The document discusses direct selling and the personal selling process. It covers the sales funnel, different types of sales personnel like order takers and order getters, and the advantages of personal selling like building customer relationships. The personal selling process involves seven steps: prospecting, pre-approach, approach, presentation, overcoming objections, closing the sale, and follow-up.

1. STUDY SESSION
DIRECT SELLING

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Direct Sales
• Sales Funnel
• Sales Personnel
• Summary

3. INTRODUCTION
DIRECT SELLING

4. Introduction
• Personal selling occurs where an individual salesperson
sells a product, service or solution to a client. Salespeople
match the benefits of their offering to the specific needs of
a client. Today, personal selling involves the development
of longstanding client relationships.
• Undoubtedly by now you've figured out that marketing
enables both individuals and organizations to sell products
and services to other people to help them satisfy their
needs and wants. At some point in the selling process,
personal selling usually becomes involved.

5. Introduction
• The sellers promote the product through their attitude,
appearance and specialist product knowledge. They aim
to inform and encourage the customer to buy, or at least
trial the product.
• A good example of personal selling is found in department
stores on the perfume and cosmetic counters.
• A customer can get advice on how to apply the product
and can try different products. Products with relatively
high prices, or with complex features, are often sold using
personal selling. Great examples include cars, office
equipment (e.g. photocopiers) and many products that are
sold by businesses to other industrial customers.

6. Direct Sales
Advantages Disadvantages
• High customer attention
• Message is customised
• Interactivity
• Persuasive impact
• Potential for development
of relationship
• Adaptable
• Opportunity to close the
sale
• High cost
• Labour intensive
• Expensive
• Can only reach a limited
number of customers

7. SELLING PROCESS
DIRECT SELLING

8. Personal selling process
The personal
selling process
consists of the
following steps:
Prospecting
Pre-
approach
Approach
Making the
Presentation
Overcoming
Objections
Closing the
Sale
Follow-up

9. 1) Prospecting
• Prospecting refers to identifying and developing a list of potential
clients. Sales people can seek the names of prospects from a variety
of sources including trade shows, commercially-available databases
or mail lists, company sales records and in-house databases, website
registrations, public records, referrals, directories and a wide variety
of other sources. Prospecting activities should be structured so that
they identify only potential clients who fit the profile and are able,
willing and authorized to buy the product or service.
• This activity is greatly enhanced today using websites with specially-
coded pages optimized with key words so that prospects may easily
find you when they search the web for certain key words related to
your offering. Once prospecting is underway, it then is up to the sales
professional to qualify those prospects to further identify likely
customers and screen out poor leads. Modern websites can go along
way in not only identifying potential prospects but also starting this
qualification process.

10. 2) Pre-approach
• Before engaging in the actual personal selling process, sales
professionals first analyze all the information they have
available to them about a prospect to understand as much
about the prospect as possible.
• During the Pre-approach phase of the personal selling process,
sales professionals try to understand the prospect's current
needs, current use of brands and feelings about all available
brands, as well as identify key decision makers, review account
histories (if any), assess product needs, plan/create a sales
presentation to address the identified and likely concerns of the
prospect, and set call objectives. The sales professional also
develops a preliminary overall strategy for the sales process
during this phase, keeping in mind that the strategy may have
to be refined as he or she learns more about the prospect.

11. 3) Approach
• The approach is the actual contact the sales professional
has with the prospect.
• This is the point of the selling process where the sales
professional meets and greets the prospect, provides an
introduction, establishes rapport that sets the foundation
of the relationship, and asks open-ended questions to
learn more about the prospect and his or her need

12. 4) Making the Presentation
• During the presentation portion of the selling process, the sales
professional tells that product "story" in a way that speaks
directly to the identified needs and wants of the prospect. A
highly customized presentation is the key component of this
step. At this point in the process, prospects are often allowed to
hold and/or inspect the product and the sales professional may
also actually demonstrate the product.
• Audio visual presentations and/or slide presentations may be
incorporated at this stage and this is usually when sales
brochures or booklets are presented to the prospect. Sales
professionals should strive to let the prospect do most of the
talking during the presentation and address the needs of the
prospect as fully as possible by showing that he or she truly
understands and cares about the needs of the prospect.

13. 5) Overcoming Objections
• Professional sales people seek out prospects' objections
in order to try to address and overcome them. When
prospects offer objections, it often signals that they need
and want to hear more in order to make a fully-informed
decision. If objections are not uncovered and identified,
then sales professionals cannot effectively manage them.
• Uncovering objections, asking clarifying questions, and
overcoming objections is a critical part of training for
professional sellers and is a skill area that must be
continually developed because there will always be
objections. Trust me when I tell you that as soon as a
sales professional finds a way to successfully handle "all"
his or her prospects' objections, some prospect will find a
new, unanticipated objection-- if for no other reason than
to test the mettle of the sales person.

14. 6) Closing the Sale
• Although technically "closing" a sale happens when products or
services are delivered to the customer's satisfaction and
payment is received, for the purposes of our discussion I will
define closing as asking for the order and adequately
addressing any final objections or obstacles. There are many
closing techniques as well as many ways to ask trial closing
questions.
• A trail question might take the form of, "Now that I've
addressed your concerns, what other questions do you have
that might impact your decision to purchase?" Closing does not
always mean that the sales professional literally asks for the
order, it could be asking the prospect how many they would
like, what color they would prefer, when they would like to take
delivery, etc. Too many sales professions are either weak or too
aggressive when it comes to closing. If you are closing a sale,
be sure to ask for the order. If the prospect gives an answer
other than "yes", it may be a good opportunity to identify new
objections and continue selling.

15. 7) Follow-up
• Follow-up is an often overlooked but important part of the
selling process. After an order is received, it is in the best
interest of everyone involved for the sales person to
follow-up with the prospect to make sure the product was
received in the proper condition, at the right time, installed
properly, proper training delivered, and that the entire
process was acceptable to the customer.
• This is a critical step in creating customer satisfaction and
building long-term relationships with customers. If the
customer experienced any problems whatsoever, the
sales professional can intervene and become a customer
advocate to ensure 100% satisfaction. Diligent follow-up
can also lead to uncovering new needs, additional
purchases, and also referrals and testimonials which can
be used as sales tools.

16. SALES FUNNEL
DIRECT SELLING

17. Sales funnel
• A sales funnel report presents a "snapshot" of your sales
function at any given point in time. For conceptual
purposes, the sales process is often compared to a funnel
where new leads coming into the system (i.e. prospects)
are initially placed into the top of the funnel (the widest
part) and then worked through the system by informing,
persuading, overcoming objections, providing information,
demonstrating, providing free samples, etc., etc. until at
the narrow part of the funnel, an order is placed and a
sales is closed when payment from the customer is
received.
•

18. Sales funnel
• The funnel framework works fairly well because for all
new leads that are generated by marketing, there is a
closing rate that represents the sales that ultimately
result.
• The number of resulting sales is usually significantly less
than the number of total leads generated hence it is useful
to think that as leads work their way further down the
funnel there will be less and less of them until they come
out the narrow end of the funnel as sales.

19. Sales funnel

20. SALES PERSONNEL
DIRECT SELLING

21. Order Takers
• Seek repeat sales, make certain that customers have
sufficient product quantities where and when they need it.
Do not require extensive sales effort. Arrange displays,
restocks them, answer phone calls. Low compensation,
little training required. High turnover of personnel. 2 types:
• Inside Order Takers receive orders by mail/phone, sales
person in a retail store.
• Field Order Takers travel to customers. Use laptop
computers to improve tracking of inventory and orders
etc.

22. Order Getters
• Sell to new customers and increase sales to present
customers, sometimes called creative selling.
• Generate customer leads, provide information,
persuading customers and closing sales. Required for
high priced, complex and/or new products. High pressure,
requires expensive, time consuming training.

23. Support Personnel
• Facilitate the selling function. Primarily business to
business products. Missionary Salespeople Distribute
information regarding new goods or services, describes
attributes and leaves materials, does not close sales.
Assist producers' customers in selling to their own
customers. IE call on retailers and persuade them to carry
the product. Pharmaceuticals may go to doctors offices
and persuade them to carry their products.
• Trade Salespeople May perform order taking function as
well. Spend much time helping customers, especially
retail stores, to promote the product. Restock the shelves,
set up displays. Technical Salespersons Offer technical
assistance to current customers. Usually trained
engineers etc.

24. Support Personnel
• Service Salespeople interacts with customers after sale is
complete.
• Team selling...entire team of selling professionals in
selling to and servicing major customers, especially when
specialized knowledge is needed to satisfy different
interests in customers' buying centers.

25. SUMMARY
DIRECT SELLING

26. Summary
• The main advantage of using our personal selling is that it
is a more cost effective way of promoting your product or
service than employing a permanent sales person whose
overall cost may far out weight the potential return. It is a
great way of informing potential clients about large
amounts of product information/knowledge. They gather
information and feedback to assist in market research for
future promotions.
• Through personal selling organizations believe in the
development of long standing relationships. It is through
relationships that businesses today develop advocacy
where their customers assist in informing others about
their product/service and their benefits.