Motivating and Compensating Salespeople Employees are best motivated through effective job design, equitable compensation, and treatment as stakeholders in the company. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Discuss methods to motivate and compensate salespeople KEY TAKEAWAYS Key Points Participation and influence are important ways to provide motivation to employees. Voice and influence mechanisms allow employees to contribute their expertise to the success of the business. Meaningful job design exemplifies the company’s goals and structure,… Read More »Motivating and Compensating Salespeople

Sales Training In general, training provides many diverse benefits both to the company as well as to the salesperson. LEARNING OBJECTIVES KEY TAKEAWAYS Key Points Training employees results in improved performance or error reduction, leading to higher profits. Employees can strengthen their overall skill set and increase their understanding of the organization. Different industries and organizations will have different training needs, and will thus need to devise different training systems… Read More »Sales Training

Recruiting and Selecting Salespeople Salespeople who have the best characteristics, and who fit the company ethos, should be chosen during the recruitment process. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Examine the rationale and process of recruiting and selecting salespeople KEY TAKEAWAYS Key Points Recruitment can be costly and time consuming. The process must be designed to minimize cost while ensuring a wide pool or suitable candidates are considered. Candidates can be chosen internally or… Read More »Recruiting and Selecting Salespeople

Managing the Sales Force Creating Sales Force Structure, Territories, and Goals Creating the proper sales force structure, territoires, and goals leads to customer, sales force and firm satisfaction. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Explain the components of and rationale behind sales force, territory and sales goal creation KEY TAKEAWAYS Key Points The sales force structure will guide the sales force and impact the company’s bottom line. Sales territories are the customer groups or… Read More »Managing the Sales Force : Creating Sales Force Structure, Territories, and Goals

Types of Selling Team Selling Team selling is a group of people representing the sales department and other areas in a firm, all sharing a common goal of increased sales. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Name the advantages of a team selling approach KEY TAKEAWAYS Key Points Size of the team, reward disbursements and strategic objectives are among the factors to consider when deciding to use the team-selling concept. Team selling should be… Read More »Types of Selling : Team Selling And Relationship Selling

If you’re in business-to-business (B2B) marketing, you know that there’s a difference between selling straight to consumers and selling to other businesses. Source: SFIO CRACHO / shutterstock B2B marketing brings along its own set of challenges, struggles, and bumps in the road. Here are three easy ways to remove friction in your B2B sales process to make more sales and build more relationships within your industry. Skip to the decision-makers.… Read More »Ways to Remove Friction in Your B2B Sales Process

Selling Roles Proactive Representatives Proactive representatives tend to fall in to one of two main categories: Hunters and Farmers. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Compare and contrast sales personalities categorized as Hunters and Farmers KEY TAKEAWAYS Key Points A hunter is often associated with aggressive personalities who use aggressive sales techniques. Farmers create sales demand by activities that directly influence and alter the buying process. The reality is that most professional sales people… Read More »Selling Roles

CRM and Personal Selling Customer relationship management is a widely used model for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients, and sales prospects. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented model for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients, and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are… Read More »CRM and Personal Selling

Following Up Following-up will build customer satisfaction, maximize long-term sales volume, and if a sale has not been made, it may lead to a sale. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Identify the basis for and the importance of follow up as part of the personal selling process and sales promotion KEY TAKEAWAYS Key Points The follow-up contributes to the customer’s perception of value purchased. A regular follow up is an integral part of… Read More »Following Up

Closing the Sale Closing refers to the achievement of the desired outcome, which may be the exchange of money or the acquiring of a signature. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Outline “closing the sale” importance, characteristics and types KEY TAKEAWAYS Key Points Closing is distinguished from ordinary practices such as explaining a product ‘s benefits or justifying an expense. It is reserved for more artful means of persuasion. Situations where a closing attempt… Read More »Closing the Sale