Personal Selling Essay

Step 1: Prospecting Prospecting, involves the Money, Authority, Desire (M.A.D) approach. Firstly I analysed my prospective clients to ensure that they had the money, authority and desire to purchase the products I was selling. Upon analysis I realised that since my target customers were friends and colleagues who themselves had authority on their purchases I decided to focus on Money and Desire. The prospecting methods I used were direct mail, networking and telephone. I sorted through my contacts on social networking sites such as Facebook, Friendster and MSN and also a list of past and present colleagues to sift for viable prospects. Step 2: Pre-approach At this stage, I did a few things to make my personal selling successful. Firstly I drafted email messages and messages to be sent on social networking sites to my viable contacts to inform them about the promotions and items I was selling. I also ensured to highlight the discounts that they would be receiving by purchasing the items from me. I believed that this would create an image of professionalism as it would portray that as a salesperson, I am well informed about my products. Step 3: Approach I moved on to approach, sending out emails and messages through the social networking sites informing them about my products. I also made use of the Chinese New Year season to target those celebrating to purchase the New Year goodies that I was selling. I also promoted the many vouchers, as thoughtful gifts for Valentines’ day for their loved ones, placing emphasis on the Swensen’s Valentines’ day cake voucher as it was one of the few items on sale that was Halal certified allowing me to widen my target consumers to include my Muslim friends, in the process using the customer benefit approach highlighting the discounts they would be receiving if they purchased the items from me. For potential prospects for products from MSC Studio and Mini Challenger outlets, I provided them with the product information and on-going promotional information which I obtained from posters and Colleagues working in MSC Studio as well as from my personal experience working in Challeng er Mini. Which in this case is the product approach. Step 4: Presentation At the presentation stage, I use 2 methods of presentation, AIDA approach and Need Satisfactory Method. AIDA approach includes, getting Attention, making prospect Interested, convert his Desire to conviction, as well as to take purchase Action. Which in this case, I have done it through sending out PowerPoint slide attachment and also created an album on facebook containing the products I’m selling. I also included the pricing and the discounts that they would be receiving. This grabs the prospects Attention, Interest and Desire to take Action. The need-satisfaction method would be to confirm clients’ needs and to show the product that can offer solution. In this case, I would approach potential prospects and ask them questions on what they are looking for maybe in-terms of Chinese New Year goodies or Valentines’ day gifts and be sure not to make them feel uneasy while doing so. After confirming their needs, recommendations would be made to them based on individu al customer needs. Step 5: Trial close After the presentation stage, I would ask if there are any discomforts in my recommendations. Example, â€Å"Are these what you’re looking for?† and â€Å"how does this sound to u?† For prospects who seemed interested but needed time to think about it, I made follow up calls about a couple of days later to ensure that it would not become a dead sales lead. This eventually made way for a few successful sales. Step 6: Objections There is definitely bound to be objections in the course of personal selling. Some of the objections that I faced from my prospects were: 1. Not interested in the item 2. Not Halal. 3. Too expensive. 4. Already bought. 5. Uncertainty in purchasing Step 7: Meeting Objections When I face objections, I would try to come up with solutions. These are some solutions for the above objections: 1. Try to offer another product that suits their need or interest 2. Offer to hold the sales period open for them till the very last day. 3. Offer cheaper range products which meets their budget. 4. Introduce them to other products which they may not have bought. 5. Persuade them by highlighting the benefits of buying the product. Step 8: The close For products from the Cupid ‘N’ You pre-order, during the closing I would have to take down their order, reconfirm it, and collect the money as well as to inform them about the collection date (27 January 2011). I would also thank them for buying from me. As for personal selling done at MSC Studio, I would just thank my customers for buying as the collecting of money and taking of order are suppose to be done by the MSC staff. Step 9: Follow up and Service I intend to contact my customers a few days in advance before the 27th of January, to remind them that the items will be ready for delivery on the 27th of January. I will also be personally delivering the items to my customers. I intend to attach a personalised thank you note with each of my customers to show my appreciation for their support. I would also be offering free gift wrapping for items which have been intended as Valentines’ day gift, upon request from my customer. A satisfied customer is a loyal customer and satisfied customers are known to spread positive word-of-mouth and this would defiantly prove to be essential should I need their continued support in future sales tasks. Question 2 Personal Selling Event For this round of Personal selling project, we were given Cupid ‘N’ You, a Chinese New Year and Valentines’ Day pre-order event to work with by the EMRS, TEP– MSC festive team. The items on sale for this event were from various companies that included Mrs Fields, Awfully Chocolate, Astons, Ritz Apple Strudel and Swensen’s, Fragrance, Horse Brand Bird’s Nest, Taiwan snacks, CNY Pastries Season and Cornery Popcorn. Mrs Fields and Astons offered discounted cash vouchers while Awfully Chocolate Ritz Apple Strudel and Swensen’s were offering discounted product vouchers. Fragrance offered three different varieties of ‘Bak Kwa’ in either 500g or 1kg packages at a discounted price. Horse Brand Bird’s Nest offered different varieties of Bird’s Nest, chicken essence as well as abalone. Taiwan snacks, CNY Pastries and Season offered snacks, cookies, cakes and pastries, well suited as Chinese New Year goodies. Cornery Popcorn, offered two, regular sized popcorn as a set allowing customers to choose from a range of three flavours. Moreover being attached to Challenger Mini for this stopover, I could also only include items from MSC Studio which housed brands such as Faceshop, Sasa, Giordano, Six accessories, Ameba as well as many others and Challenger Mini two year memberships into my overall Personal selling. Question 3 Refer to annex 1 Question 4 Lessons Learnt Lessons that I have learnt in the course of this personal selling process is that One must have sufficient product knowledge before they can do recommendations that suit individual consumer needs and persuade their customers to successfully buy their products. There will always be rejections but I should not let that put me down, instead I should develop a more positive mindset in failures and use that as a stepping stone and improve on my sales techniques in order to achieve my target. I have also learnt to always be aware of a sales opportunity as it may arise at any time. I should also be aware of my competitors offering so that I will be able to highlight the benefits of purchasing from me. Challenges The challenges I encountered for this project was the tight deadlines that had to be met. In addition, with the busy pace of life, sometimes people tend to overlook emails and messages so I had to follow up with every single prospect to verify their interest in the products and try to close the deal which was time consuming. There was also the issue of my customers preferring competitors offering in the case of ‘Bak Kwa’. I â€Å"lost† quite a few customers as they preferred Bee Cheng Hiang ‘Bak Kwa’ comparative to that from Fragrance that I was selling. I had to place great emphasis on the discount being offered, to tempt my prospects. One specific challenge that I encountered was a prospective customer who was aware of this promotion and had expressed interest in it, had to go to Malaysia urgently for a week. I was unable to reach her to close the deal in time. My friend only came back to Singapore on the 21st of January 2011 and contacted me immeiately to order six kilograms of Fragrance ‘Bak Kwa’ from me. I was unable to process this order as the last date to place the order for the festive sales was 20th January 2011. Even though I was unable to close such a huge individual deal, I am glad that this Personal Selling Process has given me a greater exposure to the real working world. Lastly, through this process, I have learnt to be flexible and provide good customer service in order to meet customer’s needs.