Personal Selling: Benefits, Drawbacks & How Does it Work?

Personal Selling in the World of Digital Commerce

According to a report by Salesforce, high-performing sales teams are 2.8 times more likely to say that their sales organizations have become much more focused on personalizing customer interactions over the past 12–18 months.

What does this indicate? It tells you that personalization is the future of eCommerce. More and more companies are now focusing on providing their consumers with a more personal touch so they can sell more seamlessly and build long-term relationships with their clients. Personal selling is one such technique that plays a crucial role in marketing and customer relationship management (CRM).

Let’s begin by understanding the concept of personal selling before we get into the specifics of personal selling and how you can incorporate it into your business.

Decoding Personal Selling: Meaning and Process

Personal selling refers to the process of directly engaging with buyers to explain to them about your product and communicate with them about their expectations and experience. But what is personal selling exactly? Personal selling meaning encompasses the idea of creating a customer relationship so that you can walk them through the process and value of the product. It helps you develop long-term relationships and promotes customer loyalty.

The personal selling process typically involves several steps:

1. Prospecting: Identifying potential customers
2. Pre-approach: Researching the prospect
3. Approach: Making initial contact
4. Presentation: Demonstrating the product or service
5. Handling objections: Addressing customer concerns
6. Closing: Finalizing the sale
7. Follow-up: Ensuring customer satisfaction

If you look at more traditional businesses, you will find that sales representatives go from door to door and sell their product to prospects. Furthermore, they engage with these prospects personally over a call or physical meetings to close a sale. This practice was prevalent in the olden times, but with the advent of eCommerce and digitization of shopping, personal selling has evolved.

Today, personal selling via calls or meetings is still an essential component of B2B sales, but B2C sales don’t engage using this approach as frequently. However, the nature of personal selling remains focused on building strong customer relationships through face-to-face interaction and two-way communication.

Benefits of Personal Selling

Personal selling makes the customer feel at home and adds value to what you are selling. Here is why it is vital for your business and the importance of personal selling in marketing:

• Customer Loyalty: If you make the process of selling more personalized, your customers will stick to your brand for a long time. Eventually, these are customers who will be the brand advocates for your business. Adding a personal touch to your sales pitch can go a long way in building trust and fostering customer relationships.

• Improvement of Repurchase Rate: When customers know better about your product, that is when they will re-purchase from your website. You must utilize personal selling to educate your customers, which ultimately will make them keener to buy your product. This is where product knowledge and personalized service play a crucial role in the sales process.

• Interactive Pitch: With an interactive pitch, you can convince customers with ease. Personal selling can be beneficial for actively interacting with prospects and informing them about your product. This allows for immediate feedback and the opportunity to address customer objections on the spot.

Advantages of Personal Selling

1. Builds strong customer relationships
2. Allows for personalized service
3. Provides opportunities for product demonstration
4. Enables immediate feedback and question answering
5. Increases customer confidence through face-to-face interaction

Drawbacks of Personal Selling

Personal selling has several advantages and disadvantages. The following are a few drawbacks of personal selling:

High Cost

The primary disadvantage of personal selling is high cost. With increased competition, higher travel, and costly salespersons’ salaries, the cost per conversion (sales) is relatively very high. To compensate for this, many companies adopt commission-based payment, i.e., pay the salesperson only when he generates sales. However, this method may, in turn, be disadvantageous for you as the salesperson may approach clients with high potential return only.

You can reduce cost by using other techniques, like direct mailing, telemarketing, and online communication with the customers.

High-quality/Experienced Salesperson

The problem of finding high-quality salesperson is another disadvantage of personal selling. The experienced salespersons feel the best way their income can outpace their cost-of-living is by changing jobs. Because of the benefits the experience salespeople bring in, most companies hire experienced people instead of fresh college graduates who require training and experience.

Inconsistency

There is a lack of consistency in personal selling, as all salespersons have their own techniques and strategies for selling products. Consequently, there is no unified product message between the sales force and marketing communication.

How Does Personal Selling Work?

Personal selling can be done via two means:

1. Direct – calls, meet, etc.
2. Digital – emails, chat, etc.

Let’s have a closer look at these types of personal selling:

Direct Personal Selling

• Client Meetings: Client meetings are, by far, one of the most effective personal selling examples. They ensure complete client attention and active engagement for selling your product. You can lay down your value proposition and judge the outcome then and there. It also gives you room for spontaneous conversations and clarifications of any other doubts the buyer may have.
  • However, it can be expensive as you have to train resources and manage additional overhead costs. Also, with a personal one-on-one approach, you can only target limited customers. B2B sales can invest in this method if they have a restricted target audience.

• Outbound Sales Calls: Most companies have their sales team that connects with prospects and sells them the product. This approach is personalized as it gives you a chance to interact with the buyer and address their queries. Even though this approach is cheaper as it does not require you to go out and interact with clients, it is still labor-intensive. Thus, you have to spend on hiring resources and their training.
  • For small businesses, this may not be the best approach to rope in more customers.

Digital Personal Selling

As most shops are now online, businesses need to adopt a personalized approach online so they can still provide the personal selling touch to their customers. Here are a few ways through which you can do so:

• Emails: Emails are a great way to initiate conversation. They can help you convey important information and reach out to your customers. Also, since emails land directly in your customer’s inbox, you can make them more personalized to engage with them.

• Live Chat: Live chat is another way to ensure personal selling for your business. It gives you a platform to interact with your customers without spending too much money on resources and training directly. They can be used for lead generation and support.
  • With conversational eCommerce growing in the industry, you can also use live chats to assist your customers when they shop on your website.

• Voice Assistants: Shopping with the help of assistants like Google, Alexa, and Bixbee is the new cool. Hence, make sure to make your store equipped for the same. Shopping with an assistant can make your customer feel like they are interacting with somebody from the store, and it can enhance their shopping experience by a large fold.
  • Also, the questions asked by customers can be used as insightful data to prepare your database and frequently answered questions.

Functions of Personal Selling

1. Prospecting and qualifying leads
2. Pre-approach research
3. Approaching the customer
4. Needs assessment
5. Product presentation and demonstration
6. Handling objections
7. Closing the sale
8. Follow-up and customer service

Sales Techniques and Skills in Personal Selling

Effective personal selling requires a range of sales techniques and skills:

1. Active listening
2. Persuasive communication
3. Product knowledge
4. Problem-solving
5. Negotiation
6. Time management
7. Relationship building
8. Adaptability

These skills help sales representatives in understanding customer needs, overcoming objections, and ultimately closing sales.

Conclusion

Personal selling in the digital era is as essential as it was before. You cannot convince buyers to purchase a product without them knowing about its benefits, uses, applications, etc. The role of personal selling in marketing management remains crucial for building customer relationships and driving sales. Incorporate personal selling into your sales strategy and see your business grow like never before. By focusing on customer satisfaction, leveraging persuasive techniques, and providing added value through personalized service, you can harness the full potential of personal selling and salesmanship in your marketing efforts.