Chapter 17: Personal Selling and Sales Management
1
Chapter 17
Personal Selling and Sales Management
This chapter begins with the learning outcome summaries followed by a set of lesson plans for
instructors to use to deliver the content.
• Lecture (for large sections) on page 3
• Company Clips (video) on page 4
• Group Work (for smaller sections) on pages 7
Review and Assignments begin on page 7
Review questions
Application questions
Application exercise
Ethics exercise
Video assignment
Case assignment
Great Ideas for Teaching Marketing from faculty around the country begin on page 17
Chapter 17: Personal Selling and Sales Management
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Learning Outcomes
17-1 Understand the sales environment
Salespeople can be consumer-focused (as in the case of retail) or business-focused. The sales
environment changes constantly as new competitors enter the market and old competitors leave.
17-2 Describe personal selling
Personal selling is direct communication between a sales representative and one or more
prospective buyers in an attempt to influence each other in a purchase situation. Broadly
17-3 Discuss the key differences between relationship selling and traditional selling
Relationship selling is the practice of building, maintaining, and enhancing interactions with
17-4 List and explain the steps in the selling process
The actual sales process depends on the features of the product or service, characteristics of
© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
17-5 Understand the functions of sales management
The sales manager’s basic job is to maximize sales at a reasonable cost while also maximizing
17-6 Describe the use of customer relationship management in the selling process
Companies that have customer relationship management (CRM) systems follow a customer-
Key Terms
Campaign management
Lead qualification
Relationship selling
(consultative selling)
Cold calling
Needs assessment
Customer-centric
Negotiation
Sales presentation
Follow-up
Networking
Sales process (sales cycle)
Interaction
Point-of-sale interactions
Sales proposal
Knowledge management
Preapproach
Touch points
Lead generation (prospecting)
Quota
Referral
Lesson Plan for Lecture
Brief Outline and Suggested PowerPoint Slides
Learning Outcomes and Topics
PowerPoint Slides
LO1 Understand the sales environment
1. Personal Selling and Sales Management
Chapter 17: Personal Selling and Sales Management
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Learning Outcomes and Topics
PowerPoint Slides
17-1 The Sales Environment
2. Learning Outcomes
3. Sales Environment
4. Sales Environment
5. Selling Products Using a Sales Force
LO2 Describe Personal Selling
17-2 Personal Selling
6. Personal Selling
7. Advantages of Personal Selling
8. Limitations of Personal Selling
9. Exhibit 17.1: Comparison of Personal
Selling and Advertising or Sales
Promotion
LO3 Discuss the key differences between
relationship selling and traditional
selling
17-3 Relationship Selling
10. Relationship Selling
11. Relationship Selling (Consultative
Selling)
12. Exhibit 17.2: Key Differences between
Traditional Selling and Relationship
Selling
LO4 List and explain the steps in the selling
process
17-4 Steps in the Selling Process
13. Steps in the Selling Process
14. Selling Process (Sales Cycle)
15. Steps in Personal Selling Process
16. Lead Generation (Prospecting)
17. Methods of Lead Generation
18. Lead Qualification
19. Approaching the Customer and Probing
Needs
20. Approaching the Customer and Probing
Needs (continued)
21. Developing and Proposing Solutions and
Handling Objections
22. Closing the Sale
23. Following Up
LO5 Understand the functions of sales
management
17-5 Sales Management
24. Sales Management
25. Responsibilities of a Sales Manager
26. Traits Managers Look for in Applicants
Chapter 17: Personal Selling and Sales Management
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Learning Outcomes and Topics
PowerPoint Slides
LO6 Describe the use of customer
relationship management in the selling
process
17-6 Customer Relationship Management
and the Sales Process
27. Customer Relationship Management and
the Sales Process
28. Customer Relationship Management
Process
29. Identify Customer Relationships
30. Interactions of the Current Customer
Base and Capturing Customer Data
31. Exhibit 17.5: Common CRM Marketing
Database Applications
32. Key Terms
33. Summary
Suggested Homework
• The end of this chapter contains assignments for the New Balance Hubway video and a
case assignment on protecting customers.
• This chapter’s online study tools include flashcards, visual summaries, practice quizzes,
and other resources that can be assigned or used as the basis for longer investigations into
marketing.
Lesson Plan for Video
Company Clips
Segment Summary: New Balance Hubway
New Balance Hubway is a bike sharing system located in Boston Massachusetts designed to
augment existing transportation systems in the greater Boston area. In this clip, Hubway
discusses how they generate buzz and get funding to build their bike share network.
These teaching notes combine activities that you can assign students to prepare before class, that
you can do in class before watching the video, that you can do in class while watching the video,
and that you can assign students to complete as assignments after watching the video in class.
During the viewing portion of the teaching notes, stop the video periodically where appropriate
to ask students the questions or perform the activities listed on the grid. You may even want to
give the students the questions before starting the tape and have them think about the answer
while viewing the segment. That way, students will be engaged in active viewing rather than
Chapter 17: Personal Selling and Sales Management
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passive viewing.
Pre-Class Prep for You
Pre-Class Prep for Your Students
• Preview the Company Clips video
segment for Chapter 17. This exercise
reviews concepts for LO1–LO6.
• Review your lesson plan.
• Make sure you have all of the
equipment needed to show the video
to the class, including the DVD and a
way to project the video.
• You can also stream the video HERE.
• Have students review and familiarize themselves
with the following terms and concepts: personal
selling and relationship selling.
• Have students bring written definitions of the
above terms to class.
• Have students call a retailer of choice and ask the
manager what reps the store works with to buy its
inventory. If a store does not use reps, the
students should try calling other stores until they
find a one that does. They should also query the
manager about the benefits of using reps.
Video Review Exercise
Activity
Warm Up
Briefly discuss students’ findings from the final activity in the Pre-Class Prep.
Review the types of products sold at the store, the number of reps the store works
with, and the benefits derived from working with reps.
In-Class
Preview
• Review Exhibit 17.1, Comparison of Personal Selling and Advertising/Sales
Promotion.
• Discuss the steps in the selling process. Focus on generating leads, qualifying
leads, approaching the customer and probing needs, closing the sale, and
following up.
• Discuss the issues involved in sales force management. Pay special attention to
sales force structure, recruiting and training the sales force, compensating and
motivating the sales force, evaluating the sales force, and the impact of
technology on personal selling.
• Have copies of the Company Clips questions (below) available for students to
take notes on while viewing the video segment.
Viewing
(solutions
below)
1. How do you know that Hubway strongly encourages relationship selling?
2. Discuss the importance of social media to Hubway. What impact does it have
on customer relationship management?
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Follow-up
• Discuss the role of relationship selling at Scholfield Honda.
• Ask students, “How is the recruiting process similar to the selling process?”
• Divide students into groups of three to five, and have them devise a
compensation and motivation program for Scholfield Honda. Give them 10 to
15 minutes to develop a proposal. Have as many groups as time allows, and ask
them to share their outlines with the class.
Solutions for Viewing Activities
1. How do you know that Hubway strongly encourages relationship selling?
Answers will vary, but the discussion about focusing on one-to-one interaction either face
2. Discuss the importance of social media to Hubway. What impact does it have on
customer relationship management?
Hubway relies on social media for the bulk of its ability to spread the word (sharing user
Lesson Plan for Group Work
In most cases, group activities should be completed after some chapter content has been covered,
probably in the second or third session of the chapter coverage. (See “Lesson Plan for Lecture”
above.)
Application question 1 translates well to group work. Divide the class into small groups of four
or five people. Each group should read the question and then use their textbooks, or any work
that was completed previously, to perform the exercise. Then each group should discuss or
present their work to the class.
Class Activity: Sales Force Structure and Compensation
The purpose of this exercise is to determine the best structure for a sales force in a variety of
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industries. Divide the class into teams. Each team will represent a new company that is creating a
sales force to sell the product or service to a national market. The teams can represent one of the
following product categories (no two teams should have the same category): 1) a video game
targeted to kids ages 8 to 12; 2) a book about budget travel around the world, targeted to college
students; 3) a smartphone; 4) an ergonomic backpack targeted to high school and college
students; and 5) sneakers with rollers targeted to the teen market.
The following should be determined by each team:
• A realistic distribution channel for the product
• How to structure the sales force across the entire United States (each team should assume
that the product will be sold nationally)
• How the sales force should be compensated
When all the teams complete the above, they should present their ideas to the class.
Review and Assignments for Chapter 17
Review Questions
1. Discuss the role of personal selling in promoting products. What advantages does
personal selling offer over other forms of promotion?
Students’ discussions will vary.
2. What are the major advantages of personal selling to the company selling a product?
What are the advantages to the person or company buying the product?
Personal selling is considerably more effective than other forms of promotion in obtaining
3. What are the key differences between relationship selling and traditional methods of
selling? Which types of products or services do you think would be conducive to
relationship selling?
The answer for the first part of the question should focus on the key differences highlighted
© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
4. Based on the key differences between traditional and relationship selling, which type
of sales approach would you use as a salesperson? Do the different approaches
require different personal strengths or attributes?
Students’ answers will vary.
5. What does sales follow-up entail? Why is it an essential step in the selling process,
particularly from the perspective of relationship selling? How does it relate to
cognitive dissonance?
Although students’ answers will vary, they should address some of these points: A
6. Consider each step in the selling process. Which steps could be conducted through
technology (Internet, webinars, etc.)? Which are most important to handle “face-to–
face”?
Students’ answers will vary.
7. How does each of the sales management functions contribute to a successful, high–
performing sales force?
Students should consider the contributions of goal setting, effective sales process and
Application Questions
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1. You are a new salesperson for a well-known medical software company, and one of
your clients is a large group of physicians. You have just arranged an initial meeting
with the office manager. Develop a list of questions you will ask at this meeting to
uncover the group’s specific needs.
Although students’ answers will vary, they should address some of these points: The need-
2. In how many ways can ZapData (http://www.zapdata.com/) benefit salespeople?
Which of its services would be most useful to marketing managers? Other
businesspeople?
Students’ responses will vary.
3. Consider each step in the selling process. Which steps could be conducted through
technology (Internet, webinars, etc.)? Which are most important to handle “face-to–
face”?
Students’ answers will vary.
4. What kinds of sales management opportunities are available at Amway and Quixtar?
Use the companies’ websites (www.amway.com; www.quixtar.com) to research one of
these companies and determine its sales process, sales force structure, and how it
recruits and trains its salespeople.
Students’ reports will vary.
Application Exercise
Have you ever waited forever to get a fast-food hamburger? Have you ever been left to languish
in a dressing room by a salesperson that left for a coffee break? If so, you already know that sales
and customer service are integral parts of marketing. While you are working on this chapter,
keep a journal of your personal sales and customer service experiences with local merchants.
Chapter 17: Personal Selling and Sales Management
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Don’t ignore the details. Even such things as how crowded a store or restaurant is when you visit
may affect your perceptions of the service you received.
Activities
1. Keep your journal for a week, recording all sales and service transactions, if possible, on
the day they occur.
2. At the end of the week, examine your journal and pick the most noteworthy entry. Provide
the basic information about the transaction: company where it occurred, type of transaction
(purchase, return, complaint, etc.), type of good or service involved, and so forth.
3. Once you have outlined the situation, evaluate the experience. Use the information about
selling in this chapter as support for your evaluation. For example, did the salesperson
seem to treat the situation as an individual, discrete transaction, or did he or she seem
interested in building a relationship?
4. Finally, make recommendations as to how the company can improve its sales or service.
Suggestions should be logical and achievable (meaning you have to consider the cost of
implementing your suggestion).
Purpose: To have students think critically about sales and sales experiences from the customer
and sales representative point of view
Setting It Up: This works best as an individual assignment. The journal format allows for
collection of data as well as reflection on their meaning.
This exercise was inspired by the following Great Idea in Teaching Marketing:
John Ronchetto, University of San Diego
Sales and Customer Service Experiential Journal and Paper
During the first ten weeks of a personal selling course, students keep a journal or diary of their
separate sales and customer service experiences with local merchants. For each interaction, they
register factual information (where, when, nature of interaction), key selling or conflict
resolution techniques utilized by the sales or service person, and any other relevant observations.
For example, whether or not the establishment was crowded may very well affect their
experiences. Students are advised to make entries on the same day that they personally
participated or observed the sales or service encounter. Their journals should be current, detailed,
and organized in a consistent manner. After the first three weeks of the term, students are liable
to be called upon to initiate class discussion based upon information contained in their journals.
Also, during the fifth and eighth weeks, student journals are collected and their comments are
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reviewed for clarity of writing style and relevancy to specific sales or service concepts covered
in the course.
In the second phase of this assignment, students write about one of their most noteworthy
experiences in terms of learning value. They discuss the organization, the sales or service
situation (e.g., buying a new product), the type of good or service (e.g., personal computer), and
other items of significance (e.g., time of day, location of business, and layout of store). In
addition, based on their reading of the personal selling text, students can evaluate this experience
by acting as participants and observers of in-class student sales role-plays. They can also have
class discussions on sales and service concepts and practices.
In their written analysis and evaluation of this specific sales or service encounter, students
recommend the most important actions the sales or service person should take to change the
result (e.g., modify his or her closing technique to obtain the order). Some suggestions might be
directed toward the sales or store managers. Students are cautioned to be selective and focus on
the most important steps because their papers are limited to five typewritten pages. Grading
criteria include the following: 1) How suitably and extensively are sales concepts from the
course readings and lectures included? 2) How reliable is the diagnosis of probable causes of
success or failure of the encounter? 3) How logical and achievable (i.e., cost effective) are the
recommendations? 4) How clearly is the paper organized and written?
Ethics Exercise
Sally Burke works for Hi-Tech Electronics. Her responsibilities include selecting items to
advertise in her company’s Sunday newspaper FSIs. One hot item is a 74-inch flat-panel 3D
plasma TV. The list price is $2,999, but her manager tells her to advertise it at $1,999, since
customers can apply for a $1,000 mail-in rebate. The advertised price has attracted many people
to buy the TV; however, Sally has heard several complaints from customers who found the
rebate process unusually complex and were denied a rebate because the manufacturer claimed
they hadn’t provided the required information. She would prefer to advertise the “real” list price,
knowing that customers are not guaranteed to receive a rebate.
1. Is it unethical to advertise products at their post-rebate price to increase sales? Why,
or why not? What is another sales promotion method Hi-Tech Electronics could use
to persuade customers to buy their plasma TV at the store?
Students’ answers will vary, but they should include the following points: Most products
Chapter 17: Personal Selling and Sales Management
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© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
premium with the purchase of the plasma TV, implement a loyalty marketing program, or
have a sweepstakes that customers are entered into when they purchase a plasma TV.
2. Rebate programs are commonly used by electronic manufacturers because the
rebates arouse consumers’ interest in buying products; yet only half of purchasers
ultimately claim their rebates. Is a rebate program itself unethical if the
manufacturer knows consumers are unlikely to receive their money?
Students may have differing opinions. It would be unethical for manufacturers’ to not pay
3. Visit a local electronics store or website and find a product being sold with a mail-in
rebate offer. Are the rebate instructions clear? Would you take the time to complete
the process?
Students’ answers will vary.
Video Assignment: Scholfield Honda
New Balance Hubway is a bike sharing system located in Boston, Massachusetts, designed to
augment existing transportation systems in the greater Boston area. In this clip, Hubway
discusses how they generate buzz and get funding to build their bike share network.
1. By crunching the numbers and awarding highest-use members “Gold-club” t-shirts,
Hubway was performing which step in the customer relationship management (CRM)
system?
a. Identifying customer relationships
b. Understanding the interactions of the customer base
c. Capturing customer data
d. Leveraging customer information
2. For Hubway, PR launch events function as a point-of-sale interaction.
a. True
b. False