Chapter 16
PERSONAL SELLING AND SALES PROMOTION
MARKETING STARTER: CHAPTER 16
SALESFORCE: You Need a Great Sales Force to Sell Salesforce
Synopsis
Salesforce is the leader in customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, a $20 billion market. It is a leading
innovator in finding ways to help client companies connect with customers to achieve greater sales force
effectiveness. It supplies numerous tools that gather, organize, analyze, and disseminate in-depth data about a
company’s customers, sales, and individual sales rep and overall sales force performance. Salesforce’s revenues
have reached $6.2 billion, up 24 percent over the previous year. To succeed, the company practices effective
personal selling, just what it is selling to its clients. Its sales force models the products and services its sells and
achieves the sales force results that the company promises its clients. It starts by recruiting and hiring top-notch sales
people. Training is also top-of-the-line and uses all the latest tools. But even so, nothing beats good personal selling
skills. At Salesforce—or anywhere else— good selling starts with the fundamentals of engaging and listening to
customers, understanding and empathizing with their problems, and building relationships by offering meaningful
solutions for mutual gain. That’s how you build an incredibly successful sales force and Salesforce.
Discussion Objective
A focused 10-minute discussion of Salesforce’s own focus on customer relationship management and sales force
training will give students a clearer understanding of modern, customer-centered sales. The discussion should also
extinguish any lingering, stereotypical perceptions of salespeople as pushy glad-handers. Salesforce’s salespeople
are well-educated, well-trained professionals who succeed by partnering with corporate customers and solving their
problems for mutual gain.
Starting the Discussion
After a brief discussion about what Salesforce offers, visit https://www.salesforce.com. Review the tabs at the top of
the page, especially “Customers,” “Products,” and “Solutions.” Doing so may significantly boost the number of
students interested in learning more about sales careers with organizations such as Salesforce, or even its clients.
Move along quickly guided by the following questions.
Discussion Questions
1. Why does Salesforce focus on partnering with its customers rather than simply selling its products to them?
(Salesforce understands that if its customers don’t do well, neither will the company. Therefore, to grow its
own business, Salesforce must first grow the business of its clients by helping improve the performance of
their sales forces.)
2. Describe Salesforce’s corporate culture and how it supports a successful customer-focused sales force.
(Salesforce’s salespeople have always been customer relationship developers and solutions providers. If the
company doesn’t use its own techniques and solutions in its own business, it will not be able to sell them to
its clients.)
3. How does the Salesforce story relate to the concepts in Chapter 16 on personal selling? (When it comes to
almost any aspect of managing a sales force, Salesforce sets a high standard. It’s a great example of the role
sales forces play in creating and managing customer relationships. Keep the Salesforce example in mind as
you discuss various aspects of designing and managing a sales force.)
Copyright© 2018 Pearson Education
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Use Power Point Slide 16-1 here
This chapter concentrates on two more IMC elements—personal selling and sales promotion.
Personal selling is the interpersonal arm of marketing communications, in which the sales force
interacts with customers and prospects to build relationships and make sales.
Sales promotion consists of short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product
or service.
Although this chapter examines personal selling and sales promotion as separate tools, they must
be carefully integrated with other elements of the promotion mix.
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
Use Power Point Slide 16-2 here
1. Discuss the role of a company’s salespeople in creating value for customers and building
customer relationships.
2. Identify and explain the six major sales force management steps.
3. Discuss the personal selling process, distinguishing between transaction-oriented
marketing and relationship marketing.
4. Explain how sales promotion campaigns are developed and implemented.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
p. 454 INTRODUCTION
Salesforce is the leader in providing customer relationship
management solutions, ahead of more familiar names, such
as Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM. Since it is in the business
of selling solutions regarding sales force performance, it
must lead by example, and it does so with stunning
success. Salesforce leads in developing innovative products
and platforms. Yet, it focuses even more strongly on the
personal selling aspect in training its own sales force.
Nothing beats good selling skills.
Its gold standard sales force helps make the company so
successful. Salesforce focuses on ensuring that its own
sales forces are trained, not only on the products, and the
clients’ needs but in the absolute best ways of being great
salespeople.
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Ad: Salesforce
Copyright© 2018 Pearson Education
Opening Vignette Questions
1. What does Salesforce look for in its salespeople?
2. What tools does it provide them to ensure they
succeed?
3. In addition to the customer focus and the strong
sales skills, what does Salesforce offer its clients?
What are these products and services valuable?
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PPT 16-3
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PPT 16-4
Discuss the role of a company’s salespeople in creating
value for customers and building customer
relationships.
PERSONAL SELLING
Robert Louis Stevenson once noted, “everyone lives by
selling something.”
The Nature of Personal Selling
Personal selling is one of the oldest professions in the
world.
The people who do the selling go by many names:
salespeople, sales representatives, district managers,
account executives, sales consultants, sales engineers,
agents, and account development reps to name just a few.
The term salesperson covers a wide range of positions.
At one extreme, a salesperson might be an order taker,
such as the department store salesperson standing behind
the counter.
At the other extreme are order getters, whose positions
demand creative selling and relationship building for
products and services ranging from appliances to industrial
equipment.
The Role of the Sales Force
Personal selling is the interpersonal arm of the promotion
mix.
The role of personal selling varies from company to
company.
Some firms have no salespeople at all—for example,
companies that sell only online or through catalogs, or
Learning Objective
1
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Key Term: Personal
Selling
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Photo: GE
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Key Term:
Salesperson
Copyright© 2018 Pearson Education
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companies that sell through manufacturer’s reps, sales
agents, or brokers. In most firms, however, the sales force
plays a major role.
Linking the Company with Its Customers
The sales force serves as a critical link between a company
and its customers.
They represent the company to customers.
They represent customers to the company.
Coordinating Marketing and Sales
A company can take several actions to help bring its
marketing and sales functions closer together.
It can increase communications between the two
groups by arranging joint meetings and by spelling
out when and with whom each group should
communicate.
The company can create joint assignments.
The company can create joint objectives and
reward systems for sales and marketing.
They can appoint marketing-sales liaisons—people
from marketing who “live with the sales force” and
help to coordinate marketing and sales force
programs and efforts.
The firm can appoint a high-level marketing
executive who oversees both marketing and sales.
Review Learning Objective 1: Discuss the role of a
company’s salespeople in creating value for customers and
building customer relationships.
p. 458
Photo: Salesperson
links to customer
Assignments, Resources
Use Discussion Question 16-1 here
Use Additional Project 1 here
Use Individual Assignment 1 here
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PPT 16-6
p. 458PPT
16-7
Identify and explain the six major sales force
management steps.
MANAGING THE SALES FORCE
Sales force management is defined as the analysis,
planning, implementation, and controlling of sales force
activities. (Figure 16.1)
Learning Objective
2
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Key Term: Sales
Copyright© 2018 Pearson Education
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Designing the Sales Force Strategy and Structure
The Sales Force Structure
A company can divide sales responsibilities along any of
several lines.
Territorial sales force structure: Each salesperson is
assigned to an exclusive geographic area and sells the
company’s full line of products or services to all customers
in that territory.
Characteristics:
The organization defines each salesperson’s job
and fixes accountability.
The organization increases the salesperson’s desire
to build local customer relationships.
Because each salesperson travels within a limited
geographic area, travel expenses are relatively
small.
Product sales force structure: The sales force sells along
product lines.
This structure can lead to problems if a single large
customer buys many different company products.
Customer (or market) sales force structure: The sales
force is organized along customer or industry lines.
Separate sales forces may be set up for different industries,
for serving current customers versus finding new ones, and
for major accounts versus regular accounts.
Complex sales force structure: A company often
combines several types of sales force structures when it
sells a wide variety of products to many types of customers
over a broad geographic area.
Sales Force Size
Sales forces may range in size from only a few salespeople
to tens of thousands. Salespeople are one of the company’s
force management
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Figure 16.1: Major
Steps in Sales Force
Management
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Key Terms:
Territorial sales
force structure,
Product sales force
structure, Customer
(or market) sales
force structure
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Photo:
P&G/Walmart
Copyright© 2018 Pearson Education
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most productive and expensive assets. Therefore, increases
in the size of the sales force can increase sales as well as
costs.
Workload approach: A company first groups accounts into
different classes according to size, account status, or other
factors related to the amount of effort required to maintain
them. It then determines the number of salespeople needed
to call on each class of accounts the desired number of
times.
Other Sales Force Strategy and Structure Issues
Outside and Inside Sales Forces
Outside salespeople travel to call on customers in the
field.
Inside salespeople conduct business from their offices via
telephone, the Internet, or visits from buyers.
Technical sales support people provide technical
information and answers to customers’ questions.
Sales assistants provide administrative backup for
outside salespeople.
Telemarketers and online sellers use the phone and
Internet to find new leads and qualify prospects or
to sell and service accounts directly.
Most companies now use team selling to service large,
complex accounts. Sales teams can unearth problems,
solutions, and sales opportunities that no individual
salesperson could.
Such teams might include experts from any area or level of
the selling firm—sales, marketing, technical and support
services, R&D, engineering, operations, finance, and
others. Shortcomings of team selling:
1. Salespeople who are used to having customers all
to themselves may have trouble learning to work
with and trust others on a team.
2. Selling teams can confuse or overwhelm customers
who are used to working with only one
salesperson.
3. Difficulties in evaluating individual contributions
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Key Terms: Outside
sales force (field
sales force), Inside
sales force
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Photo: Outside an
inside sales
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Key Term: Team
selling
Copyright© 2018 Pearson Education
to the team selling effort can create some sticky
compensation issues.
Assignments, Resources
Use Marketing by the Numbers here
Use Additional Project 2 here
Use Think-Pair-Share 1 here
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Recruiting and Selecting Salespeople
In a typical sales force, the top 30 percent of the
salespeople might bring in 60 percent of the sales.
The best salespeople possess four key talents:
1. Intrinsic motivation
2. Disciplined work style
3. The ability to close a sale
4. The ability to build relationships with customers
When recruiting, companies should analyze the sales job
itself and the characteristics of its most successful
salespeople to identify the traits needed by a successful
salesperson in their industry.
Sources of new potential hires:
The human resources department obtains names
from current salespeople, uses employment
agencies, places classified ads, searches the internet
and social media, and works through college
placement services.
Another source is to attract top salespeople from
other companies as these will need less training and
can be productive more quickly.
Training Salespeople
Training programs have several goals.
1. The training program must teach them about
different types of customers and their needs, buying
motives, and buying habits.
2. It must teach them how to sell effectively and train
them in the basics of the selling process.
3. The training program must teach them about the
company’s objectives, organization, and chief
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Photo: Great
Salespeople
Copyright© 2018 Pearson Education
products and markets, and about the strategies of
major competitors.
Many companies are adding e-learning to their sales
training programs.
Most e-learning is internet-based but many companies now
offer on-demand training via mobile devices.
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Photo: E-training
Assignments, Resources
Use Critical Thinking Exercise 16-6 here
Use Individual Assignment 2 here
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Compensating Salespeople
Compensation is made up of several elements—a fixed
amount, a variable amount, expenses, and fringe benefits.
Management must decide what mix of compensation
elements makes the most sense for each sales job.
The fixed amount, usually a salary, gives the salesperson
some stable income. The variable amount, which might be
commissions or bonuses based on sales performance,
rewards the salesperson for greater effort and success.
Compensation should direct salespeople toward activities
that are consistent with overall sales force and marketing
objectives.
Supervising and Motivating Salespeople
The goal of supervision is to help salespeople “work
smart” by doing the right things in the right ways.
The goal of motivation is to encourage salespeople to
“work hard” and energetically toward sales force goals.
Supervising Salespeople
Companies vary in how closely they supervise their
salespeople.
The annual call plan shows which customers and
prospects to call on and which activities to carry
out.
The time–and-duty analysis shows the time the
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Photo: Sales force
compensation
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Copyright© 2018 Pearson Education
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salesperson spends selling, traveling, waiting,
taking breaks, and doing administrative chores.
(Figure 16.2)
On average, active selling time accounts for only 37
percent of total working time!
Sales force automation systems are computerized, digitized
sales force operations that let salespeople work more
effectively anytime, anywhere.
Motivating Salespeople
Salespeople often need special encouragement to do their
best.
Organizational climate describes the feeling that
salespeople have about their opportunities, value, and
rewards for a good performance.
Sales quotas are Standards stating the amount salespeople
should sell and how sales should be divided among the
company’s products.
Compensation is often related to how well salespeople
meet their quotas.
Companies use various positive incentives to increase sales
force effort:
Sales meetings provide social occasions, breaks
from routine, chances to meet and talk with
“company brass,” and opportunities to air feelings
and to identify with a larger group.
Companies also sponsor sales contests to spur the
sales force to make a selling effort above what
would normally be expected.
Other incentives include honors, merchandise and
cash awards, trips, and profit-sharing plans.
Figure 16.2: How
Salespeople Spend
Their Time
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Key Term: Sales
quota
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