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Chapter 20 - Personal Selling and Sales Management Marketing 6th
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
8
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
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
9
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-
01
02
03
04
Service Quality Dimensions
Click & Drag
X
X
The Personal Selling Process
Click & Drag
X
Personal Selling: GPI Procurement Services
Video Case
X
X
Sweetwater
Video Case
X
X
X
ISeeIt Video Case: Business to Business Marketing
Strategy
Video Case
X
X
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
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
10
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
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
11
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
Copyright © 2018 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
13
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.
