Personal sales is an instrument of communication policy in marketing (along with advertising, direct marketing, public relations and sales promotion). The primary goal of the sales pitch between a seller and a potential or current customer (buyer) is to conclude a contract for a service offered or requested. In addition, Personal Sales has the following tasks:
- Acquisition (acquisition of new customers)
- Communication (advising, informing and influencing customers in line with the company’s goals)
- Service (services provided by the Seller, such as handling complaints or after-sales service)
- Coordination (coordination with the interlocutors at the customer and the provider)
- Management (objectives, planning and organization of a sales area and the necessary resources).
Personal sales are the most important instrument in the communication mix in the marketing of capital goods, while advertising predominates in consumer goods. These functions require certain decisions and activities that are organized as a sales process. In order to design this process efficiently, you need particularly qualified personnel with appropriate sales skills. This applies in particular to the marketing of knowledge- and technology-intensive products and services, such as industrial plants, power plants or the reorganisation of companies.
Communication policy deals with the question of how the goals of a large organization can be communicated in a comprehensible and effective way, how information is provided about its own activities and their results, how the organization learns the opinions and wishes of the relevant groups, and how the processes within the organization are designed. Communication policy plans and controls the communication between the organisation and the environment or individual target groups both internally and externally. It is a function of leadership, organization and marketing.
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Read also: Lead generation and Lead management.
Acquisition, consulting and conclusion of contracts can be carried out both in direct contact and by telephone (telemarketing, mobile marketing). If a salesperson is not satisfied with the customer’s “no” and is trained in handling objections or if he/she pushes the customer to make a purchase decision, he can come across as aggressive. Sellers acting in this way are colloquially referred to as “boars”. The buyer gets the impression (rather as a result of buyer’s remorse) that the seller is talking him into something and “pulling the money out of his pocket” by convincing him through extensive rhetoric training that he needs something he has never thought about.
