Personal selling

Personal selling is a sales technique that implies a salesperson communicating face-to-face with a customer to make a deal. Brands use this sales approach to convey the end benefits of products and encourage consumers to shop.

In this article, we’ll unveil the importance, advantages, disadvantages, and types of personal selling. We’ll also uncover 7 best personal selling techniques.

Why is personal selling important?

Many companies implement personal selling because of the advantages businesses and customers can reap. This sales technique can be used at any stage of communication with a prospective customer. It helps introduce the product to consumers for the first time or unveil its value to people who have already seen it in ads. Personal selling implies a presentation of a product. Besides, customers can ask salespeople to demonstrate goods and all functions. This works perfectly with complex products which clients need to discover first.

Face-to-face selling enables sales managers to adjust to the needs and requirements of consumers. They can see reactions and listen to consumers’ wants. Once salespeople understand their customers’ motivations and needs, they can adapt their sales message, provide a choice of suitable products, and adjust to consumers’ pricing requirements. Clients can ask questions to find out the details, and sales managers can provide the necessary answers. Moreover, if clients have objections, a salesperson can always address them and encourage consumers to purchase.

Personal selling enables brands to convert qualified leads into customers. It brings sales and increases revenue. Consumers stay satisfied with the service and product because they receive all the necessary information.

Now that you know about the importance, let’s proceed to the pros and cons.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Personal Selling

In an increasingly competitive market, brands strive to implement new marketing and sales techniques to reach leads and convert them into customers. Personal sales approach often plays a crucial part in closing a deal. Professional sales reps who understand the needs and desires of their customers can boost sales and customer satisfaction. These are just a few pros of personal selling. Let’s continue to find out even more advantages.

The advantages of personal selling include the following:

• improved brand image;
• higher customer satisfaction;
• a better understanding of the product’s features and value;
• increased sales;
• higher revenue;
• customer trust;
• personalized communication between a customer and a brand;
• individual approach;
• face-to-face interaction.

However, every marketing technique carries disadvantages as well. They are the following:

• increased spending on resources and time;
• the inability of sales reps to reach several leads at once;
• the costly and time-consuming process of training sales reps;
  a limited reach.

Now that you know the pros and cons of this method, it’s time to unveil the types. The next section will give you a hint on which form of personal selling your business needs.

Types of Personal Selling

We can differentiate three main types of personal selling based on salespeople's activity. We’ll review each of them in detail to determine which suits your business purpose the most. So let’s dive in.

• Order takers. This type implies a potential client approaching a salesperson to find out the details about a specific product: its features, value, pricing, benefits, etc. Sales reps address prospects’ questions and try to understand their motivations, needs, and desires. Prospects can find salespeople who present this type of personal selling in brick-and-mortar stores. Leads can approach retail sales assistants or telemarketers to receive answers to their questions. Usually, these specialists focus on identifying prospective customers’ needs and finding a perfect solution among the brand’s inventory.
• Order getters. This type involves proactive sales representatives. It means they show initiative to tell prospects about the product and unveil its benefits and features. These salespeople reach new people, interact with them, and ask them about their needs and pain points to offer a perfect solution. These perfect communicators bring new customers and sales to a business.
• Order creators. This type of personal selling aims to make people promote a product and brand to their family and friends. Sales reps strive to establish trust and encourage word-of-mouth promotion. For instance, a beauty products company reaches out to a cosmetologist to encourage this person to promote the company’s products to clients.

Now that you know the types, let’s discover 8 excellent personal selling techniques that will help you attain more clients and increase profits.

7 Personal Selling Techniques

This section is designed to uncover the strategies you can use to successfully implement personal selling into your business. Let’s review each of them to know how to act.

1. Make sure that your sales reps are friendly and empathetic. The first thing that makes the difference when selling is the personal traits of your salespeople. To win deals, your sales reps should be natural, friendly, and empathetic. If you want to reach this effect, consider conducting special training to show your employees what they should and shouldn’t do when communicating with customers face-to-face. Teach your sales team different techniques that help sell faster, like talking about the problems of customers your product has already managed to solve.
2. Keep in mind buyer personas. Your buyer persona covers all the traits, interests, motivations, needs, and problems of your potential customers. It’s crucial for the sales team to have it at hand. This way, they can figure out how to start interaction and what points to emphasize to make a sale. Your team should work with buyer personas to exclude prospects that don’t fit your criteria. It will enable you to avoid spending time and money on unqualified leads.
3. Listen to customers. The main task of every sales representative is to listen and hear your consumers. They will communicate their needs, requirements, desires, and problems so that you can help them. Your sales team can ask certain questions to understand customers better and identify their concerns. This way, your sales reps can relate your product to potential customers' motivations.
4. Uncover end value to prospects. After discovering leads’ needs and understanding their pain points, salespeople should focus on the end benefits your product can provide. At this stage, potential customers focus on the value rather than the features it has. They only need a working solution for their problem. Tell your sales team to save time on unveiling the product's features. You can’t be one hundred percent sure that they will have a relation to consumers’ problems.
5. Make your communication personal. Salespeople should be assigned to address every qualified lead personally when communicating face-to-face. Whenever a prospect has any questions, sales reps strive to address them as personally as possible. It will help establish trust and move them down the sales funnel.
6. Wisely offer to make a purchase. The main task of each sales team is to close more deals. However, you should do it smartly. Once your sales representatives finish with the presentation of the product and address all prospects’ questions and objections, they can move to the stage of closing the sale. Offer the sales team to explore different closing phrases that work with customers.
7. Remember about after-sales service. After-sales service is crucial for building a base of loyal customers. You should follow up with your consumers even after you close the deal. Your sales reps can interact with them using phone, email campaigns, face-to-face communication, etc. It helps build trusting relationships and encourages consumers to return for another product. Constant communication also enables your sales team to implement cross-selling and up-selling.

Congrats, now you know what personal selling is and why it’s essential. After exploring the types and strategies, you can be sure whether personal selling is a good choice for your company.