Personal Selling in Marketing

Sales Value of Personal Selling The Ideal Sales Professional Personal selling can play a critical role in driving hotel sales. The industry has reached new levels competition than ever before. Having a competent sales force representing the organization on the front lines is more important than ever before. Potential clients are being constantly bombarded by media in various forms in today's hectic lives. Therefore the value of face-to-face communications is at an all-time high.

Personal selling is valuable because it allows organizations to break through the noise as well as tailor a personalized message for potential clients. Although personalized selling can be more costly, it is also more effective than other forms of marketing in most cases. The hotel and tourism industry typically makes use of personal selling to promote their business. However, this is not common in all industries. Much of it depends on the complexity of the product as well as the revenues that are expected to be generated.

For example, when a customer purchases a fast-food meal, the transaction is typically completed without the assistance of a sales person because the revenues simply would not justify a personal salesperson being involved. However, if a salesperson were to book five hundred rooms in a Hilton, then this transaction would generate revenues of over two hundred thousand dollars and definitely justify the use of a dedicated sales agent. Therefore, sales representatives are typically found in instances of larger transactions.

Furthermore, they are also required to make sense of complexities in the ordering process. In the five hundred rooms booking example, there would be many details to be worked out between the organization and the client and the sales person acts as the organizations planner for the sale. It is also important to note that the sales process is far from one sided and the role of the client is often under looked.

Instead, by expanding our notion of sales organization members beyond salespeople and sales managers to include the customers with whom salespeople interact, we argue that one should recognize the personal selling process as a more prescriptive customer-involved interpretation system concerned with uncertainty reduction during and between every customer -- salesperson interaction (Shannahan, Bush, Moncrief, & Shannahan, 2013). If a client is unreceptive in the sales process then it is difficult for even the best sales representative to reach them effectively.

However, some research suggests that a salesperson who displays positive emotions displayed by contact personnel are unrelated to consumption expenditure, but do affect re-patronage intention (Wang, Tsai, Chen, & Chang, 2010). The actual process of personal selling can be divided into four primary activities (Khan, 2011): 1. Sales Calls 2. Telephone Selling 3. Internal Selling 4. Entertaining Obviously telephone selling can be also divided into other forms of media such as email or even text messages to clients.

The term selling is often used synonymously with the term marketing however personal selling is merely one component of the promotion mix, which refers to the personal communication of information to persuade a prospective customer to buy something (e.g., a product or service) that satisfies that individual's needs (Hotel Mule, 2009). The marketing program is an important component that can support the salespersons role. Interview with a Sales Manager A telephone interview was conducted with a sales manager at a branch of the Hilton Hotel chain.

This conversation helps to identify many of the characteristics that can be found in an estimate of the ideal sales person. For example, one trait was that the salesperson should constantly portray positive emotions and be respectful of the potential clients at all times. Maintaining a positive outlook is an essential part of the sales process; especially in the luxury services market. Furthermore, the salesperson must also maintain a professional perception at all times. This includes being appropriately dressed and refraining from anything that could be perceived as unprofessional.

The sales person must also be able to identify the potential client's individual needs and desires or expectations from the service that they are considering. Thus the salesperson should know how to ask the right questions in an open ended manner to engage the client to have them describe their needs or expectations. The salesperson can then customize a marketing message to the potential client that addresses their specific concerns or interests in the service. Finally, the salesperson needs to exude confidence in the closing process to effectively generate sales.

Conclusion The ideal traits for a sales professional.