What Is Personal Selling? Advantage And Disadvantage

If you think the word sales is as easy as it sounds, then you are wrong. It is not easy at all. As the competition is getting tougher, the time is coming when a salesperson might have to take the business in hand and meet potential clients face to face.

There they have to convince the client by explaining the features to buy the offering.

This technique is called personal selling, and believe it or not it is an effective way of increasing sales using individual-to-individual interactions.

Personal selling can prove to be an invaluable asset that can help boost brand equity. Whenever a brand’s representative or salesperson is advocating a product or service offering of the business, he or she is promoting brand equity. The more a business and its product is spoken about, the higher is the brand equity of the same.

Without further a do, let’s talk about what is personal selling and about everything that is connected to personal selling including advantages and disadvantages.

What Do You Mean By Personal Selling?

Personal selling is a way in which one salesperson uses his skills and techniques for building up personal relations with another salesperson. Both of them obtain value. You need to understand what is personal selling?

They acquire value with financial rewards of sale and customers acquire value with the benefits that they obtain by absorbing the product. Sometimes, selling means delivering the information.

Personal selling is done by the salesperson by using one-to-one interactions with consumers, which then leads to quick response and personal conflict. 

Therefore it is about a certain adjustment of the message. The communication message changes according to the customer’s definite needs or wants.

The priority purpose of personal selling is to focus on selling the goods to their targeted buyers by introducing the right goods, offers, and services into contact with the right consumers.

Personal selling is also known as the ‘backbone of marketing’.

There you go with the answer of what is personal selling.

Experts Defining Personal Selling 

Experts like Richard Buskirk defined personal selling kind of like this: he said personal selling has contacting awaited buyers of a product privately.

 Another expert William J Stanton says that personal selling has individual private communication of advertisings sales promotion and other tools.

Advantage Of Personal Sellings

1. Two way Of Interaction
2. Customizing messages
3. Lack of distraction
4. Participation in the decision process
5. Research information sources

Two Way Interaction 

Since it is a two-way interaction, which is between the buyer and promoter, therefore the questions that are raised by the buyer can be discussed and solved.

But the same is not possible when it comes to mass communications. Direct feedback is not available; neither information can be obtained immediately. 

Customizing Messages

Messages can be customized to the receiver due to direct interaction. precise message content like this allows the sender to point to the customer’s specific problems, needs, and concerns. 

The authority has been given to the sales representatives to ask for the sale, move on to the next or close the deal if he wants, whenever he wants.

Lack Of Distraction

Distraction is one-to-one presentations is always less as the buyer has to pay attention to what the salesperson is telling about sales.

The distractions are still less even when there is a presentation by a group of salespeople.

 When there is more than one decision-maker sitting the setting is more calm than those personal mass media.

Participation In The Decision Process

Using consultative selling and relationship marketing, the supplier turns into a partner in the process of buying decisions. 

The supplier starts acting in combination with the buyer to solve issues. This makes the buyer trust more on the sales representatives as well as their products and services.

Research Information Sources 

Sales representatives in personal selling are able to collect all kinds of competitor information like products, promotions, services, and pricing.

 With this, they also learn about potential customers and buying behavior.

Personal selling focuses basically on the dyadic communications process, which is the ability to change the message, and for direct feedback. 

Sometimes these advantages turn into disadvantages as they are not always realized.

Disadvantages Of Personal Sellings

1. CPA- high cost per action

2. Training price

3. Turnover of job

4. Odd messages 

CPA- High Cost Per Action 

CPA can be a major measure when it comes to the success of promotion spending, the money that is spent to support a sales staff also known as salesforce. It can get costly as it means person-to-person contact.

Training Price

Sales staff need to be ducted and trained on product knowledge, selling skills, and industry information. Travel, training equipment, meals, hotels, and their salaries, all these are in training costs.

Turnover Of Job 

In sales job turnover is much higher than in other marketing positions. The reason behind salespeople leaving their jobs is because of geographic territory. Therefore the company trains and recruits staff often.

Odd Messages 

You should know the ability to adapt messages to the receiver is a unique advantage of personal selling. But lack of proper messages can become a disadvantage. 

The message that should be communicated is actually designed by the marketing staff with certain communication objectives in mind.

 Once it is decided the message will reach all receivers. The salesperson can change the meaning of the message which the marketer did not mean.

We have covered the advantages and disadvantages of what is personal selling.

Techniques Of Personal Selling

It is wrong to think that the work of a salesman is just about sales, he also cultivate relations with consumers you can also go for personal selling strategies.

Personal selling include:

1. Inspecting 
2. Pre approach 
3. Approach
4. Sales presentation 
5. consumer objections 
6. Closing the deal
7. Follow up

Inspecting 

The first thing to do in personal selling is narrow down the selling effort to the selected consumers. Inspecting means involvement and development of all the leads to picking potential target customers which requires a lot of effort and time management.

Pre Approach 

Once the salesperson locates a set of clients and customers, he should try to learn as much as possible about the company and individual needs. 

It is his job to gather information about the product, market, potential sales volume, and competition of the company. 

A salesperson is into influencing a purchase decision.

Approach 

A salesperson should go for an approach that matches his or her personality and judgment on certain sales situations. It is very much important to decide the way of greeting a customer by a salesperson. The salesperson should be confident about himself and act purely professionally. 

Sales Presentation 

While making sales presentations a salesman can approach them differently in making sales presentations. 

This theory shows that the customer will buy a product or service if he has been provided the right stimuli. 

He remembers sales presentations, that include what to do and when.

Customer Objections 

Being in the sales field salesperson often face sales problems or restrictions, this occurs from objections made by customers.

Some of the objections are rational and some are psychological.

No matter what, a salesperson should always be ready to face such restrictions. A customer can at any moment come up with objections that are relevant or may not be, but it’s the job of the salesperson to give her or him a solution against the objection.

Closing The Deal 

Closing means asking for the order. After a successful sales presentation, the salesman asks for the order. Closing is the last step of a sales presentation.

 Therefore it is the main reason for which the client was contacted in the first place.

There are many salesmen who do not believe in themselves, and so they fail to interact or convince the customer.

 Just because they fail to present, the customer as well loses interest in buying the product. 

Follow up 

A follow-up is very important for a long-term relationship between the customer and the company. The salesman contacts their customers to know if they are struggling with any problems and provides solutions immediately. 

A salesman also keeps in contact with their customers to see if they are happy about their purchase and offered services.

Objectives Of Personal Selling

1. Awareness while building product 

2. Creating interest 

3. Providing information 

4. Encouraging demand 

5. Reinforcing the brand

Awareness While Building Product 

Educating customers on a new product is a major task for a salesperson. The salesperson actually plays a vital role at industry trades, where the discussion of products happens with shoe attendees. 

Building awareness is also needed in consumer markets.

Creating Interest

Personal selling includes individual communication, creating interest works together with building product awareness. Sales professionals often accomplish both objectives in the first encounter with a potential customer.

Providing Information 

Salespeople receive brochures, computer programs, research reports, and much informational material from organizations. The main thing that salesmen focus on is the conversation on product information.

Stimulating Demand 

The main focus of personal selling is only one thing and that is to convince customers to make a purchase. This is the main objective a salesman is trained to do. 

Whatever happens, they must put all the effort into making customers understand their product and at last buy them. Here you go with the personal objectives of .

Characteristic Of Personal Selling

We can call it personal selling when there is a salesman who sells service, solution, and product to a client. the following features of personal selling are:

Feedback: it’s a simple process, feedback from clients that are received by the salesman.

Persuasion: the salesman convinces the customers to buy the product.

Flexibility: the sales presentation can be adapted depending on the situation or on the clients.

Relationship Building: through personal selling a bond is made between the customer and the company.

Systematic Communicative Interchange:

It’s a fast and twofold conversation where you send the message and get the reply almost immediately. 

Process: It’s not a single activity, it’s a set of activities.

Mutually Benefited: In personal selling, both buyers and sellers are benefited.

Information: The product information is given to the customers. Valuable information is provided like offers, uses, availability of the product, special features.

Promotes Scales: The final objective is achieved through promotion sales. 

Costly: For the company recruiting, training, and development of the sales are expensive.

Importance Of Personal Selling

Personal selling is important for both promotion mix and effective promotional tools. As we already know, personal selling is a procedure that offers mutual benefit, to the customer as well as the seller. 

Some features for the importance of what is personal selling:

Flexible Tool

Minimum Wasted Effort

Actual Sale

Gives Feedback

Advertising

Instruct Customers 

Help The Society

Conclusion 

In this article, we have discussed and briefed a lot of sides of personal selling. This article is for those who need a brief idea about personal selling and is easy to read as easy words have been used. 

Salesmen are the most important figure in the field of sales, and so are customers. Personal selling and sales management is very important to start and continue sales. Sales in the first are made for customers.

Leave a comment below in the comment section if the article has helped you to understand what is personal selling.

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