. Possibly the biggest disadvantage of selling is the degree to which this promotional method is misunderstood. Most people have had some bad experiences with salespeople who they perceived were overly aggressive or even downright annoying.

While there are certainly many salespeople who fall into this category, the truth is salespeople are most successful when they focus their efforts on satisfying customers over the long term and not focusing own their own selfish interests.

2. A second disadvantage of personal selling is the high cost in maintaining this type of promotional effort.

Costs incurred in personal selling include:

(i) High Cost-Per-Action (CPA):

CPA can be an important measure of the success of promotion spending. Since personal selling involves person-to-person contact, the money spent to support a sales staff (i.e., sales force) can be steep. For instance, in some industries it costs well over (US) $300 each time a salesperson contacts a potential customer.

This cost is incurred whether a sale is made or not! These costs include compensation (e.g., salary, commission, and bonus), providing sales support materials, allowances for entertainment spending, office supplies, telecommunication and much more. With such high cost for maintaining a sales force, selling is often not a practical option for selling products that do not generate a large amount of revenue.

(ii) Training Costs:

Most forms of personal selling require the sales staff be extensively trained on product knowledge, industry information and selling skills. For companies that require their salespeople attend formal training programs, the cost of training can be quite high and include such expenses as travel, hotel, meals, and training equipment while also paying the trainees’ salaries while they attend.

3. A third disadvantage is that personal selling is not for everyone. Job turnover in sales is often much higher than other marketing positions. For companies that assign salespeople to handle certain customer groups (e.g., geographic territory), turnover may leave a company without representation in a customer group for an extended period of time while the company recruits and trains a replacement.

Challenges in Personal Selling:

(i) At first personal selling is dyadic in nature. Dyadic simply means of or relating to two people. Thus, personal selling revolves around a marketing relationship developed between two people. Frequently, personal salespeople enlist the help of others in their organizations to sell to and service customers.

And just as frequently, personal salespeople find themselves making presentations to small groups of people or working with multiple individuals within customers’ firms. However, ultimately a successful marketing relationship is built by two people one person selling and person buying. Successful salespeople identify that person early on and work to win their trust and confidence.

(ii) Secondly personal selling is a process, not a single activity. And done correctly, the process continues indefinitely. Salespeople, sales managers, and others inside the seller’s organization frequently see the selling process as culminating or ending with a signed order.

However, in these days of so-called “relationship marketing” and “customer relationship management” successful organizations recognize that signed orders simply represent one point of positive feedback in an ongoing and continuous process.

(iii) Third, personal selling is highly interactive. In advertising, information flow occurs initially in a one-way direction. What feedback the advertiser receives arrives late well after an advertisement has aired.

Moreover, without costly research, the attitudinal effects of advertising may never be known. In personal selling, feedback is largely Personal Selling instantaneous and continuous.

The two-way flow of information that characterizes personal selling creates a communication channel rich with information, much of it nonverbal. Effective personal salespeople become adept at interpreting this information quickly and adapting their responses to it.

(iv) Personal selling is about problem solving. As the marketing concept is adopted by more and more firms, the emphasis of personal salespeople will be more on identifying customers with a true need for the firm’s products and applying those products to solve customer problems. Less emphasis will be placed on simply making a sale.

The focus on problem solving in personal selling reflects a larger trend toward building relationships between customers and clients. Marketers know that to develop these relationships, they must be willing to forego short term gains, particularly when the salesperson realizes that at that moment a purchase might not be in the customer’s best interests.

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Privacy Overview

A Beginner's Guide To Selling Your Online Business

Published: August 27, 2024

When you start a new company, you probably aren’t thinking about handing it off to someone else. It’s your baby!

But over time, some entrepreneurs “outgrow” their business, due to a shift in direction, priorities, or opportunities.

When that happens, your best option could be to find a buyer.

Alexis Grant knows all about that. After two successful exits, she started a new company, They Got Acquired , to help online businesses, well, get acquired.

Source: Simon Owens

From Getting Acqui-Hired to Helping Others

In 2010, Alexis started a content marketing agency that ran blogs for other businesses. The Penny Hoarder , a personal finance blog, was one of her clients.

The blog’s founder, Kyle Taylor, was meeting Alexis for a strategy weekend when he popped the question:

“What if I bought your business?”

The Penny Hoarder was crushing it at the time, but Kyle did it alone. Seeing the great fit in this opportunity, Alexis joined as Employee No.2, bringing along some of her teammates.

The site was acquired for $102.5m in 2020, and earns 4.4m monthly traffic today. Source: The Penny Hoarder

That was an acqui-hire  — when someone brings your entire team in-house to run a certain aspect at their company.

She wasn’t planning to sell, but it made sense

“ I liked his vision for the business, and knew how we would work through things together,” Alexis said. “Knowing the buyer definitely gave us an advantage.”

She sold another site after that, this time via a multiple-buyer bidding process that she had to learn from scratch.

“There are lots of resources and people to help you if you're selling for tens or hundreds of millions — those are the kinds of stories we hear about most often,” Alexis said. “But if you have a six- or seven-figure sale, how do you find the support and people who could help you through that?”

And that’s how They Got Acquired was born.

Why You Should Care

It’s never too early to think about selling a business, even if you’re not planning to.

Things are looking rocky for the VC-backed startup world — Carta reported more closures  on its platform in Q1 2024, and many founders thought about calling it quits  this year.

Source: Carta

But there’s plenty of hope  for indie firms and bootstrappers that are solving real problems and focusing on profit.

So if you’re considering building a small online business, or already have, Alexis’ got tips galore on getting your payday.

4 Common Ways to Sell A Business

But first, let’s look at how a business acquisition usually takes place.

1. You get an offer from a buyer:  It can be great when someone comes knocking on your door, but you ideally want to have more than one offer, so you have some leverage to negotiate a better deal.

2. You pitch buyers: It can be warm or cold pitching. If cold pitching, be direct about your ask — Alexis has seen a lot of sellers do this successfully.

3. Work with a broker or advisor: They can help you position the business, and find the buyers for you. But try to find ones that specialize in your kind of business (e.g. online vs. brick and mortar).

4. Marketplace : If you’re making under $250k in revenue, it might be hard to get a broker interested because they make commission like real estate agents. Marketplaces are a good, affordable option to broaden your buyer pool.

5 Tips to Prepare Your Business for Sale

A major challenge in selling a business is getting a lower-than-expected valuation.

The reasons vary depending on the business. It's typically tied back to your revenue and profit in some form, but more often than not, it’s a result of not thinking about selling before you want to sell, Alexis said.

“There are certain things you can do to optimize a business to sell,” she said. “Understanding the levers you can pull to increase the valuation of your business helps you build with that in mind.”

And guess what? All these tips would help your business run better even if a sale is not in the cards.

1. Build Relationships Early

Early on in your business, make a spreadsheet with information on:

• Your competitors
• People who do things like you
• People who could benefit from adding your services

It’s good to build those relationships so that by the time you’re ready to sell, you know who to approach.

Get on their radar, build a partnership — maybe one day they’ll decide to bring you in house. This is how many acqui-hiring happens, Alexis said.

2. Clean Up Your Books

Before selling, you need to make sure that your finances are buttoned up in a way that makes sense to a buyer.

Depending on the size of your business, you might need to work with a CFO or a bookkeeping company with experience prepping books for M&A.

Clean books let you make better decisions because you'll have more transparency on your finances.

It also avoids surprises during the sale process — if it comes out in later stages of selling that your books aren’t clean, your valuation could suffer, and you might be too invested to walk away at that point.

3. Focus On Profitability

This is simple, but worth emphasizing: Revenue numbers don’t mean much if there’s nothing left for the buyer to take home (also not great for you as a founder).

Companies are usually valued through “multiples.” As a reference, six-figure content businesses typically sell for around 3x their revenue, Alexis said. E-commerce is usually lower than that.

But no matter what business, the more money you can take home, the higher multiples you’re likely to get.

If two businesses both have $100k in revenue each year, but one founder takes home only $20k but the other $85k, you can bet that the one with higher profitability is going to sell for a lot more.

4. Make The Business A Well-Oiled Machine

If your presence is essential to the business, you’ll have a hard time handing it off to someone else.

So have the right team in place, and try to pass as much as possible off to your team so that you're not an essential piece of this puzzle. Build processes to make sure your company runs efficiently.  

“Any buyer who's looking at a business basically wants a machine — something they can buy that'll keep running itself and making them money,” Alexis said.

5. Negotiate The Earn-out

Many founders, when selling their business, have an earn-out  component to their compensation.

It means that they get paid a portion up front, but have to earn the rest of their compensation over time, based on certain deliverables.

It’s risky to agree to an earn-out because it could tie the founder to the company years after closing the deal. Alexis suggested that founders try to negotiate themselves out of it.

Jody Cook, a social media agency founder Alexis worked with, did it successfully because she had a system in place for the company to run without her well before the seven-figure sale .

⭐ Bonus Tip

If you need a hint on what businesses you can build to sell, there’s a huge market for content sites and online communities, said Alexis.

Acquiring an audience is a popular bet because buyers can get built-in trust for the brand instead of doing it from scratch, which could take years. 

What Happens After You Sell

It's common for founders to have a “lost period” after they sell, Alexis said.

If your identity is tied to the business, and you don’t yet have a next project lined up, it can feel very disorienting.

Her advice is to remind yourself of what you enjoyed from building that business.

Source: Giphy

There are founders who sell multiple businesses because they prefer starting. They sell it because they want to start a new one. And there are others who feel like they're better at scaling, people managing, or running a much bigger business.

Ask yourself what’s most satisfying to you in the process, and focus on that for the next phase of your career.

Believe You Can Sell

Surprisingly, many founders don't realize their small businesses are even sellable until someone tells them.

After seeing (and facilitating) many six, seven, or even low eight-figure deals, Alexis believes that most businesses are sellable.

Don’t be discouraged by a “bad market.” For smaller deals, your specific business performance trump macro trends.

Even in downturns, great businesses find buyers. So don't let an opportunity slip away.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Personal Selling

Mar 12, 2019

810 likes | 2.66k Views

Personal Selling. Module Two. A MANAGER SHOULD AT A MINIMUM HAVE COMPETENCY IN, AND BE KNOWLEDGEABLE OF, THE AREAS OF HIS REPONSIBILITY. Peddlers selling door to door . . . served as intermediaries. Selling function became more structured. 1800s. 1900s. 2000s. Industrial Revolution.

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Presentation Transcript

Personal Selling Module Two

A MANAGER SHOULD AT A MINIMUMHAVE COMPETENCY IN, AND BE KNOWLEDGEABLE OF, THE AREAS OF HIS REPONSIBILITY.

Peddlers selling door to door . . . served as intermediaries Selling function became more structured 1800s 1900s 2000s IndustrialRevolution Post-IndustrialRevolution War andDepression ModernEra Business organizations employed salespeople Selling function became more professional The Evolution of Personal Selling As we begin the 21st century, selling continues to develop, becoming more professional and more relational

Change Salesforce Response More emphasis on developing and maintaining trust-based, long-term customer relationships Intensified competition Increased use of technology Increased use of lower-cost-per-contact methods More emphasis on profitability objectives More emphasis on improving sales productivity The Continuing Evolution of Personal Selling

Change Salesforce Response Demand for in-depth, specialized knowledge as an input to purchase decisions Team selling More emphasis on customer-oriented sales training Continued Evolution

A FUNCTIONAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE PERSONAL SELLING PROCESS IS ESSENTIAL. THERE ARE EIGHT BASIC STEPS IN THE PERSONAL SELLING PROCESS

THE FIRST STEP #1PROSPECTINGGENERATE LEADS SOURCES OF LEADS • CUSTOMER REFERALS • ‘IN HOUSE’ REFERALS • REFERAL AGENCIES • NETWORKING • DIRECTORIES • COLD CANVASING • FOLLOW YOUR COMPETITION • QUALIFY LEADS • ESTABLISH • NEED • ABILITY TO BUY • READY TO BUY

#2 PRE APPROACHPLANNING THE SALE • AQUIRE AS MUCH INFO ABOUT THE CALL AS IS POSSIBLE • SET AN OBJECTIVE FOR THE CALL • USE ADAPTIVE SELLING

#3 THE APPROACH • CHECK PERSONAL HYGENE, DRESS • ESTABLISH RAPPORT (MOOD, ENVIRONMENT, TIME OF DAY) • HAND SHAKE, EYE CONTACT • LIMITED SMALL TALK • USE SAMPLE OR BROCHURE AS LEAD-IN

#4 NEED ASSESSMENT SITUATIONAL QUESTIONS: SO HOW MANY TIMES HAS IT BROKEN DOWN?? PROBLEM DISCOVERY QUESTIONS: HAS SERVICE/REPAIR BEEN ADEQUATE? PROBLEM IMPACT QUESTIONS: IF IT BROKE DOWN HALF AS MUCH WOULD THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE? CONFIRMATIONARY QUESTIONS: MAY I TELL YOU ABOUT AN AFFORDABLE SOLUTION TO THIS …

REMEMBER! THE SEQUENCE MATTERS: • DON’T USE OVERKILL • GET CONCURRANCE AND • PROCEED TO NEXT STAGE

#5 THE PRESENTATION • FEATURES – CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE. • ADVANTAGES – HOW THE FEATURE ENHANCES PRODUCT PERFORMANCE • BENEFITS – DESCRIBE HOW THESE ADVANTAGES WILL HELP THE BUYER (IE. SOLVE HIS PROBLEM). • PRODUCT DEMONSTRATIONS – LAPTOPS, BROCHURES PREPARED SALES PRESENTATIONS (DOG & PONY SHOWS) HAVE LIMITED APPLICATION (TOO INFLEXIBLE)

DEVELOPING PRESENTATIONS • K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) • TALK THE PROSPECTS LANGUAGE • STRESS PRODUCTS APPLICATION TO CLIENT’S SPECIFIC NEED. • ESTABLISH & MAINTAIN CREDIBILITY.

#6 MEETING OBJECTIONS • LISTEN • CLARIFY • RESPECT / EMPATHIZE • RESPOND

PRICE OR VALUE OBJECTIONS • (WORTH THE COST) • OFFER PRICE/VALUE COMPARISON OF ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS • OR COST OF NOT DOING IT!

PRODUCT SERVICE OBJECTIONS • CASE HISTORIES • DEMONSTRATION • TRIAL • TESTIMONIALS

HIDDEN OBJECTIONS • KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS TO TRY AND ISOLATE THE OBJECTION INVALID OBJECTIONS • DISARM • HUMOUR

#7 GAIN COMITTMENT • PLAN REALISTIC OBJECTIVES FOR EACH CALL • ASK FOR COMMITMENT CLOSES ASSUMPTIVE SPECIAL-OFFER SUMMARY CLOSE

#8 FOLLOW UP BE THERE AT THE TIME OF DELIVERY! THE FIRST STEP IN BUILDING CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Always remember… • On average it takes four calls to ‘close’ a sale. • Each call costs an average of $ 225.00

Buyers prefer to deal with salespeople who: • Are honest • Understand general business and economic trends, as well as the buyer's business • Provide guidance throughout the sales process • Help the buyer to solve problems • Have a pleasant personality and a good professional appearance • Coordinate all aspects of the product and service to provide a total package

WHERE THE BUYER IS AT Mental States • Assume the buying process is essentially similar for most buyers • Often Buyers CAN BE led through certain mental states • AIDA (attention, interest, desire, and action)

THE BUYER’S PATH Attention Interest Conviction Desire Action

A BUYER’S NEED STATE Need Satisfaction • Based on the notion that the customer is buying to satisfy a need (once they realize they have one!) • Salesperson uses questioning, probing tactic to uncover / illustrate important buyer needs

Continue Selling until Purchase Decision Generate Alternative Solutions Evaluate Alternative Solutions Define Problem Problem Solving SellingOFTEN THE SALE SOLVES A PROBLEM THAT THE BUYER HAD

Business Consultant The process of helping customers reach their strategic goals by using the products, service, and expertise of the selling organization. Strategic Orchestrator Long-term Ally Consultative Selling

Be Trustworthy and Behave Ethically Possess Excellent Communication Skills Understand Buyer Behavior SUCCESFUL SELLING ~ SELLING SUCCESS Salesperson Attributes To be successful in today’s business environment, salespeople must have a solid relationship building foundation. They must:

Don’t let the term “Relationship Selling” miss lead you… The “relationship” is not a personal one, though it may evolve to be – It isbusiness based and initiated & built solely from superior products & services. Selling on friendship alone is dead. (see Death of a Salesman)

Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' … the American dream of success … was in serious trouble for Willy Loman … He believed in the myth that success was based on popularity, personality and personal attractiveness. "Be liked and you will never want." and ". . . personality always wins the day."

Their Sales Territory Each Customer Each Sales Call Selling Strategy In order to be successful in today’s business environment, salespeople must also think and act strategically. The must develop strategies for:

Developing Customer Relationships Initiating Customer Relationships Enhancing Customer Relationships • Prospecting • Pre-approach • Presentation Planning • Approaching the Customer The Sales Process -1 Salesperson Attributes

Developing Customer Relationships Initiating Customer Relationships Enhancing Customer Relationships • Sales Presentation Delivery • Earning Customer Commitment The Sales Process -2 Salesperson Attributes

Developing Customer Relationships Initiating Customer Relationships Enhancing Customer Relationships Adding Value through Follow-up, Self-leadership, and Teamwork The Sales Process - 3 Salesperson Attributes

A Brief Review of Personal Selling The Nature (Levels) Of Personal Selling • Provider – takes order & delivers • Persuader - minor persuasion • Prospector – pro-active solicitation • Problem solver – finds best fit for customer’s needs • Procreator – creates best fit for customer’s needs.

New Roles Symbiotic relationship thru expertise • Surveying – increase knowledge of customers (expert) • Mapmaking – plan solutions for customer & sell same. • Guiding – ID opportunities & solutions for customer. • Fire starting – engage & direct customers to desired solution.

Personal Selling Responsibilities • Locating perspective customers (prospecting) • Qualified leads decision-maker, etc. • Determining customer’s needs / wants. • Recommending asolution. • Show product / service attributes. • Close the sale – hardest part. • Follow up & service

Evaluating the Personal Selling Effort • Based on sales criteria. • % growth / area • New accounts • New account types • New lines / packages

Criteria for Evaluating Personal Selling • Level & quality of trade / competitive feedback. • Level & quality of trade / consumer acceptance of promo materials & mechanics. • Programme implementation – the quality & quantity of promo presentation, execution / merchandising.

Advantages of Personal Selling • Facilitate two-way interaction • Tailoring the message. • Fewer distractions • Involvement in the decision process – consultative selling. • Source of research info. – Firm’s eyes & ears.

Disadvantages of Personal Selling • Inconsistent messages • Sales / marketing conflicts (corp. Politics) • High cost • Poor reach • Potential ethical problems SR’s do anything to get the sale.

Relationship Marketing • An organization’s effort to develop a long term, cost-effective link with customers • For mutual benefit.

Purchase decisions are not always rationally based.

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