PERSONAL SELLING AND SALES PROMOTION

INTRODUCTION

In contrast to advertising and publicity, which use impersonal methods of communication, personal selling makes use of direct personal communications to influence the target customers. Personal selling is a highly distinctive method of promotion, and makes use of oral presentation in conversation with existing and potential customers, for the purpose of making a sale.

It is one of the oldest methods of business promotion. The contributions made by personal selling in making the promotion function more effective have earned it the distinction of being the most reliable
promotion method. Though, it is the most expensive method of promotion, yet we see an increasing number of firms making use of it, and a good number of them realise that they cannot, perhaps, live without it. Increasing competition and the growing sophistication of the buyer and his/her buying process are making personal selling more or less indispensable. Sales promotion is the only method that makes use of incentives to complete the push-pull promotional strategy of motivating the sales force, the dealer and the consumer in transacting a sale.

OBJECTIVES

On completion of this unit, you should be able to:

1. explain the nature and role of personal selling and sales promotion 
2. list different types of sales position and sales promotion schemes 
3. describe the steps involved in the selling process 
4. explain the growing importance of sales promotion in Nigeria. 
5. explain the process involved in planning sales promotions 
6. outline the need for integration among the different methods of promotion. 

MAIN CONTENT

Role of Personal Selling

Personal selling is defined as ‘Oral presentation in a conversation with or more prospective purchasers for the purpose of making sales’. Personal selling, as the name implies, is an individual selling. It, therefore, carries the distinctive advantage of flexibility in terms of tailoring the sales presentation to the needs of the buyer. Another unique advantage comes from its two-way communication and human interaction, thereby providing instant feedback. These two unique
advantages make personal selling the most result-oriented promotion method. Generally speaking, the nature of goods marketed, as well as the distribution system adopted; determine the role of personal selling in a firm. Therefore, personal selling is used extensively in the case of industrial goods, where the salesperson performs functions such as assisting the customer in designing the product specifications, product installation, product commissioning, solving technical problems through providing service after sales and helping the customer to have optimal ultilisation of the product. In the case of consumer goods, on the other hand, the role of personal selling gets usually restricted to the dealer level. The scope of the tasks performed include obtaining periodic orders, ensuring supplies, offering tips to dealers on product display and attaining desired levels of stock movement. Similarly, the role played by personal selling is more in a firm, which uses the door-to-door selling method through its sale force than in the firm, which sells through large stockists, distributors or sole-selling agents.
Notwithstanding the varying role of personal selling in the strategies
followed by different companies, the nature of the selling function requires that the following tasks be performed:

1. Sales generation 
2. Feedback and market information collection 
3. Provision of customer service covering aspects such as delivery of goods, warranty administration, timely availability of repair and spares, etc. 
4. Performance of sales support activities such as monitoring the distribution function, credit collection, improving manufacturer- dealer relations, implementing the promotional programmes, etc. 

In practice, the complexity of the selling task actually performed varies from company to company even under the above four categories.

Types of Selling Jobs

From the foregoing discussion, we understand that while sales as a function has a common purpose that is to effect sales the selling situations differ due to the interplay of various factors. These factors are nature of goods sold, type of distribution system used, nature of demand and the type of sales strategy followed by the firm. These factors require the sales force to possess different traits and abilities suitable to the selling situation with which they are associated. To underscore the differences, Robert N. McCurry in ‘The Mystique of Super-

salesmanship’ classifies individual sales positions based on the degree of creativity required into seven categories. These seven categories are described below.

Merchandise Deliveries

This is the sales person, whose primary job is to deliver the product usually against routine orders, popularly called sales and delivery boys.

Inside Order-taker

Working inside a store the primary job of such a salesperson is to service the customer’s request or suggest appropriate products to meet customer wants. Such type of salespersons are popularly called retail salesman

Outside Order-Taker

The salespersons engaged in the task of taking orders from the resellers. They normally do not use the hard selling approach for making orders.

Missionary Salesperson

The salesperson whose primary job is to educate, give product detailing, build goodwill or create primary demand for the product. Strictly speaking, missionary salespersons are not permitted to take orders.

Sales Engineer

The salesperson, who acts as a technical consultant to the client and as per the need, helps to design products or production system for a client. This type of salesperson is popularly called Technical Salesperson, e.g. Computer salesman.

Tangible Product Seller

The salesperson’ job is to sell tangible products such as furniture, appliances, automobiles, etc. The job involves abilities to persuade and convince the customer.

Intangible Products Seller

Here the salesperson is associated with selling intangible products or services such as advertising services, insurance, education, etc., the common factor being difficultly in immediate demonstration of the perceived benefits of the product. This selling job requires perhaps the greatest degree of creativity in the salesperson.

Defining the Salesperson’s Job

The foregoing classification of the sales position into seven categories, on the basis of degree of creativity required in the performance of each job is only general in nature. Depending upon the organisational need, each company should clearly define what it expects from a salesperson in terms of the tasks to be performed by him. It should broadly specify how much of the salesperson’s time should be spent on developing new accounts versus servicing existing accounts, large accounts versus small accounts, bulk order versus small orders, selling individual products versus selling products line, selling old products versus selling new products, etc. Lack of clear definition regarding the selling tasks to be performed often results in disproportionate spending of time between the tasks, as well as in imbalances in the goals achieved. To avoid this type of loss in productivity of the sales force, it is worth repeating that the job of a salesperson should be defined with sufficient specificity, so that he/she can use it as a guideline to stay in the right direction.

The Selling Process

Up to this point, we have been discussing the role of personal selling and the degree of creativity required in a salesperson to perform the task satisfactorily.

Now we will take a look at the selling process followed for completing a sale. Though the steps in the selling process discussed below will be applicable to most of the selling situation, what will differ will be the degree of importance given to each steps of the process under different selling situations. The basic step in the selling process is given in Figure

1.  A salesperson must become accomplished at performing the selling steps. 

These steps are:

1. Preparation 
2.  Prospecting 
3. Pre-approach 
4. Approach 
5. Sales representation 
6. Handing objections 
7. Closing the sale 
8.  Post-sale follow-up. 

Sales Promotion

Of all the methods of promotion that constitute the promotion mix, sales promotion is the only method that makes use of incentives to complete the ‘push-pull promotional strategy of motivating the sales force, the dealer and consumer in transacting a sale.
There is no single universally accepted definition of sales promotion.
One can, however, gather its essence by perusing a few definitions. Let us look at some of the popular definitions of sales promotion: According to the American Marketing Association, sales promotion refers to: ‘those activities other than personal selling, advertising and publicity,
that stimulate consumer purchasing and dealer effectiveness, such as display shows and exhibitions, demonstrations, and various other non- recurrent selling efforts not in ordinary routine.’
This definition suggests that sales promotion is a catch-all for all those promotion activities which do not fall clearly into advertising, personal selling or publicity.

Roger A. Strang offers a simple definition

‘Sales Promotion is short term incentives to encourage purchase or sale of product units or service.’
Yet another definition that seems fairly exhaustive, and hence, will be used in this unit is the one given by Stanley M. Ulanoff in his Handbook of Sales Promotion. Stanley defines sales promotion as: ‘all the marketing and promotion activities, other than advertising, personal selling, and publicity, that motivate and encourage the consumer to purchase by means of such inducements as premiums, advertising specialties, samples, cents-off coupons, sweepstakes, contests, games, trading stamps, refunds, rebates, exhibits, displays, and demonstrations. It is employed as well, to motivate retailers’,

wholesalers the manufacturer’s sales forces to sell through the use of such incentives as awards or prizes (merchandise, cash and travel), direct payments and allowances, cooperative advertising, and trade shows’. It offers a direct inducement to act by providing extra worth over and above what is built into the product as its normal price. These temporary
inducements are offered usually at a time and place the buying decision is made. Summing up, sales promotion deals with promotion of sales by the offer of incentives which are essentially non-recurring in nature. It is also known by the names of Extra-Purchase-Value (EPV) and Below-the- line-selling.

Like in other market economies, the use of sales promotion is catching on in Nigeria in terms of volume. The number of sales promotion schemes offered to the consumers alone has grown by over seven times in the first three years of the eighties as against the average in the seventies. The schemes offered at the dealer level also nearly doubled during the period 1978-79 and 1982-83. In terms of the expenditure incurred, the large size companies are stated to be spending between 40 and 50 per cent of their advertising and sales promotion budget on this activity.

In terms of product groups, the major users of sales promotion are: tea, coffee, and beverages, soaps, detergents and washing soaps, toothpaste, textiles, food products and baby foods, household remedies, and consumer durables like fans, refrigerators, sound systems, television and other household appliances. Among the various types of sales promotion schemes used, contests at the consumer, dealer and sales force levels have made a significant headway.

Why Rapid Growth?

A perusal of the list of the product groups which emerged as the major users of sales promotion, and form the market feel, it seems clear that a transformation from the seller’s to the buyer’s market is taking place and marketing has become more competitive in these product markets. In addition to increasing competition, other reasons for rapid growth of sales promotion in Nigeria as pointed out by some large sized cooperating companies in surveys are summarised below:

1. sales promotion makes an immediate effect on sales. 
2. measurement of the effectiveness of sales promotion is easier as against other promotional methods. 
3. channels of distribution are emerging as powerful entities and demand greater use of incentives to get desired results. 
4. products are becoming standardised and similar, and so need increased support of non-price factors of which sales promotion is an important one. 
5. impulse buying is on the increase, and so is the rise in the number of marginal customers. With virtually no brand loyalty, offer of attractive schemes helps manufacturers to induce such customers to choose their product. 

Sales Promotion Objectives

As a powerful method of sales promotion with a capability to complement and supplement the advertising function of marketing, sales promotion helps marketers realise a variety of objectives. These objectives could relate to the promotion of sales in general, or to a specific activity at a particular level, i.e. the consumer, dealer or sales force. Some of the commonly attempted objectives are to:

1.  increase sales (in general, and focusing on new uses, increased usage, upgrading unit of purchase, winning sales of fading brands, etc.) 

1. make the sale of slow-moving products faster 
2. stabilise a fluctuating sales pattern 
3. identify and attract new customers 
4. launch a new product quickly 
5. educate customers regarding product improvements 
6.  reduce the perception of risk associated with the purchase of a product 
7. motivate dealers to stock and sell more (including complete product lines) 
8. attract dealers to participate in manufacturer’s dealer display and sales contest 
9. obtain more and better shelf space and displays 
10.  bring more customers to dealer stores 
11. make goods move faster through dealers 
12. improve manufacturer-dealer relationship 
13. motivate sales forces to take the achievement higher than targets 
14.  attract sales force to give desired emphasis on new accounts, latent accounts, new products, and difficult territories 
15. reward sales forces for active market surveillance and for rendering superior customer services 
16. put power into the sales-presentation 
17. counter competitors sales-promotion and marketing efforts 
18. provide punch to the company’s advertising efforts 
19. Build goodwill. 

Companies may use any one or a combination of the above objectives in
varying forms to suit the product-market needs of their product. What is of significance is that the sales promotion and marketing objectives are pursued by the company.

Sales Promotion Methods

Many methods of sales promotion are used by marketers. Depending upon the creativity level of their sponsors, their variety seems very large. We refer here to some of the most commonly used methods of sales promotion. As noted above, the accomplishments of the desired promotion and marketing objectives ultimately depend on the extent of the desired response received from consumers, dealers and members of the sales force. Hence various sales promotion methods are built around these three target groups. Further, in terms of the impact desired, the variety of sales promotion schemes offered are grouped into two categories: one, aimed at producing immediate impact, and the other delayed impact i.e. carrying on the impact over a period. Immediate impact schemes are those schemes where the consumer, dealer or salesperson gets the

incentive on first contact, purchase or on performing a one-time act. On the other hand, under the delayed impact schemes, the consumer, dealer or sales force is called upon to comply with the scheme over a period of time before receiving the full benefit of the scheme. Price discounts, free samples of large quantity packs are the popular examples of immediate

impact schemes, whereas coupons, trading stamps, and contests are example of delayed impact category of sales promotion schemes. .

Towards a Promotional Strategy

After gaining an understanding of the concepts, issues and decision areas relating to four methods of promotion – advertising, publicity, personal selling and sales promotion, let us recall the need for
determining the promotion mix (discussed earlier and make few observations concerning the formulation of a promotional strategy. You would recall that promotion constitutes one of the important elements of the marketing mix of a firm. Each firm has a need to perform its promotion (marketing communication) function effectively. Further, each of the four promotion methods has its own unique place in the marketing communications mix of a firm. The question facing marketers, therefore, is not which promotion method to use to meet


today’s complex marketing tasks. Rather, the real question is which promotion method should be emphasised, how intensively it should be used, and how it can be integrated with the other promotional methods. Decisions on determination of the promotion mix take us back to the promotion objectives which must emanate from marketing objectives of the firm. A promotional strategy aims at accomplishing the promotion objectives in the allocated funds and within a scheduled period of time.

Promotional objectives, generally speaking, relate to sales and the marketing communication tasks required to be performed as per the needs of the product market scenario. Expressed in specific measurable terms, these can be put as: increasing sales, improving market share, creating product awareness and comprehension, developing a positive attitude of the public towards the product, building a favourable image of the product, or gaining competitive advantage.


In this contest, Leonard M. Lodish suggests ‘vaguely right’ criteria, the relevant part of which is as follows: Promotion Decision Area Vaguely Right Criteria for Evaluation Advertising Budget Changes in buyer behaviour – long-term or short-term – and its resulting profitability. Media Planning Promotion Changes in buyer behaviour per dollar, Management changes in buyer behaviour and resulting long and short-term profits.

Trade Promotion Changes in buyer behaviour of the ultimate Management Consumer consumer, sales and profit changes (both short Coupons and long-term) caused by the coupons. The extent of emphasis to be placed on the different promotion methods is determined by several variables. First, it is dependent on the

promotional objectives, and next, on the characteristics of the target public, their psychology, and the allocated funds. For example, a marketer of consumer durables in a metropolitan city like Lagos may use different means like advertising to create awareness and build comprehension. It would also require publicity which could be through press release on the contest technology backing his product. Sales promotion through demonstration, P.O.P. and offer of introductory price to encourage intentions would also be used and, definitely, personal selling to overcome objections, offer conviction and precipitate purchase action would complete the promotion picture.


Further, as revealed by Kenouth G. Nardy, for achieving the objectives of, for example, loading the consumer with larger supplies, it can see that it is required that all the methods of promotion be approached simultaneously in terms of objectives to be achieved. Attaining synergistic advantage arising out of the use of different promotional methods is the hallmark of an effective promotional strategy.

CONCLUSION

Promotion is an important marketing function of each firm. And rare will be a firm which makes use of only one promotional method. The commonality in the ultimate goal of all the promotional methods apart, their limited suitability in influencing only a specific part of the consumer adoption process calls for the need to use the promotional mix in an integrative manner. Given the complexities in the management of the promotion function and its vulnerability to failure, it is desired that the function be managed professionally. In this unit, we discussed the nature, role, types and the planning process involved in the personal selling and sales promotion methods as promotional tools.