Introduction to Sales Management and Personal Selling
What this domain tests
You must be able to separate two ideas that students routinely blur: sales management is a managerial activity (planning, directing and controlling the firm's personal selling effort), while personal selling is the field activity of one salesperson talking to one prospect in order to close a sale.
Core definitions and scope
- Sales management: planning, direction and control of personal selling - setting objectives, forecasting, territory design, quotas, recruiting, training, motivating, compensating and evaluating the sales force. It is a management function.
- Personal selling: oral, face-to-face (or voice/video) two-way communication with a prospect, ending in a sale. Features: flexibility, immediate feedback, ability to demonstrate, high cost per contact, relationship building.
- Objectives: sales volume, market share, profit, new accounts, customer retention, market intelligence.
- Functions of a sales manager: planning, organising, staffing, directing, controlling, coordinating.
Personal selling versus advertising
Advertising is paid, non-personal, one-to-many; it creates awareness and interest. Personal selling is personal, two-way, one-to-one; it handles objections and closes. They are complementary, not substitutes - advertising opens doors that the salesperson walks through.
Worked example
A regional manager decides to split one large territory into two, sets a monthly target of 60 units for each representative, and fixes a travel allowance. Separately, a representative visits a housing society, demonstrates a water purifier, answers a question on running cost and collects a booking. Reasoning: the territory split, target and allowance are sales management (planning and control decisions made before the field work). The demonstration and booking are personal selling. Same firm, two different levels of activity.
Traps that cost marks
- Writing that sales management is selling. Selling is one part of it; the exam wants the managerial functions.
- Treating personal selling as mere order-taking. Order-taking is the lowest form; creative selling (finding new needs) is the higher form.
- Claiming personal selling is cheaper than advertising. Per contact it is far more expensive.
- Ignoring that personal selling gives two-way communication, which advertising cannot.