Definition of Personal Selling
Personal selling is the person-to-person or face-to-face interaction between the seller and buyer where usually the seller interacts with the potential buyer with a hope to sell his product or service.
Personal selling is when the seller personally visits his customers and is involved in the process of persuading them to purchase goods or services through an oral presentation. It is a traditional method of promotion. It is as old as human civilization.
It is being used as the most effective means of promoting goods and services because it is a process of direct or two-way communication between the buyer and seller.
It provides individual attention for each consumer and passes a lot of information. And, personal selling is one of the essential elements of the promotion mix.
At present, personal selling is not limited only to person-to-person or face-to-face communication as it was traditionally.
Due to the advancement of technology direct mail to the target customer, phone calls, messages, video calls, etc. are also considered as a personal selling means, today.
Characteristics of Personal Selling
The distinctive features of personal selling are mentioned as follows,
Personal Interaction
In personal selling, there is personal interaction and communication. It is not like advertising where there is non-personal communication.
Here, the marketer, seller, or advertiser directly shares his idea, service, or product with the customers, and customers can also directly share their needs, and wants, and get the intention of the seller.
Relationship Building
Personal selling also aims at building a good relationship between a seller and a prospective buyer. Where trust is being established on salespersons in the mind of consumers which ultimately increases the rate of achieving marketing objectives.
Two Way Communication
It is two-way communication, it is like mass communication. Here, the buyer and seller can share and exchange their messages between them.
As such, the buyer can ask the seller about his offerings and the seller also transfer his offering’s benefits, features, and uses to his prospective buyers.
Flexibility
It is flexible, it is not in a static manner. The seller can act and say as per the intention, personality, and real-time desire of the buyer.
If the seller feels the way he is delivering the message, buyers are not getting it, he may immediately change his way which is not possible in advertising.
Quick Flow of Information & Immediate Feedback
Since personal selling is direct face-to-face communication, there is the possibility of a quick flow of information. And, the immediate feedback is also important.
Here, as fast as the seller delivers his messages at the same speed the buyer can also respond to them.
Mutual Benefits
Since it is two-way communication, the benefits are also two-way. The seller is benefited when the buyer buys his offerings and the buyer is benefited from the uses and features of that product or service.
Persuasion
The ultimate goal of personal selling is to persuade the customers towards the intention of the seller and make them take action.
It is not just informing or sharing information, it is persuading the customers to do the way i.e. influencing them to purchase the seller’s goods and services.
Types of Personal Selling
There are four major types of personal selling, they are trade selling, missionary selling, new business selling, and technical selling.
Trade Selling
Trade Selling is focused on increasing business volume by providing customers with promotional and merchandising assistance.
Missionary Selling
The main objective of missionary selling is to increase business volume by providing product information. In this type of selling, the missionary sellers try to stimulate new sales.
For example, medical representatives for stimulating sales.
New Business Selling
The new business seller’s job is to increase business volume by obtaining new accounts or new customers. This process is also referred to as canvassing, bird-dogging, and cold-calling.
Technical Selling
Technical salespersons like professional consultants. The main objective of technical selling is to increase business volume by providing technical information and assistance.
Technical salespersons are especially used in selling industrial products, such as chemicals, machinery, heavy equipment, etc. as these products require special knowledge from the sellers.
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Process of Personal Selling
How to do personal selling? There are 7 step processes to make personal selling successful, they are shortly explained below,
Prospecting
The first step to making the personal selling process effective is prospecting. Prospecting means the seller’s attempt to identify, know, and locate potential customers.
In prospecting, generally, the salesperson tries to find the future customers to whom he is going to meet, share information about his offerings, and make them real customers.
For this, the seller can use many means to find the likelihood of customers such as by the objective of selling, the quality of the product, people’s needs, people’s income level, etc. If the seller wants to sell expensive products he may prospect for rich, high-income level, high spending habit customers, and so on.
However, to effectively prospect potential customers the seller may go for cold calling, newspapers, webinars, quality leads, tradeshows, referrals from traders, suppliers, etc.
Pre-Approach
In the pre-approach step, the seller analyzes the likelihood of situations when he is going to meet or make calls to prospective customers for the first time. It is the before visiting the customer activity the salesperson does.
In this step, the seller prepares himself as best he can. For this, he may go take consultant service on how to make the first impression best with potential customers, how to handle & respond to customers’ requests, etc.
The seller has to decide the best approach to visit his potential customers. In addition, the sellers imagine the likelihood of events and questions that will be asked by customers and do a rehearsal in the room.
Approach
After the preparation in the pre-approach stage, the seller physically visits the potential customer in the approach stage. Here, the seller gives and starts firsthand to build a relationship with the customer.
The seller and buyer make face-to-face interaction. The seller makes small talk with the customers and seeks to know about them. The seller tries to understand the needs, wants, desires, pains, or problems of the customer.
The main objective of the seller in this step is to understand the needs and desires of the customers, make customers feel free to share their needs, and finally, the seller goes for to make his sales pitch most attractive.
Sales Presentation
In the sales presentation step of the personal selling process, the seller gives a presentation on his products and services. It is the step where buyers get to know about the seller’s offers for them.
While presenting and demonstrating his offers the seller tells about the product’s features, benefits, uses, quality, how that product meets their needs and wants, how such products differ from those of competitors, etc.
For a good demonstration, the seller may also use attractive slides, videos, also some samples of that product.
The main objective of the seller in a sales presentation is to make customers know why they should use that product, what potential benefits they will get, and what offers the seller has for them ultimately creating a desire for the product.
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Handling Objectives
It is believed that, if all the above steps of the personal selling process go well, the customers will really have the curiosity to know more about the seller’s offer.
As such, in this step, the customers come up with lots of curiosity, questions, and doubts. They have a great desire to seek information about products they will buy.
In simple words, in personal selling, handling objectives means handling the questions of customers. Here, the seller’s objective is to win the trust of customers by answering their queries in the right way so that customers are free from tensions on the selection of products.
Closing The Sale
In closing the sale step, the customers come up to buy a product. It is the step where the seller makes a real sale (s) and the buyer makes a real purchase (s).
Here, the seller finalizes the sales deals with the customers and the potential customers become the real ones. While finalizing the sales deals, there may be product’s price and payment process will be negotiated.
Follow Up
The last step of the personal selling process is follow-up. Personal selling is not a one-time process rather it is a long-term, everlasting relationship-building process.
In follow-up, when a sale is made, the seller tries to make contact again with the buyer to know if the sold product meets the buyer’s expectations or not, to ensure the long-term bond and make re-purchases.
To make the follow-up step more effective, the seller may also try to give after-sales services to the customers effective follow-up also is an important step and has a bright potential to know and increase the performance and business of the salesperson.
Objectives of Personal Selling
The primary objectives/relevance of personal selling are explained as follows,
Inform
It is so relevant in today’s marketing world as it informs the target customers about the different aspects of products. It provides information to the customers by explaining all goods services & attributes and answering any question asked.
Persuade
Personal selling aims to persuade customers by,
- Clearly distinguishing goods or service attributes from those of competitors,
- Converting undecided customers into buyers,
- Selling complementary items, and
- Satisfying dissatisfied customers.
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Remind
It reminds the customer from time to time and again about the products and firms. It is done by,
- Ensuring delivery and installation,
- Following up after goods or services have been purchased,
- Reassuring previous customers when making a new purchase, etc.
Build Company Image
One of the primary objectives of personal selling is to build a positive company image. It aims to do this by,
- Maintaining a good appearance while contacting customers following acceptable sales practices,
- Talking gloriously about the product and services,
- Making customers happy.
Develop Relationship
It focuses on developing everlasting exchange relationships with customers. This is another significant reason that makes personal selling more relevant in today’s marketing time.
Advantages of Personal Selling
Just like other components of the promotion mix, personal selling also has some advantages and disadvantages. Some advantages of personal selling are mentioned below.
Realization of Real Intention of Customers
Personal selling is not like standing away and seeing the messages doing work like in advertising and other forms of the promotion mix. It is a direct interaction, the seller can get the real-time response and intentions of the prospective customers.
Delivers More Information
Of course, personal selling delivers more information to the customers than other components of the promotion mix. In other promotion mix components, the specific message is set or written and with the help of different media such messages are delivered.
But here, the seller if wants can deliver as much as information he wants if customers do not get bored and also respond to the feedback of customers immediately.
Two-Way Communication
Another significant advantage is that it enables sellers to do two-way interaction. In this process, customers are able to clear their doubts and questions at the time they want. Such, benefits are not possible in advertising.
Build Relationship
It also helps to build long-term relationships with customers. By closely communicating and understanding the pain and problems of customers the marketer or seller can offer the right product. Understanding each other’s problems leads to building mutual trust.
Disadvantages of Personal Selling
Some of the disadvantages of personal selling are as follows,
Expensive
Personal selling is actually an expensive means of promotional activity. Since it is person-to-person communication for each customer individually the seller has to visit.
If customers’ numbers are high, a large number of sellers are also required.
Requires Talented Salesperson
It requires a talented salesperson. Since the communication is individual to understand and communicate attractively the seller needs to have good communication skills and human understanding quality. The aggressive sellers do not fit into such promotional activity.
Limited Coverage
Personal selling has limited coverage. As such it is one-to-one communication, it can not cover the larger area as other promotional tools cover.
Such as in single advertising the whole country’s customers are reached but in personal selling is it just an imagination?
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Sujan Chaudhary holds a BBA degree. He loves to share his business knowledge with the rest of the world.