Mastering Personal Selling: Building Relationships and Adding Value
Personal Selling: Building Relationships and Adding Value
Understanding Personal Selling
Personal selling involves direct interaction between a company representative and a customer or prospect to present information about a product or service. It’s crucial to adopt a marketing concept that values personal selling and positions the salesperson as a problem solver and partner.
Evolution of Selling
Advancements in information technology and e-commerce have significantly impacted selling. Information is a strategic resource, and business success hinges on building strong customer relationships. Salespeople must focus on creating and adding value to succeed in this evolving landscape.
Types of Salespeople
- Inside salespeople: Sell at the employer’s location.
- Outside salespeople: Travel to meet prospects and customers.
Key Concepts in Personal Selling
- Channels: Services, business-to-business, and consumer channels are common sales channels.
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management): Software that centralizes customer information to understand their needs and expectations.
- Marketing Concept: Achieving organizational goals depends on understanding and fulfilling target market needs and wants. Customer focus and value drive sales and profits, with customer satisfaction as a top priority.
Selling Strategies
- Consultative Selling: Focuses on understanding and addressing customer needs through problem-solving and negotiation.
- Strategic Selling: Aligns the sales process with organizational goals and market opportunities using strategic planning and adaptive tactics.
- Relationship Strategy: A plan for establishing, building, and maintaining quality relationships with high ethical standards.
- Product Strategy: A plan for selecting and positioning products to meet customer needs, emphasizing product expertise and selling benefits.
- Customer Strategy: A plan for maximizing responsiveness to customer needs by understanding the buying process and buyer behavior.
- Presentation Strategy: A well-defined plan for achieving objectives during each sales call.
Building Strategic Partnerships
Building strategic partnerships involves learning about potential partners, exploring mutual benefits, and presenting the impact on profits and strategic alignment.
Relationship Management and Ethics
- Relationship Strategy Prescriptions: Maintain high ethical standards, project a professional image, and manage the relationship process effectively.
- Emotional Intelligence: The ability to understand and manage emotions, both your own and others’.
- Relationship Challenges: Building new relationships, transforming existing ones, and managing them effectively.
- Culture: Understanding cultural differences is crucial for building relationships and navigating ethical challenges.
- Ethical Standards: Ethical behavior starts at the top of an organization, and the company’s moral tone sets the standard for employees.
- Business Ethics: Principles and standards that guide behavior in the business world, fostering strong partnerships.
Partnering for Success
Partnering is a long-term, high-quality relationship focused on solving customer problems. Key elements include shared values, a clear understanding of the partnership’s purpose, and a shift from selling to supporting. Relationship strategies should consider customers, secondary decision-makers, company support staff, and management personnel.
Personal Qualities for Sales Success
- Self-Concept: A positive self-concept is essential for success. Focus on the future, learn from past mistakes, develop expertise, and maintain a positive attitude.
- Win-Win Philosophy: Strive for outcomes where both buyer and seller benefit.
- Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of others.
- Ego Drive: The inner motivation to succeed.
- Nonverbal Communication: Pay attention to facial expressions, voice tone, gestures, and appearance to convey professionalism and respect.
- Etiquette: Proper etiquette enhances relationships and adds value.
- Conversational Strategies: Show genuine interest in others, listen actively, and offer sincere compliments.
- Self-Improvement Strategies: Set goals, visualize success, use positive self-talk, and reward progress.
Communication Styles
Communication style is the pattern of behavior observed by others. Adaptive selling involves adjusting your communication style to connect with the customer effectively. Communication style bias can hinder success, so developing versatility is crucial.
Dimensions of Communication Styles
- Dominance: The tendency to control or influence others.
- Sociability: The degree of emotional expressiveness.
Four Communication Styles
- Emotive: Sociable, emotional, and spontaneous.
- Directive: Assertive, serious, and focused on control.
- Reflective: Precise, analytical, and reserved.
- Supportive: Patient, understanding, and cooperative.
Style flexing involves adapting your communication style to meet the needs of the other person. The Platinum Rule emphasizes treating others as they want to be treated.
Product Strategy and Solutions
Product strategy involves becoming a product expert, selling benefits, and configuring value-added solutions. Solution selling is a process of uncovering customer problems, creating a vision for improvement, and developing a plan for implementation.
Product strategies should be tailored to customer needs, ranging from transactional to consultative to strategic partnerships. Product configuration involves customizing products to meet specific requirements. Written proposals and sales letters are essential tools for presenting solutions and building relationships.
Creating Value and Positioning Products
Successful sales presentations translate product features into benefits that address customer needs. Positioning involves creating a specific perception of the product in the customer’s mind. Differentiation sets your product apart from the competition. The value proposition is the set of benefits that meet and exceed customer needs. Value quantification demonstrates the impact of your solution on business results.
Product Solutions Selling Model
The 3-D Product solutions selling model involves discovering customer needs, designing solutions, and delivering value. Pricing strategies aim to maximize profit and market share. Salespeople can use various product positioning strategies to differentiate their offerings, such as emphasizing new products, price advantages, or value-added services.
Adding Value and Building Relationships
Salespeople can add value by offering more than the customer expects. The generic product is the basic offering, the expected product meets minimal expectations, the value-added product exceeds expectations, and the potential product explores future possibilities.
By mastering personal selling techniques, building strong relationships, and focusing on creating value, salespeople can achieve success in today’s competitive business environment.