Significance of a Salesperson to Push Products - Essay Example

A sales person is defined by Pride and Ferrell (2010) as an individual who sells products to other entities. Salespeople sell information, themselves, their company, products and services, solutions, and ideas. Selling is the regarded as the final stage of marketing that also comprises of promotion, pricing, product, and positioning. Since the marketing department ensures that it meets the firm’s goals of improving the desirability and value to the customer and increasing the number of interactions between the firm and potential customers. Attaining this goal needs the involvement of the sales team making use of promotional techniques such as sales promotion, publicity, advertising, and creating new sales channels. Sales people are very crucial since they have the ability to sense what the customer is feeling, such as when selling clothes, one can detect if the customer likes it or not. Salespeople cater to overt the needs the needs of the buyers. This is because they also have the personal need and want to make a sale not just for cash, but a proper ego which is improved by success whilst somewhat weakened even though motivated and not shattered by failure. Salespeople also have the capability of catering to learning and social connectedness needs, development needs, and long-term problem solving, and as a consequence enhancing consumer well being such as a salesperson showing the client how to use a mobile phone. Johnson and Wilson (2009) argued that consumer loyalty, especially customer satisfaction or buying usually relies on delivering wellbeing, performance differences between the salespeople with knowledge or a learning on developmental goal orientation and salespersons with a proving or performance goal orientation. It has been shown that salespersons with a learning orientation perform better. Salespeople build better relationships with their industries and consumers by going beyond their stated needs (Leigh & Summers, 2002). Salesperson through good relations can secure a supply contract for their firm’s products. The relationship between management skills are crucial for selling success than closing skills implying that relationship-oriented salesperson are more likely to be better at determining underlying, non-hedonistic needs (Christopher, 2008). According to Brock (2012), salespeople assist customers to think differently about their businesses, to discover opportunities to enhance operations, quality, customer satisfaction and profitability, to discover new opportunities, and lastly, reduce risk. Consequently, the rewards of being a professional sales person include freedom, job variety, tangible accomplishments, financial compensation, and opportunities for advancements. Sales people help the customer keep focused on the goals they are trying to achieve, such a car dealer making sure the client gets the car model that he/she wants.  Expectation of a sales professional A sales person is tasked with ensuring that the product or service is marketed accordingly to the consumers. In that perspective, there are several expectations that salespersons need to be fulfilled which include: solving problems, representing the firm, communicating benefits with customers, discovering needs, educating the customers, assisting people to buy, serving customers, and treating people with respect (Harvard Business Review, 2004). I have the knowledge and expertise to deliver all the aforementioned roles and responsibilities since I am humble, morally upright and collaborate with the people I interact with. I also exhibit good listening and speaking skills which will assist me to effectively interact with customers. The other salesperson expectations as noted by (Jamail, 2013) include: maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction with each of their clients; maintaining a professional attitude congruous with what would be expected of a professional salesperson; selling the amount in your territory as agreed with their sales manager; properly qualifying prospects; actively pursuing all opportunities within their sales in order to maximize sales revenue potential for their entire territory; giving estimates for all product lines monthly; knowledge on how to use the firm’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for all sales processes such as lead, contact and opportunity management; demonstrating professional selling and negotiation skills in all the engagements; having the capability to present and demonstrate all product lines per their sales plan; exhibiting a high level of expertise for each product line that are obliged to sell; developing industry relationships with those persons who influence the markets that in they are selling and subject matter experts; attending sales meetings and functions; following up on company generated leads; and lastly, making use of all organizational resources to their fullest advantage to accomplish these goals. Ethical policies in advertising Under the consumer protection laws the consumers have the right to sue advertisers, if the ad deceives and leads to product harm. This means that the law holds the retailer or manufacturer responsible for harm caused by the advertisement (Lucas, 2012). The ethics policy ought to be shared with all the employees, including those who are outside the organisation. Making sure that all advertising, no matter what medium or form it is placed is a representation of a truthful, accurate and honest picture of themselves, and that any claims made with regard to the product or service ought to be based upon verifiable and fully documented evidence (Spence & Heekeren, 2005). Ensuring that all adverts are compliant with the relevant regulatory authorities in the nation The advert should respect truthfulness by means of not distorting the truth by implying things that are not so or withholding relevant facts. Next, the advert should respect the dignity of every human person by not exploiting our "lower inclinations" thus compromising with our capacity to reflect or decide either through its content or impact: using appeals to lust, envy, vanity, and other human weakness. The other policy is that ads need to respect social responsibility for example concern for the ecology where the advertisement ought not to favor a lavish lifestyle which wastes resources and destroys the environment. Advertising need to be used as a tool for sustaining ethically responsible and honest competition by informing people on the availability of rationally desirable new services and products with improvements being done on the existing ones. Furthermore, the ad can be utilized to exert a positive impact on decisions regarding media content; contributing to the improvement of the society by uplifting and inspiring individuals, as well as motivating them to act in a manner that is beneficial to themselves and others (Trehan & Trehan, 2011). Displaying only valid certificates and qualifications issued with regard to relevant training courses and events or certificates of accreditation, or registration as awarded by the relevant professional bodies (Johnson & Wilson, 2009). Similarities between public relations, corporate advertising and publicity Public relations, corporate advertising and publicity are similar in concept, since both are designed to raise awareness of a company or product in a positive way. Another comparison is that in all the cases the company will often direct its message towards a certain audience. This could be the persons of a particular gender, race, age, gender or social background; people living in a certain location; or people with particular hobbies or interests or hobbies. Both pass their messaged through mass media. Another similarity is that public relations, publicity, and corporate advertising have a common objective of creating promotion and public opinion (Karadeniz, 2009:46). For instance, countries make use of public relations to attract foreign investments and tourists. In both research is regarded as being extremely important. Planning and programming is also eligible in both. Differences between public relations, publicity, and corporate advertising Corporate advertising has fixed costs that are usually based on a combination of the audience, which will be exposed to the advertisement and the audience’s demographics, such as printing costs while public relations and publicity do not have fixed costs which mean the firm cannot guarantee that paying a specific amount to attain a particular result. Advertising entails paying for space in publications or the internet, making use of that opportunity to deliver a message directly to the consumers. On the other hand, Breakenridge (2012) noted that public relations covers an array of tactics that involve giving information to independent media sources in the hope of gaining favourable coverage, such as employee communication. Publicity on the contrary entails the deliberate attempt to manage the perception of the public on a subject (Lister, et al., 2009). Public relations and publicity is primarily informative while corporate advertising is informative and persuasive. Publicity usually does not identify the sponsor while advertisements do. Public relations and publicity are free whilst corporate ads are paid for. Karadeniz (2009) noted that public relations is aimed at creating public opinion in the framework of organization, idea or person. Conversely, advertising entails promotion and sale of a specific service or product. Publicity on the other hand is regarded as the act of attracting media attention and gaining visibility with the public or the process of making a product or a service known to the people (Berger, 1999). Ads are shown where they were created without any changes, something which is not required in public relations and publicity communication tools. For example, a broadcast media employee can fix a publication before it is released and it is published that way. Nonetheless, in corporate advertisements messages desired to be given can not be altered by the media personnel (Karadeniz, 2009:47). Role of publicity and its impact in the future Publicity plays a crucial role in promotion by communicating the organizational values by means of conveying a single strong image that can be shared globally. Karadeniz (2009) asserted that if publicity is carried out before doing the job, it will actually not be effective. Since it viewed as a technique of public relations, the hardness of performing a job without publicity needs not to be overlooked. Carrying out an efficient publicity campaign is required to absorb and have support of public opinion. In that perspective, publicity usually targets to transfer pre-determined messages to some group for them to change their attitudes. In that perspective, publicity is regarded to be impactful in the future since best publicity is done using quality, cheaper prices, social and economical support to workers and services for public. Besides, most firms are striving to cultivate effective media relations and targeting publicity in their key market areas because publicity uses more information and messages than any other promotion method. Reference List Berger, John (1999). Ways of Seeing. London, England: BBC. Breakenridge, D. (2012), Social media and public relations: Eight new practices for the pr professional, New Jersey: FT Press. Brock, D. (2012, January 12). Retrieved March 12, 2014, from The Importance of Push and Pull in Sales: http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/the-importance-of-push-and-pull-in-sales. Christopher , C. (2008). “A Hedonist’s Reckoning,” Financial Times (12March31October):7. This article can also be found at: http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto 103120081426409516. Harvard Business Review. (2004). Marketing. Massachussetts: Harvard Business School. Jamail, N. (2013). The Sales Proffesional Playbook. New York: eBookIt.com. Karadeniz, M. (2009). The Comparison of Public Relations and Advertisements Activities in a Successful Marketing Management. Journal of Naval Science and Engineering , 5 (2), 43-54. Leigh, T. W., and J. O. Summers (2002). “An Initial Evaluation of Industrial Buyers’ Impressions of Salespersons’ Nonverbal Cues,” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management 22.1, 41–53. Lucas, M. (2012). Understanding Business: Environments. London : Psychology Press. Lister, M., Dovey, J., Giddings, S., Grant, I., & Kelly, K. (2009). New media: A critical introduction. (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Petersen, Glen S. (2008). The Profit Maximization Paradox: Cracking the Marketing/Sales Alignment Code. Booksurge in 1221. p. 17 Pride, W., & Ferrell, O. C. (2010). Marketting Express. New York: Cengage Learning Pubslihers. Spence, E., & Heekeren, B. V. (2005). Advertising Ethics. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Trehan, M., & Trehan, R. (2011). Advertising and Sales Management. New York: Sage Publications. Johnson, S., and L. Wilson (2009). The One Minute Sales Person. Glasgow: Collins. Read More