TABLE OF CONTENTS An obvious function of selling is to make a sale and this remains true despite recent additions of many ancillary functions. Much background work of selling can be done remotely, for instance, by e-mail, but personal selling is a specific task involving face-to-face contact on a personal basis. This means suitably skilled and trained professionals should carry out this function. Selling tasks differ, depending on the type of goods and services. Some salespeople are simply order-takers, whilst others employ more sophisticated arts of prospecting, negotiating and demonstrating to close a sale.
Personal selling is the primary communication vehicle in organisational marketing, but in industrial marketing in particular (buying situations were discussed in Chapter 4) and here sometimes over 80% of total marketing costs relate to sales force costs. Personal selling is less important in most retail situations, especially in FMCG markets like grocery products. Selling to end-users increasingly uses non-personal forms of communication like packaging, advertising, merchandising and sales promotion discussed in Chapter 10. Communications mix elements are not normally used in isolation; they complement each other.
Everyone lives by selling something as each time we engage in conversation, we are exchanging views and ideas. In a sense, when we attempt to persuade others to accept our viewpoint, we are attempting to sell our ideas. Without selling as a commercial activity, many transactions would simply not take place. Personal selling plays a vital role in the exchange process in any advanced economy.
