Sales Management

Question 1

Top ten success factors in selling

Answer 1

• Listening skills
• follow-up skills-
• ability to adapt sales style from situation to situation
• Tenacity- sticking to the task
• Organisational skills
• Verbal communication skills
• Proficiency in interacting with people at all levels within an organisation.
• Demonstrated ability to overcome objections
• Closing skills
• Personal planning and time management skills

Question 2

Characteristics of modern selling:

Answer 2

• problem solving and system selling
• adding value/satisfying needs
• Customer retention and deletion
• Database and knowledge management
• Customer relationship management
• Marketing the product

Question 3

Types of selling

Answer 3

The selling function

• Order takers
• Order-getters - front-line salespeople, sales support salespeople

Question 4

Sales orientation

Answer 4

Production -> sales -> customers-> Emphasis on seller’s needs

If blue ocean stratergy can do with no competition

Question 5

Marketing Orientation

Answer 5

Customer needs-> production-> sales-> Emphasis on customers needs

Question 6

Perception (cost vs value)- Perceived value

Answer 6

Promise (what’s in it for me?)
Differentiation (why is yours better?)
Reason – to – believe (why should I believe you?)

Question 7

Perception (cost vs value)- Perceived cost

Answer 7

Price (what will it cost me?)
Risk (what could go wrong)
Effort (what are my hidden costs?)

Question 8

Primary buying motives (Maslow- Basic Needs - pyramid diagram to show human needs)

Answer 8

Maslow, Basic needs

Social – identification with social groups, friendship
Esteem – desire to feel worthy in eyes of others
Self actualisation – need for mastery, self-fulfilment

Question 9

Primary buying motives (Group influences)

Answer 9

Role – expectations associated with position
Reference groups – categories of people you see your self Social – identification with social groups, friendship
Social class – group with similar values, interests, lifestyles
Culture – influences of group with common language, environment also subcultures.

Question 10

Emotional thoughts

Answer 10

Acts due to passion or sentiment
Emotional appeals most commonly
If two products are identical, the sales people who ‘connects’ has the advantage.

e.g. designer belt, or apple phone- could use any phone but use theirs

Question 11

Rational Thoughts

Answer 11

Role – expectations associated with position
Acts on reason or judgement
Relatively free from emotion

e.g. food

Question 12

Consumer buying process (customer centred)

Answer 12

Starts with the need not the awareness
Habitual buying situations
Variety-seeking buying situations
Complex buying situations

Question 13

Consumer buyerss (B2C)

Answer 13

• Purchased for individuals or household consumption
• Decisions usually made by individuals
• Purchases often made based on brand reputation or personal recommendation with little or no product expertise
• Purchases based primarily on emotional responses to product or promotions
• Individual purchasers may make quick decisions
• Products: consumer goods and services for individual use

Question 14

Organisational buyers (B2B)

Answer 14

• Purchases made for some purpose other than personal consumption
• Decisions frequently made by several people
• Purchases made according to precise technical specification based on product expertise
• Purchases based on primarily rational criteria
• Purchasers may engage in lengthy decision process
• Products: often complex; classified based on how organisational customers use them

Question 15

There are three core ‘routes to market’:

Answer 15

• OEM
• Distributor
• VAR

Question 16

OEM (three core routes to market)

Answer 16

Original equipment manufacturer
Direct to market.

Highest margin to distribute

Computer do online- e.g. wholesale from china

Question 17

Distributor (three core routes to market)

Answer 17

agent who supplies goods to retailers.

Entered into an agreement to offer and sell the products of another company but isn’t entitled to use the manufacturers names as part of its business name.

Question 18

VAR (three core routes to market)

Answer 18

Where businesses take one item from a supplier and adds additional services to this product or service which adds value to the customer.

Question 19

Things to consider when managing channels (4 things)

Answer 19

• Channel performance-Which channels generate more sales than others?
• Channel economics-How much do channels cost? What is the ROI?
• Customer preferences-How do customers prefer to buy from you?
• ‘Field and forum’ approach for sales managers-How do sales teams build and share their knowledge about effective channels?

Question 20

Motor Industry Example 1

Answer 20

• Customer journeys in the ’motor trade’ have changed dramatically in the last 4 years.
• When customers arrive at a dealership 76% of them have decided which car they will buy based on on-line research.
• Many car brands have re-positioned their sales teams so that they do more to ‘enable the sale’ rather than ‘force it’.
• Many dealerships pay a basic salary and commission is based on NPS scores instead.

Question 21

Omni-channel communication

Answer 21

• Customers contact & expect to be contacted through the most relevant channel for them.
• Immediate response and reasonable resolution through someone empowered to help the customer achieve their objectives
• Businesses need a Single Customer View in order to manage the multiple contacts customers could make.

Question 22

Customer relationship management (CRM)

Answer 22

is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.

Question 23

A CRM system helps companies

Answer 23

stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.

Question 24

CRM goal

Answer 24

Improve business relationships. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.

Question 25

People usually refer to a CRM system, a tool

Answer 25

that helps with contact management, sales management, productivity, and more.

Question 26

Negotiation is (1)

Answer 26

a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests of two people/parties involved in negotiation process.

Question 27

Negotiation is (2)

Answer 27

a process where each party involved in negotiating tries to gain an advantage for themselves by the end of the process. Negotiation is intended to aim at compromise.

Question 28

Handling objections

Answer 28

Gratitude - Say “Thank You!”   
Empathise 
Let the discovery begin - open-ended questions.
Ask, probe and confirm 
Show them the value 
Back it up with proof and evidence

Question 29

The use of social media

Answer 29

• One million new people joined social networks every single day in 2017
• Nearly a quarter of a billion new users came online for the first time in 2017
• Africa currently has the fastest growth rates
• 28% of internet users aged 16-64, used social during their online product research.
• Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, Bitmoji, WeChat, and QQ are social messaging platforms that will use AR to boost sales effort
• People are sharing less personal information on major networks. Instead, they’re watching videos, killing time, and sharing things to connect with friends.

Question 30

The role of video

Answer 30

• 56% of internet users watch videos on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram each month.
• 81% of 55 to 64-year-olds are watching videos online each month.
• One in three social video viewers watch videos made by brands every month.
• Gen Zers watching social videos each month are 40 % above average to use online sources to research products. They also are influenced by social reviews, admitting that lots of “likes” and positive comments on social media motivates them to make a purchase.”
• Snapchat’s Geofilters and Lens functions create location-specific videos to influence nearby customers such as event attendees or pedestrians near a store location.

Question 31

Mobile first

Answer 31

• By 2020, social will continue to influence product research especially among mobile-first consumers and emerging markets
• Average mobile checkout process is three pages long, giving users (especially in lower literacy markets) lots of reasons to click away in frustration.
• Only 14 percent of consumer brands offer single-page checkouts.

Question 32

Participation leads the way

Answer 32

• Pinterest Lens use machine learning to aid in brand and product discovery
• Product galleries on Instagram - product launches on Facebook Live, social content is already used by younger demographics to discover and evaluate products.
• Amazon - exploring how to use AR to help consumers to try on virtual clothes and explore products.