978-1259573200 Chapter 5 Lecture Note

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CHAPTER 5

ADAPTIVE SELLING FOR

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

Outline of Chapter

I. Types of Presentations

A. Standard Memorized Presentation

B. Outlined Presentation

C. Customized Presentation

II. Adaptive Selling and Sales Success

III. Adaptive Selling: The Importance of Knowledge

A. Product and Company Knowledge

B. Knowledge About Sales Situations and Customers

C. How to Create Knowledge

D. Retrieving Knowledge From the Knowledge Management System

IV. The Social Style Matrix: A Training Program for Building Adaptive Selling Skills

A. Dimensions of Social Styles

1. Assertiveness

2. Responsiveness

B. Categories of Social Styles

1. Drivers

2. Expressives

3. Amiables

4. Analyticals

C. Identifying Customer’s Social Styles

D. Social Styles and Sales Presentations

E. Versatility

F. Recap: The Role of Knowledge

V. Systems for Developing Adaptive Selling Skills

VI. Selling Yourself

VII. Summary

Teaching Suggestions

An alternative would be to use the PowerPoint slides provided with the text.

1. Begin the discussion on adaptive selling by talking about how important it is. Remind

students that personal selling is the most expensive form of communicating with

customers, yet firms use it anyway. Ask your students why firms use this expensive

communication vehicle? They should come to the conclusion that personal selling is more

effective, so you might continue this line of thought by asking why they think personal

selling is more effective than other communication vehicles? Review the different types of

sales presentations and note that the flexibility increases as you move from a standard

memorized presentation, through an outlined presentation, and then to a customized

presentation. Personal selling is unique in that salespeople can customize a presentation

for each customer and make adjustments quickly.

2. Emphasize the superiority of the customized presentation at every step of the sales

process. Customers know or can sense when they are listening to a canned presentation

and the salesperson loses both credibility and the ability to make adjustments. You may

want to ask your students why they think a customized presentation builds credibility and

how having greater credibility affects the other steps in the process.

3. Next, relate the concept of adaptive selling back to the buying behavior discussion in

Chapter 3. Talk about the different types of strategies that a salesperson can use to

influence a customer’s evaluation. Ask students if salespeople should select one of these

strategies and use it on all customers. Assuming that they decide that salespeople

shouldn’t, ask them when each of these strategies should be used? The use of a strategy

depends upon the importance weights and beliefs that a customer has. Salespeople need to

adapt their strategy to reflect the customer’s importance weights and beliefs.

4. The previous discussion is a good lead-in to a discussion of the relationship between

knowledge and adaptive selling. After all, a salesperson needs very detailed and specific

knowledge about their product and their competitor’s products, in addition to knowing

how much weight their customers assign to various attributes in order to use the strategies

outlined here. Emphasize that knowledge about customers and the selling situation are

keys to effective adaptation. Salespeople with more knowledge are able to adapt to a

wider range of situations. There are several approaches a salesperson can use to develop a

knowledge base. Also, talk about ways to retrieve knowledge form their knowledge base.

5. The social style matrix demonstrates one form of knowledge. The categories are: Driver,

Expressive, Amiable, and Analytical. Next, talk about the cues for recognizing which

social style to associate with the customer. Having associated a customer with a social

style, what then should you do? As a seller, you should adjust your own social style.

You may want them to assess your own social style, using Exercise 5.1 (see below in this

6. Students should understand that they need to know their own social style before they can

effectively adjust it to match their customers’. Have students rate their own social style

the exercise). You might also have friends of the students in the class rate the students to

demonstrate how self-ratings differ from ratings by others.

7. Discuss how each social style has its strengths and weaknesses. We know that one style is

not best in all situations, but to emphasize this point you might start the discussion by

asking students to indicate which style is the best. A good follow-up question is “What

style of salesperson would you like to hire?” Again, the salesperson who is more flexible is

likely to be more successful.

8. You may want to mention alternative training systems to the social style matrix exist. Be

sure to emphasize that the social style matrix is just one of many approaches for

categorizing customers and that this approach is limited because it only considers social

style and not benefits sought by customers. The other customer classification systems use

different dimensions to categorize their customers but work similarly, with the same

limitation. Finally mention expert systems as alternatives to customer classification

systems.

Suggested Answers to Ethics Problems

1. Your boss tells you about one of your buyers, Erica: “Just talk about Cubs baseball,

because she’s a fanatic about the Cubs! If you do, she’ll like you and buy just about

anything. Even more than she needs because she hates to say no to someone who likes

the Cubs!” What will you do in that situation?

If using information about social styles or personal interests is

intended to trick or deceive buyers, then their use would be unethical.

2.You have a buyer, a driver, who is a real challenge. It seems as though she is always

playing games with salespeople. For example, today she said she wouldn’t answer

questions about her needs or what she was currently buying from your leading

competitor. She said, “You need to find some other way to discover what business your

competitors are getting here.” Then with a sly turn of her head, she added, “I think

you’re going to have to engage in some espionage, here as well as at your competitor’s

warehouse. Are you a good spy?” What will you do in this situation?

Try your best not to let her style affect you personally. She probably works with all people

in the same manner. Without being a bully yourself, try to find ways to interact with her

Suggested Answers to Questions and Problems

1. A salesperson stated, “I just can’t stand to deal with buyers who smile, ask about my

family, and refuse to tell me why they can’t buy from me that day.” Based on this limited

amount of information, what social style would you guess the salesperson to be? What

would be your response to this salesperson?

The salesperson sounds like a driver. What the salesperson is really saying is that s/he

2. While many salespeople have adopted technology tools to aid them in selling, some have

refused. What would be your response to a salesperson who says the following: “Look, I

put a lot of information on my computer a few years ago, including all of my contacts,

and notes about calls. Then my computer crashed and I lost everything! I’m not going to

waste my time like that again!”

These kinds of things do happen in life. It’s a fact. But life goes on, and the computer

3. A salesperson made the following comment: “It’s such a waste of time to read all of my

company’s internal blog posts and the white papers my company sends me about the

industry I am selling to. Who has time to read all of that stuff?” Based on what you

learned in this chapter about knowledge systems, what would be your response to this

salesperson?

Successful salespeople add to their knowledge base by reading far and wide. It’s not a

waste of time if you discover something that will help you better meet a client’s needs or

4. “A good salesperson can easily adapt to any customer type. That’s why we hire them,

right?” Do you agree? Why or why not?

A key success factor in personal selling is the ability to use different sales approaches in

different situations and the ability to alter the sales approach based on a reassessment

5. In general, would a salesperson with an expressive social style be better at selling than a

person with a driver or an analytical style? Why?

No style is better than any other style. Effective selling involves adjusting your style to the

6. Some people object to the social style matrix training system because they don’t want to

“act”. They just want to be themselves, and not “put on a show.” What would you say to

them?

We adapt to the situation we find ourselves in all walks of life. Students act differently at

7. What social styles would you assign to the following people?

a. Conan O’Brien.

When one author asked his students, they gave the answer of Driver, although students

b. Your favorite instructor in high school.

c. One of your parents.

d. Kim Kardashian.

8. The salesperson in Building Partnerships 5.1 used encounters with C-level executives at

an industry meeting to help secure the attention of lower-level buyers and influencers in

the firm. Can you think of at least one other way that a salesperson might use a C-level

executive to influence decisions made by buyers and influencers lower in the firm?

9. Suppose that during a sales call on an electronics reseller, the buyer says, “I don’t think

iPhones are going to continue to be a best-selling item in the future!” How should you

respond if this customer is an amiable? An expressive?

For an amiable, you could help them see that many of his/her business associates (like

employees at the store, store assistant managers, etc.) do think that iPhones will be

for iPhone sales.

10. Market research by a company specializing in designing and installing custom counter

tops in commercial kitchens identified two types of buyers. Type I is concerned only that

the item is the absolute cutting edge in terms of style and materials. Type II is concerned

about practical elements such as functionality and long wear. How would you adapt the

selling of your custom countertops to each type?

For Type I customers, emphasize facts and figures that prove the materials and styles are

cutting edge, including survey results, industry trade publications, and consumer ratings

For Type II customers, demonstrate long wear with test results as well as actual

demonstrations to show how well the counters hold up under extreme conditions (e.g., run

Suggested Answers to Case Problems

Case 5-1: Won’t Take No for an Answer

Questions

1. Based on the limited amount of information provided, what would you guess is the social

style of the buyer? How about the social style of the seller? Please explain your

reasoning.

The fact that the buyer told the seller she had to go to a meeting would suggest she was either a

driver or expressive. But her willingness to stand there and be late for her next meeting doesn’t

2. Make a list of five “rules” you could set for yourself as a salesperson to avoid making a

buyer like this angry at you.

Here are some possible rules.

1. Listen to what the buyer is saying. If the buyer says, “let’s do this some other time” do it later.

2. Watch nonverbal cues. If the buyer is giving cues that suggest a later meeting, follow those

cues.

This is a real situation, and here’s a note from the buyer:

This salesperson works in a very competitive business. Many groups offer the same

services, but I am usually interested in meeting with the different vendors to see if they

have any unique feature we have not already evaluated. What did I do in this case? Instead

Case 5-2: Zimmer

Questions

1. What is the social style of each surgeon? Discuss facts that helped you determine that

assessment.

2. How should Alexa adapt to each surgeon?

Doctor Social style and cues How to adapt (Note that the case says the

seller is an expressive)

Dr. Avilia Driver

Awards on the wall

time, he tells you to

leave

Be less expressive.

Become businesslike

Make decisions based on fact, not

emotion

Dr. Mokri Expressive

Competitive

Be like yourself, since you are both expressive.

Dr. Rodriguez Analytical

Wants tons of

information before

affection

Oblivious of power

Be less responsive, and less assertive.

Become businesslike, and talk less

Restrain enthusiasm

Be more deliberate, don’t rush

Let the customer direct the flow of the

End of Chapter Role Play

When you debrief this role play, ask the students how many got it right, and ask if they got all the clues.

Then identify the cues that buyers used. Discuss how difficult it can be, especially in a neutral setting

without the availability of office décor or other surroundings to help identify the person’s style. See

teaching notes for additional information on how to discuss barriers to identifying someone’s social style.

EXERCISE 5-1 WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSOR’S PERSONALITY STYLE?

Visit with a classmate or a professor and determine that person’s social style: Amiable, Driver, Analytical,

or Expressive. Do not ask any questions that will help you determine the social style. Instead determine

style on the basis of what you observe.

NOTE: WRITE YOUR OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSION BELOW BEFORE YOU DISCUSS YOUR

OPINION WITH YOUR PARTNER. Be sure you justify your decision. Then compare your notes with your

partners. Any differences? Why?

EXERCISE 5-2 A PERSONALITY ROLE PLAY

Gather two members of the class together with you. Take turns, with one person as seller, one as a buyer,

and one as an observer. When you are the buyer, write down the personality style you are trying to be (try

something different than what you think is your own style). Then have the seller try to talk you into joining

a campus organization, eating somewhere, or something else like that. After a few minutes, stop and ask the

observer and seller to guess the personality style. What clues did they observe?

EXERCISE 5-3 SELF-ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL STYLES

Use the questionnaire and chart on the next page to assess your social style. Total your score on

assertiveness and divide by 15. Then total your score on responsiveness and divide by 15. Plot the two

average scores on the chart.

Assertiveness Ratings

I perceive myself as:

Responsiveness Ratings

I perceive myself as:

1 2 3 4

4 3 2 1

Slow to Decide Fast to Decide

1 2 3 4

Impulsive Deliberate

4 3 2 1

Going along Taking charge

1 2 3 4

Using opinions Using facts

4 3 2 1

Supportive Challenging

1 2 3 4

Informal Formal

4 3 2 1

Compliant Dominant

1 2 3 4

Emotional Unemotional

4 3 2 1

Deliberate Fast to Decide

1 2 3 4

Easy to know Hard to know

4 3 2 1

Asking questions Making statements

1 2 3 4

Warm Cool

4 3 2 1

Cooperative Competitive

1 2 3 4

Excitable Calm

4 3 2 1

Avoiding risks Taking risks

1 2 3 4

Animated Poker-faced

4 3 2 1

Slow, studied Fast-paced

1 2 3 4

People-oriented Task-oriented

4 3 2 1

Cautious Carefree

1 2 3 4

Spontaneous Cautious

4 3 2 1

Indulgent Firm

1 2 3 4

Responsive Nonresponsive

4 3 2 1

Nonassertive Assertive

1 2 3 4

Humorous Serious

4 3 2 1

Mellow Matter-of-fact

1 2 3 4

Impulsive Methodical

4 3 2 1

Reserved Outgoing

1 2 3 4

Lighthearted Intense

4 3 2 1

ANALYTICAL

DRIVER

1 2 3 4

AMIABLE EXPRESSIVE

High

5-11

ASSERTIVENESS