Sales Planning And Operations

Sales Planning and Operations

Assignment No. 1

Adam Kozerski

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Part 1.

1. The aim of the report.

The aim of this report is to describe and discuss the principles of personal selling. The report discusses the stages in the personal selling process, and presents how the buyer behaviour influences personal selling within the chosen organisation.

2. Background information.

Select Appointments is a recruitment agency established in 1980 and operating throughout the UK and Ireland. The company is recognised as a leading national staffing company, and in 2007 it was awarded as one of the UK’s Top 100 Best Companies to Work for in the prestigious Sunday Times awards (www.select.co.uk).

In the UK, recruitment services are defined by the Employment Agencies Act 1973. Employment Agencies provide employers with candidates, which they can employ for a fixed, pre-defined fee (www.berr.gov.uk).

3. Introduction to personal selling.

"Personal selling вЂ"-Selling that involves a face-to-face interaction with the customer" (www.marketingpower.com)

"Personal sellingвЂ"Personal presentation by the firm’s sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer relationships" (Kotler et. al. 2004)

"Personal Selling вЂ"An element of the promotional mix, where a supplier uses a trained representative to influence customers and increase sales." (Adcock et. al. 2001)

Fill (2006) points out that traditional image of personal selling which involves salesperson using a volley of insistent, persuasive messages to a confused consumer in order to push the sale to the end is changing and in nowadays the role of personal selling becomes even more important in the promotion mix. Kotler et al. (2004) underlines that in many cases the organisations do not look at the customer as a one off sale, nowadays the major customers have to be won and retained. The company try to show to customers that it has the capacity to serve them over the long period of time and that this relationship is going to be profitable to the both sides. Salesperson role therefore has grown to build and maintain of the long-term customer relationship (Kotler et al. 2004). Fill 2006 indicates that the personal selling is the most expensive element of the promotional mix. Dibb et al. (2006) suggests that the main personal selling goals will usually involve finding prospects, persuading prospects to buy and keeping customers satisfied. Similarly Fill (2006) indentifies that the main tasks of personal selling which involve:

• Prospecting - Finding new customers to which the organisation product or service can be sold.

• Communicating - Informing various stakeholders about the company and its products, and gathering feedback from the market.

• Selling Ð'¬- The process of successfully closing the prospect.

• Information gathering - Preparing reports about the market within which the organisation operates, reporting of the competition movements.

• Servicing - Consulting, arranging, counselling, fixing and solving a multitude of customer issues and problems.

• Allocating - In periods of shortages, finding scarce products and resources, suggesting alternatives.

• Shaping - Building and substring relationships with customers and other stakeholders.

The American Marketing Association (www.marketingpower.com) indicates that personal selling is used to meet the objectives of promotion by building product awareness which is a basic task of salespeople, especially when selling in business markets, the role of salesperson is to educate customers on new product offerings. The other objective is to create interest; the fact that personal selling involves person-to-person communication makes it a natural method for getting customers to experience a product for the first time. This objective goes in pair with building product awareness as sales professionals can often accomplish both objectives during the first encounter with a potential customer. Through the personal selling customers are can receive information from best informed source; when salespeople engage customers a large part of the conversation focuses on product information. Marketing organizations provide their sales staff with large amounts of sales support including brochures, research reports, computer programs and many other forms of informational material. Personal selling stimulates demand. Sales professional role is to convince customers to make a purchase. Finally personal selling is used to reinforce the brand. Most personal selling is intended to build long-term relationships with customers. A strong relationship can only be built over time and requires regular communication with a customer. Meeting with customers on a regular basis allows salespeople to repeatedly discuss their company’s products and by doing so helps strengthen customers’ knowledge of what the company has to offer [www.marketingpower.com].

4. Discussion of the principles of personal selling in chosen organisation.

Select Appointments as the recruitment agency operates in very competitive environment where aim of the sales is not only to provide a temporary or permanent member of staff but to build a positive relationship with customer to ensure that the service is going to be used in the future. One of the important goals of this kind of organisations is to win contracts with large organisations such as hospitals or city councils which will guarantee that the chosen agency will provide staff for longer periods of time. To achieve these goals the organisation has to be aware of the principles of the selling process and use them in every sale attempt. One of the major tasks of the agency will be to research the market and try to find potential customers, prospecting is an important task because without good recognition of the market the business can miss important opportunities. The potential market has to be informed about the organisation. The agency will use various channels to inform customers that their services