978-1259709074 Chapter 20 Part 2

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Chapter 20 – Personal Selling and Sales Management Marketing 6th

McGraw-Hill Education.

2 How should she start the meeting?

Using a real-world scenario, students should think about appropriate ways to initiate a sales presentation.

Their answers should mention the need for introductions.

Nguyen should start the meeting by introducing her team to Brad Alexander and anyone from his team

3 What are the key points she should make in her presentation?

Students must plot out an effective presentation that covers all the bases of what a salesperson wants

clients to know.

4 What reservations should she expect? How should she handle them?

In answering this final question, students must think through the possible concerns the client might pose

and suggest ways of addressing and mitigating them.

Nguyen should expect to hear reservations about the price quoted (relative to that of the competition), the

level of state-of-the-art technology, and relying too much on a single vendor.

She might handle the price reservation by focusing on the value created and the potential payback period

Additional Teaching Tips

This chapter focuses on the personal selling process, ethical and legal issues of selling, and managing

the sales force. Students are familiar with the selling process and most of the concepts relating to

customer sales; however, they are likely unfamiliar with the B2B buying process so vocabulary such as

product specification, RFP, and performance assessments should be thoroughly reviewed.

Students can often regurgitate the two selling processes in Exhibit 20.2. However, they may not have a

true understanding of what happens in each stage and how it leads to sales. Divide the class into 4 or 5

groups. Assign two groups the personal selling process with the mission to develop a script of selling a

common product (pick one, a car perhaps). Each of these two groups should have a different product to

script through the personal selling process and present the skit to the class. The class will have the task

of identifying the various stages of the personal selling process (taking notes) and the skit is discussed

after the “debut.”

Students have fun with the skit and learn more about the importance of the personal selling process.

While two groups are scripting and rehearsing the personal selling assignment, two or three other groups

Chapter 20 – Personal Selling and Sales Management Marketing 6th

McGraw-Hill Education.

are assigned a product that they will script and present using the B2B buying process. The role of the

audience is again to take notes on identifying each phase of the B2B buying process with class

discussion after the presentations.

Another key area is ethical and legal issues of personal selling. Online Tip: Have students post a legal

or ethical selling dilemma in a story problem (bait and switch, puffery, embellishment of reimbursements,

etc.). Have other students write their own and have the learning community respond to each other’s

ethical selling dilemma. The writer of the dilemma would have the task of contributing to a solution

through feedback on the discussion board once the students posts a response.

Connect Activities

Activity

Type

Learning Objectives 20–

Service Quality Dimensions

Click & Drag

The Personal Selling Process

Click & Drag

Personal Selling: GPI Procurement Services

Video Case

Sweetwater

Video Case

ISeeIt Video Case: Business to Business Marketing

Strategy

Video Case

Service Quality Dimensions

▪ Activity Type: Click and Drag

▪ Learning Objectives: 20–02

▪ Difficulty: Medium

▪ Activity Summary: Students are asked to identify service provider actions and customer perceptions

related to each of the five service quality dimensions.

Activity

▪ Introduction: Demonstrating the five service quality dimensions—reliability, responsiveness,

assurance, empathy, and tangibles—during the follow-up step of a sale can lead to future success

and continued business. The fictional scenarios described in the following activity depict these five

dimensions.

▪ Concept Review: Follow-up is the fifth step in the personal selling process. With relationship selling,

the sale is never really over, even after the sale has been made. The attitudes customers develop

after the sale is complete become the basis for their future purchasing behavior. The follow-up step

therefore offers a prime opportunity for a salesperson to solidify the customer relationship by

delivering high-quality service.

Follow-Up Activity

▪ Role-playing: In pairs or small groups, have the students develop a short role-play of a service

situation, where the seller demonstrates poor performance on one of the five dimensions. Have some

Chapter 20 – Personal Selling and Sales Management Marketing 6th

McGraw-Hill Education.

of the groups perform their role-plays for the class, and ask the class to identify the dimension being

demonstrated.

Chapter 20 – Personal Selling and Sales Management Marketing 6th

McGraw-Hill Education.

The Personal Selling Process

▪ Activity Type: Click & Drag

▪ Learning Objectives: 20–02

▪ Difficulty: Medium

▪ Activity Summary: Students are asked to match up tasks in a fictional personal selling process with

the step of the process that each represents.

Activity

▪ Introduction: The following activity highlights the various steps of the personal selling process

through the story of Kirsten (a fictional person). After being solicited quite regularly by television

producers and documentary filmmakers, Kirsten, a photographer, created a business selling

collections from her extensive photo library to show to production houses. Review the story about

how Kirsten landed the biggest client of her career and then assemble the stages of the personal

selling model as instructed.

▪ Concept Review: Although selling may appear a rather straightforward process, successful

salespeople follow several steps. Depending on the sales situation and the buyer’s readiness to

purchase, the salesperson may not use every step, and the time required for each step will vary

depending on the situation. For instance, if a customer goes into The Gap already prepared to

purchase some chinos, the selling process will be fairly quick, but if Dell is attempting to sell personal

computers for the first time to a university, the process may take several months. Some sales

processes can take years.

Personal Selling: GPI Procurement Services

▪ Activity Type: Video Case

▪ Learning Objectives: 20-01, 20-02, 20-04

▪ Difficulty: Medium

▪ Activity Summary: Discusses the relationship selling approach, as executed by GPI Procurement.

After the video ends, students are asked questions about the video and related course concepts.

Activity

▪ Introduction: André Thornton, president and CEO of GPI Procurement Services, believes in building

strong relationships, offering top-quality services, and, above all, meeting his customers’ needs.

▪ Concept Review: Personal selling is the two-way flow of communication between buyer(s) and the

seller that is designed to influence the buyer’s purchase decision. Personal selling can take place in

various situations: face to face, via video teleconferencing, on the telephone, or over the Internet.

Approximately 13.5 million people are employed in sales positions in the United States, including

those involved in business–to-business (B2B) transactions—like manufacturers‘ representatives

Chapter 20 – Personal Selling and Sales Management Marketing 6th

McGraw-Hill Education.

Alta Data Solutions: Making the Sale

▪ Activity Type: Case Analysis

▪ Learning Objectives: 20-02, 20-03

▪ Difficulty: Medium

▪ Activity Summary: This case presents a hypothetical sales situation in which a sales rep is having

problems closing a large sale. After reading the case, students are asked to analyze the situation by

applying chapter concepts.

Activity

▪ Introduction: This case presents a hypothetical sales scenario involving a technology solutions firm

and a potential new customer. This activity is important because personal selling is the lifeblood of

many firms, in particular those selling in B2B environments. The goal of this exercise is to test your

understanding of personal selling processes and practices by analyzing this scenario using the

frameworks and scenarios presented in the chapter.

Follow-up Activity

Ask students to role play a sales call aimed at closing the sale. Alternately, this can be assigned as an

out–of-class exercise, allowing students to prepare a scripted sales call.

ISeeIt Video Case: Business to Business Marketing Strategy

▪ Activity Type: Video Case

▪ Learning Objectives: 20-01, 20-03

▪ Difficulty: Medium

▪ Activity Summary: This video case looks at the role of sales representatives in B2B marketing,

considering a potential business relationship between a bottled water company and a coffee shop.

Activity

▪ Introduction: Personal selling serves three major roles in a firm’s overall marketing effort: (1) it

creates a critical link between the firm and its customers; (2) salespeople are the company in a

customer’s eyes; and (3) it may play a dominant role in a firm’s marketing program. This final point is

illustrated by Hope Springs. The company knows that business–to-customer (B2C) sales are not

enough to maintain profitability; it must rely on business–to-business (B2B) sales to maintain a

profitable bottom line. Ju Li, a marketing executive with Hope Springs, uses available advertising and

promotion tools to reach the company’s target customer markets. However, she also realizes the

importance of her direct sales force in reaching business customers such as Martha at the Coffee

Collective. Through effective sales force management, Ju Li and her team must effectively

communicate to business customers like the Coffee Collective to help demonstrate how its bottled

water will sell well to her customers and increase overall sales.

▪ Video: The video is presented to the student below the introductory information. The video plays

embedded on the page, after which questions are presented.