There are three types of sales promotion strategies: Push, Pull, or a combination of the two.
A Push strategy involves convincing trade intermediary channel members to "push" the product through the distribution channels to the ultimate consumer via promotions and personal selling efforts. The company promotes the product through a reseller who in turn promotes it to yet another reseller or the final consumer. Trade-promotion objectives are to persuade retailers or wholesalers to carry a brand, give a brand shelf space, promote a brand in advertising, and/or push a brand to final consumers. Typical tactics employed in push strategy are: allowances, buy-back guarantees, free trials, contests, specialty advertising items, discounts, displays, and premiums.
A Pull strategy attempts to get consumers to "pull" the product from the manufacturer through the marketing channel. The company focuses its marketing communications efforts on consumers in the hope that it stimulates interest and demand for the product at the end-user level. This strategy is often employed if distributors are reluctant to carry a product because it gets as many consumers as possible to go to retail outlets and request the product, thus pulling it through the channel. Consumer-promotion objectives are to entice consumers to try a new product, lure customers away from competitors’ products, get consumers to "load up" on a mature product, hold & reward loyal customers, and build consumer relationships. Typical tactics employed in pull strategy are: samples, coupons, cash refunds and rebates, premiums, advertising specialties, loyalty programs/patronage rewards, contests, sweepstakes, games, and point-of-purchase (POP) displays.
Car dealers often provide a good example of a combination strategy. If you pay attention to car dealers' advertising, you will often hear them speak of cash-back offers and dealer incentives.
Sales Techniques
The sale can be made through:
•Direct sales, involving person to person contact
•Pro forma sales
•Agency-based
1.Sales agents (real estate, manufacturing)
2.Sales outsourcing through direct branded representation
3.Transaction sales
4.Consultative sales
5.Complex sales
6.Consignment
7.Telemarketing or telesales
8.Retail or consumer
•Traveling salesman
•Door-to-door
•To tourists on crowded beach
•Request for proposal – An invitation for suppliers, through a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific product or service. An RFP is usually part of a complex sales process, also known as enterprise sales.
•Business-to-business – Business-to-business sales are much more relationship based owing to the lack of emotional attachment to the products in question. Industrial/Professional Sales is selling from one business to another
•Electronic
1.Web – Business-to-business and business-to-consumer
2.Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) – A set of standard for structuring information to be electronically exchanged between and within businesses
•Indirect, human-mediated but with indirect contact
•Mail-order
Sales Methods
•Selling technique
•SPIN Selling
•Consultative selling
•Sales enablement
•Solution selling
•Conceptual Selling
•Strategic Selling
•Sales Negotiation
•Reverse Selling
•Paint-the-Picture
•Large Account Management Process
Steps Involved in a Sales Process
A sales process is nothing but a systematic approach towards learning and performing the sales. The reason behind building such a sales strategy is to study the risk factors linked with the seller and the buyer. It is to standardize the process of selling to an extent that even the newly appointed sales agents can learn what actually a sales process is.
The Six Steps involved in a Sales Process are as follows:
•Generating Sales Lead: Sales lead is the identity of an entity or person, who is interested in the purchase of the product or service. It is the first stage in a sales process. Such leads can be generated from direct marketing, advertising, trade shows, Internet marketing or also from cold calling. Every sales-lead needs to be evaluated to get qualified as a sales-prospect. Such evaluations are based on the lead's availability in terms of funding, product applicability and the time frame for purchase.
•Qualify the Prospect: In the sales process, the sales professional has to determine whether the prospect will become a qualified prospect, or not. This could be determined through a set of variables which include authorization of transact business, business needs, money or an economic buyer.
•Identify the need: The next step in the sales process is to identify the need. In this stage, the sales professional enquires about the customers need for the product. If the respondent (prospective customer) has not used the product as yet, he would give them information about the company's product and would inform them on how it could be beneficial to their needs.
•Placing the Proposal: In the process of sales, once the agent is confident enough that he has satisfied the customer's need for the product; he should come up with the proposal. A proposal is based up on what the agent has learned about the customer's needs and thus deciding what product solution best fits. Of course an agent learns this aspect with time as he comes across large numbers of customers. An agent's rapport with the customer can yield positive results.
•Closing the Deal: The final major step is to close the deal. It is one of the most important steps in the sales process. It may happen that a deal that had looked positive in the beginning, might turn negative at closing time. Thus it is crucial that the agent holds the interest of the customer till his final commitment. This step is one of the most important to learn to increase the sales of your organization.
•Completing the deal: Completing the deal is simply the process in which the money is exchanged in return of the product or service. Deal transactions hold a primary position as the hub of commerce.
Though delivering a product or service is not technically a part of sales process, but it is also a highly important step. If the agent does not deliver, then there is no sale of the product
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Sales Management
Managing the sales process is typically the job of the Sales Manager. Good sales managers usually exhibit the characteristics of: organization, a good personal sales record, enthusiasm, ambition, product knowledge, trustworthiness, mentoring skills, and somebody who is respected by others.
While an in-depth discussion of sales management is beyond the scope of this crash-course, I'll mention one tool often used by sales managers to manage the sales process. This is called the Sales Funnel or Sales Pipeline Report.
The Sales Funnel (or Sales Pipeline)
A sales funnel report presents a "snapshot" of your sales function at any given point in time. For conceptual purposes, the sales process is often compared to a funnel where new leads coming into the system (i.e. prospects) are initially placed into the top of the funnel (the widest part) and then worked through the system by informing, persuading, overcoming objections, providing information, demonstrating, providing free samples, etc., etc. until at the narrow part of the funnel, an order is placed and a sales is closed when payment from the customer is received.
The funnel framework works fairly well because for all new leads that are generated by marketing, there is a closing rate that represents the sales that ultimately result. The number of resulting sales is usually significantly less than the number of total leads generated hence it is useful to think that as leads work their way further down the funnel there will be less and less of them until they come out the narrow end of the funnel as sales.
One important thing to note is that organizations define each phase in the sales process (or, part of the funnel) differently. Each step working through the funnel should have clearly defined criteria that go along with it so at each part of the funnel, there is specific knowledge about all the leads at that stage. In other words, leads become more and more qualified as they work their way through the funnel and at each step, you will know exactly what that specific level of qualification is. Another important thing to keep in mind is that the funnel is a great way to track and forecast sales, as well as, gauge marketing activities.
By running a Sales Funnel Report, the sales manager can visually see how many leads are at each step, if there are any "bottlenecks", or if there are an insufficient number of leads at any stage. Armed with that knowledge, then the sales manager may instruct his or her sales force where they should focus more attention to keep sales at the desired level. He or she can then also work closely with the marketing manager to ensure they are generating enough leads to hit sales goals, whether the leads are of high enough quality, or what further needs to be done to hit sales goals.
In short, the funnel can clearly point out what adjustments need to be made within the sales function to hit sales goals. That might mean that marketing activities need to be adjusted, that addition sales training is needed, or that sales personnel need to focus their efforts and activities on certain parts of the sales pipeline to keep the entire process on balance and running smoothly. The sales funnel also helps sales and marketing work closely together to meet organizational sales objectives. It is a wonderful management tool.
Sales Tips
1) Be sincere with people. Too many sales people act in a manner that seems artificial or they only feign interest in their prospects' problems and concerns. People are smart and see right through such insincerity. If you are not sincere and honest with everyone you meet then you should not be in sales.
2) It is vitally important to constantly hone your sales and communications skills. Continuous growth and training in formal professional selling techniques is also very important. Take training classes, listen to audio cassette professional development tapes, read all the professional development material you can get your hands on, and start a program of self-study and development in sales today if you haven't already.
3) First listen to your customer, understand his or her wants and needs, and only then try to determine whether or not you can deliver the product or services to meet those wants and needs. If you approach a prospect with a solution before understanding the problem you are likely to be wrong about the solution.
4) The best sales people ask a lot of questions and genuinely listen to the answers before speaking again.
5) Your prospects and customers are all different so you should treat them differently.
6) The best sales people listen much more than they talk.
7) Find out what your prospects want and then give it to them.
8) If you cannot give your prospects what they want, tell them so and help them find what they are looking for elsewhere.
9) If you think that you cannot make it in sales as a profession, then you probably should not even try.
While an in-depth discussion of sales management is beyond the scope of this crash-course, I'll mention one tool often used by sales managers to manage the sales process. This is called the Sales Funnel or Sales Pipeline Report.
The Sales Funnel (or Sales Pipeline)
A sales funnel report presents a "snapshot" of your sales function at any given point in time. For conceptual purposes, the sales process is often compared to a funnel where new leads coming into the system (i.e. prospects) are initially placed into the top of the funnel (the widest part) and then worked through the system by informing, persuading, overcoming objections, providing information, demonstrating, providing free samples, etc., etc. until at the narrow part of the funnel, an order is placed and a sales is closed when payment from the customer is received.
The funnel framework works fairly well because for all new leads that are generated by marketing, there is a closing rate that represents the sales that ultimately result. The number of resulting sales is usually significantly less than the number of total leads generated hence it is useful to think that as leads work their way further down the funnel there will be less and less of them until they come out the narrow end of the funnel as sales.
One important thing to note is that organizations define each phase in the sales process (or, part of the funnel) differently. Each step working through the funnel should have clearly defined criteria that go along with it so at each part of the funnel, there is specific knowledge about all the leads at that stage. In other words, leads become more and more qualified as they work their way through the funnel and at each step, you will know exactly what that specific level of qualification is. Another important thing to keep in mind is that the funnel is a great way to track and forecast sales, as well as, gauge marketing activities.
By running a Sales Funnel Report, the sales manager can visually see how many leads are at each step, if there are any "bottlenecks", or if there are an insufficient number of leads at any stage. Armed with that knowledge, then the sales manager may instruct his or her sales force where they should focus more attention to keep sales at the desired level. He or she can then also work closely with the marketing manager to ensure they are generating enough leads to hit sales goals, whether the leads are of high enough quality, or what further needs to be done to hit sales goals.
In short, the funnel can clearly point out what adjustments need to be made within the sales function to hit sales goals. That might mean that marketing activities need to be adjusted, that addition sales training is needed, or that sales personnel need to focus their efforts and activities on certain parts of the sales pipeline to keep the entire process on balance and running smoothly. The sales funnel also helps sales and marketing work closely together to meet organizational sales objectives. It is a wonderful management tool.
Sales Tips
1) Be sincere with people. Too many sales people act in a manner that seems artificial or they only feign interest in their prospects' problems and concerns. People are smart and see right through such insincerity. If you are not sincere and honest with everyone you meet then you should not be in sales.
2) It is vitally important to constantly hone your sales and communications skills. Continuous growth and training in formal professional selling techniques is also very important. Take training classes, listen to audio cassette professional development tapes, read all the professional development material you can get your hands on, and start a program of self-study and development in sales today if you haven't already.
3) First listen to your customer, understand his or her wants and needs, and only then try to determine whether or not you can deliver the product or services to meet those wants and needs. If you approach a prospect with a solution before understanding the problem you are likely to be wrong about the solution.
4) The best sales people ask a lot of questions and genuinely listen to the answers before speaking again.
5) Your prospects and customers are all different so you should treat them differently.
6) The best sales people listen much more than they talk.
7) Find out what your prospects want and then give it to them.
8) If you cannot give your prospects what they want, tell them so and help them find what they are looking for elsewhere.
9) If you think that you cannot make it in sales as a profession, then you probably should not even try.
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