Module1lesson.docx

Before a student can really study the principles of sales and salesmanship, the discipline of sales needs to be defined. Sales can be defined as the exchange of money for a specific good or service. Further, we need to define a salesperson. A salesperson can be defined as an individual that has been assigned the task of working with a er for a specific good or service.

Most people can easily define sales and salesperson; it would be safe to say that the definitions the majority of people would present would be very similar to each other. It is important to note that there are many different types of sales. In this section, we will review three common selling types, sometimes referred to as selling styles.

Transactional: In a transactional sales environment, the er and the seller are easily defined, and the relationship between er and seller is very straightforward. Going to the mall to a pair of tennis shoes would be a simple example of a transactional style of sales. The er, a person looking for tennis shoes, interacts with the salesperson at the store to have their needs met.
For a very long time in modern history, the transactional sales style was dominant. This style is also often referred to as ‘peddling.’

Marketing Driven: Within the marketing driven sales environment, the seller is playing a more active role in the exchange. The seller has done preparation to entice the seller. Classic marketing mix factors, the 4P’s (product, price, place and promotion) are often the center of marketing-driven sales.

Features and benefits as well as needs/wants analysis are important to the success of marketing driven sales environments.

Example: If you are the regional sales manager for a large laundry detergent brand selling to the grocery trade, you would be given a sales presentation booklet (maybe an actual booklet and/or an electronic booklet) that highlights how pricing promotions in a region increase sales volume at grocery stores. This booklet may also include Point of Sale data (that is data collected at the cash register) that identifies the top selling types of laundry detergent (dry/liquid, ounces per container, specific scents or other features). All of this information would be sourced and provided from the marketing team to the sales force to share with the grocery ers. Marketing is driving the sales process.

Strategic/Consultative: As our global business society grows, so does the professional salesperson access to data and information about sales. Goals, plans and strategies for selling have become more complex, and that has led the need to shift the sales approach.

The sales professional has become more knowledgeable, and thus has taken on the approach of collaboration with the er or potential er. The sales professional has had to learn to add value in term of expertise with the boundless data. This complexity has also occurred as services and products become more commoditized; in other words, the services and products are not different enough from seller to seller. Selling on features and benefits has lost its edge in sales environments where this style is vital to the success of an organization.

In this environment, the sales professional spends as much time, if not more, on preparing strategy and building expertise with their product or services industry, competitive landscape, and future offerings. The sales professional also includes the customer in the center of the strategy. Relationship between seller and er is amplified in importance.

Additionally, the strategic/consultative sales style integrates the other two sales styles. The marketing mix and strategy as well as the sales strategy are critical to sales success in this style. The salesperson is still creating a transaction with the er, though the transaction may be more complex or may be a series of long term transactions (the relationship building).

Summary

Transactional, Marketing Driven and Strategic/Consultative are three of the most common selling styles but there are many more; one can say there are as many sales styles as there are salespeople. These three types go by many other names. For example, the Transactional sales style can be referred to as The Peddler in many books, in academic writing or within an organization. While the names of these three can be different, the main definitions remain the same and that is what is most important