What involves face to face communication between firms representative prospect?
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However, even as the B2B sales process becomes increasingly digital, face-to-face meetings still provide certain benefits that no technology can replicate. In-person requests are 34 times more successful than those made over email, the close rate for in-person meetings is 57 per cent and executives and business travellers estimate that 28 per cent of their current business would be lost without in-person meetings. Show
While virtual communication is key, face-to-face meetings still hold the following advantages in the modern sales process. Rod Tonna-Barthet, President & Chief Executive Officer at Kyocera Document Solutions UK explains more.
To build relationships and close deals, it is essential to understand what makes each person tick. Businesses need to remember that face-to-face sales are often the first time a customer gets acquainted with your brand, products, and services. Focus on a softer approach and less hard-selling, while emphasising relationship-building. It is imperative to pay attention to potential customers' wants and needs, identify common interests, and demonstrate empathy to put yourself in their shoes.
Shared values between consumers and brands help to establish concrete relationships. By authenticating your brand and promoting human connections, shared beliefs lay the groundwork for building connections. By engaging in face-to-face sales, prospects and customers can learn about your brand's values directly.
Face-to-face meetings provide an excellent opportunity for salespeople to answer any burning questions a prospect may have about your products or services. Your field representatives must be armed with a wide range of knowledge pertaining to not just the products being discussed, but also your entire industry.
Brands and companies that customers recognise, and trust are more likely to attract them as customers. Using face-to-face meetings to show how your product helps them solve their problems, wants and desires are crucial. As you learn more, your business will be better able to serve them – and you may even witness a lift in customer retention and brand loyalty.
Taking the time to demonstrate your product allows prospects to learn how it will benefit them the most. Using face-to-face meetings to show how your product helps them solve their problems, wants and desires are crucial.
In some cases, technology improves communication efficiency during the sales process. In other cases, technology exacerbates the problem of poor sales communication. Any sale can, for example, be ruined by a dropped call or poor internet connection. Face-to-face selling overcomes these technical challenges, allowing salespeople to build real relationships with prospects. You'll also be able to better measure prospects' reactions by using body language cues.  Personal Selling: People PowerPersonal selling uses in-person interaction to sell products and services. This type of communication is carried out by sales representatives, who are the personal connection between a buyer and a company or a company’s products or services. Salespeople not only inform potential customers about a company’s product or services, they also use their power of persuasion and remind customers of product characteristics, service agreements, prices, deals, and much more. In addition to enhancing customer relationships, this type of marketing communications tool can be a powerful source of customer feedback, as well. Later we’ll cover marketing alignment with the sales process in greater detail. This section focuses on personal selling as one possible tool in the promotional mix. Effective personal selling addresses the buyer’s needs and preferences without making him or her feel pressured. Good salespeople offer advice, information, and recommendations, and they can help buyers save money and time during the decision process. The seller should give honest responses to any questions or objections the buyer has and show that he cares more about meeting the buyer’s needs than making the sale. Attending to these aspects of personal selling contributes to a strong, trusting relationship between buyer and seller.[1] Common Personal Selling TechniquesCommon personal selling tools and techniques include the following:
Personal selling minimizes wasted effort, promotes sales, and boosts word-of-mouth marketing. Also, personal selling measures marketing return on investment (ROI) better than most tools, and it can give insight into customers’ habits and their responses to a particular marketing campaign or product offer. When to Use Personal SellingNot every product or service is a good fit for personal selling. It’s an expensive technique because the proceeds of the person-to-person sales must cover the salary of the sales representative—on top of all the other costs of doing business. Whether or not a company uses personal selling as part of its marketing mix depends on its business model. Most often companies use personal selling when their products or services are highly technical, specialized, or costly—such as complex software systems, business consulting services, homes, and automobiles. In addition, there are certain conditions that favor personal selling:[2]
It’s important to keep in mind that personal selling is most effective when a company has established an effective sales-force management system together with a sales force of the right design, size, and structure. Recruitment, selection, training, supervision, and evaluation of the sales force also obviously play an important role in the effectiveness of this marketing communication method.[3] Advantages and Disadvantages of Personal SellingThe most significant strength of personal selling is its flexibility. Salespeople can tailor their presentations to fit the needs, motives, and behavior of individual customers. A salesperson can gauge the customer’s reaction to a sales approach and immediately adjust the message to facilitate better understanding. Personal selling also minimizes wasted effort. Advertisers can spend a lot of time and money on a mass-marketing message that reaches many people outside the target market (but doesn’t result in additional sales). In personal selling, the sales force pinpoints the target market, makes a contact, and focuses effort that has a strong probability of leading to a sale. As mentioned above, an additional strength of personal selling is that measuring marketing effectiveness and determining ROI are far more straightforward for personal selling than for other marketing communication tools—where recall or attitude change is often the only measurable effect. Another advantage of personal selling is that a salesperson is in an excellent position to encourage the customer to act. The one-on-one interaction of personal selling means that a salesperson can effectively respond to and overcome objections—e.g., concerns or reservations about the product—so that the customer is more likely to buy. Salespeople can also offer many customized reasons that might spur a customer to buy, whereas an advertisement offers a limited set of reasons that may not persuade everyone in the target audience. A final strength of personal selling is the multiple tasks that the sales force can perform. For example, in addition to selling, a salesperson can collect payments, service or repair products, return products, and collect product and marketing information. In fact, salespeople are often the best resources when it comes to disseminating positive word-of-mouth product information. High cost is the primary disadvantage of personal selling. With increased competition, higher travel and lodging costs, and higher salaries, the cost per sales contract continues to rise. Many companies try to control sales costs by compensating sales representatives through commissions alone, thereby guaranteeing that salespeople are paid only if they generate sales. However, commission-only salespeople may become risk averse and only call on clients who have the highest potential return. These salespeople, then, may miss opportunities to develop a broad base of potential customers that could generate higher sales revenues in the long run. Companies can also reduce sales costs by using complementary techniques, such as telemarketing, direct mail, toll-free numbers for interested customers, and online communication with qualified prospects. Telemarketing and online communication can further reduce costs by serving as an actual selling vehicle. Both technologies can deliver sales messages, respond to questions, take payment, and follow up. A second disadvantage of personal selling is the problem of finding and retaining high-quality people. Experienced salespeople sometimes realize that the only way their income can outpace their cost-of-living increase is to change jobs. Also, because of the push for profitability, businesses try to hire experienced salespeople away from competitors rather than hiring college graduates, who take three to five years to reach the level of productivity of more experienced salespeople. These two staffing issues have caused high turnover in many sales forces. Another weakness of personal selling is message inconsistency. Many salespeople view themselves as independent from the organization, so they design their own sales techniques, use their own message strategies, and engage in questionable ploys to generate sales. (You’ll recall our discussion in the ethics module about the unique challenges that B2B salespeople face.) As a result, it can be difficult to find a unified company or product message within a sales force or between the sales force and the rest of the marketing mix. A final disadvantage of personal selling is that sales-force members have different levels of motivation. Salespeople may vary in their willingness to make the desired number of sales calls each day; to make service calls that do not lead directly to sales; or to take full advantage of the technologies available to them. How IMC Supports Personal Selling[4]As with any other marketing communication method, personal selling must be evaluated on the basis of its contribution to the overall marketing mix. The costs of personal selling can be high and carry risks, but the returns may be just as high. In addition, when personal selling is supported by other elements of a well-conceived IMC strategy, it can be very effective indeed. Consider the following example of Audi, which set out to build a customer-relationship program:
As a result of several coordinated communication methods (TV advertising, email, downloadable screensaver, newsletters, and product information) and presumably a well-designed customer relationship management (CRM) system, Audi helped its sales force be more effective (by freeing it up to focus on sales and by connecting it with more prospective customers), which, turn, meant higher profits. What involves faceFace-to-Face Marketing (F2F) is the act of directly marketing to potential customers through in-person communication.
What involves direct communication between the firm's representative and the customer?Direct marketing consists of any marketing that relies on direct communication or distribution to individual consumers, rather than through a third party such as mass media. The call to action is a common factor in much of direct marketing.
Which of the following involves faceDescription: Personal selling is a face-to-face selling technique by which a salesperson uses his or her interpersonal skills to persuade a customer in buying a particular product.
What is face to face sales called?What is Face-to-Face Sales? Also called “personal selling,” face-to-face sales is when a business sells its product or service in-person to the customer. Used in both B2B and B2C, this kind of sales helps build a human connection by selling on a personal level.
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