Need of a Salesperson to Push Products - Essay Example

Need of a Salesperson to Push Products Poon and Fatt (2000) define a salesperson as an individual whose duty is to sell products and services to willing and able entities in return for money and other compensation. Sales can take place through direct sales, pro-forma sales and agency based sales. It may also take place through indirect methods or vending machines. The salesperson sells, products, company and services for which he has the duty to sell. In a firm, the sales people belong to the marketing department that is tasked with the objectives of increasing the desirability and value of the company commodities to the customers. Too attain this strategic objective, the sales team has to use a collection of promotional techniques such as publicity, advertising and creation of sales channels that are new to both the existing and new market ventures. It is usually the duty of the sales people to determine the needs of the customer and use his experience and professional ability to feel what the customer needs. Good sales people are those that think beyond the monetary aspect of the deal and take the issue to personal levels. His objectives are supposed to be motivated by both success and failure because, according to Breakenridge (2012), sales people only make 20% of all their effort in a common market. The situation may be tougher in a new market and simpler in a market dominated by the advertised products. Sales people are also expected to have the capability of learning the connectedness needs, development needs, problem solving abilities in which case these will enhance consumer ability to access and use the goods effectively. Consumer loyalty comes from customer satisfaction. Continued purchase relies on delivering well-being. Sales people therefore ought to have the relevant knowledge or an orientation based on the hands-on experience and practice. Poon and Fatt (2000) contend that sales people with a learning orientation based on practice and experience perform better. Increased sales are based on this experience and ability to perform better at the market place. Therefore, the knowledge and experience give the consumer in-depth explanation of the goods available for sale. The relationships between business and the customers are built by the sales people in the market. Through relations, sales people have the ability to secure contracts fro the companies that they work for. Sales people also help customers to think differently about companies and the companies’ products. In thinking differently, the customers are able to divert their thoughts from previous scandals done by the companies to the current states of qualities, satisfaction, operations and this leads to the company realising more sales hence a higher profit (Karadeniz, 2009). Expectation of a Sales Professional The sole responsibility of a marketer is to make sure that the commodities of a given company are marketed accordingly. The challenges that the salesperson goes through in his job are the basis upon which the expectations are built. Problem solving is one of the expectations of a sales person. In this regard, the salespeople experience so many problems in their work and the way they solve these problems will determine whether they will have a market created or not. Another expectation is effective representation of the firm they are working for. The firm will have good public relations to the outside world if it has effective customers. The sales people are supposed to be aware of the needs of the consumers and communicate benefits. These benefits are supposed to be the mainstay of both the company and the goods being sold. Sales people are supposed to educate the customers on the use of the products and answer any questions that refer to the goods or services. In this regard, they are expected to express their experience towards the products and satisfy the demands of the customers. Assisting people to buy through courteous communication and respect forms ethical expectations of the salesperson to the consumer and the company. I have all the above mentioned expectations of a salesperson which makes me possible to perform the aforementioned roles and expectations, roles and responsibilities. In the same regard, personal attributes such as humility, effective collaboration with the people, in this case the customers and the good communication skills will enhance effective communication with the customers. John (1999) noted that the work of a salesperson is to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction and professional attitude throughout this social career. Therefore, the work does not only entail dealing with the customers but also with the opinion leaders and pundits in that respective field of operation. It is worth noting also that market leaders in the respective field of sales would always tend to dominate when it comes to information spread. This makes it possible for the salespersons to have the duty of initiating a rapport with them. Ethical Policies in Advertising Every consumer is protected by the consumer protection acts in the laws. The law holds the retailer or the manufacture responsible for any misfit in the product quality that may lead to the customer being harmed. One of the regulations is the ethics policy. In this policy, all promotional methods in a product are supposed to be truthful, display a high sense of honesty and create a direct connection between the actual product and the displayed information. Ethics in sales determine that adverts are supposed to be in compliant with the national laws such as environmental laws and consumer satisfaction. An advert should divulge all the information required in making the public domain so that the customer has a direct link with the actual product (Brock, 2012). Other ethical policies and requirements in sales promotion and sales people are: An advert respecting the dignity of every human being. Appeals to lust, envy and vanity are not supposed to be upheld. Need for obligation to social responsibility such as ecology and the entire environment are also parts of the ethical aspects in sales and sales promotion. Maintaining ethics in competition so that acts of unfairness are supposed to be upheld in the company and buy all sales people. Similarities between Public Relations, Corporate Advertising and Publicity The concept behind these three issues is the same. All these are designed in such a way that they have the purpose of enhancing and raising awareness of a company or its products positively. Secondly, all these act as media through which companies use to reach to the specified audience in the customer domain. The audience may be of a particular characteristic such as gender, age, class taste and fashion (Christopher, 2008). Another similarity between these is that they all pass their messages through the mass media. They may all use any of the ways used to generate awareness through the mass media and in doing so, they create an awareness that is paramount to the objectives of the company and the goods being advertised. Their use is so wide that even countries use all these to create an opinion of themselves to the foreign investment and aid agencies so that specified ways of viewing the country can be established. Therefore, these three terms are the core upon which information is spread from a centre to the whole world concerned with that information. Differences between Public Relations, Publicity, and Corporate Advertising In advertising, the subject company pays for space in media that has been identified such as the internet, radio. In this way, information is delivered to the customers Corporate advertising has costs that are fixed. In this advertising, the audience is exposed to the advertising in its demographics. On the other hand, in terms of costs, public relations and publicity do not have fixed costs where a specified amount of money is supposed to be paid for the media and advertising. In terms of being persuasive, public relations and publicity are primarily informative. This is opposed to the aspect of corporate advertising which is both informative and persuasive. Specific reference to publicity is that it does not identify the sponsor while as opposed to the advertisements which do identify the sponsors. While advertisements in the corporate sector are paid for, public relations and publicity are all free according to the Harvard Business Review (2004). Different authors have come up with different expressions on the role of public relations. Poon and Fatt (2000) noted that public relations has the aim of creating the public opinions on the aspect being advertised. This may take the aim of the organization or an idea by a person. In the field of advertisement, there is usually a focus on one product at a time whereas publicity has the aim of attracting the media attention, gaining publicity and being visible in the eyes of the whole world or segmented region. When advertisements are created, they are shown just like they were created without making any alteration to it. This is not the case with publicity whereby there are changes that can be made to the final objective and information to the public depending on the perceived acceptance or rejection. There is a high sense of sensitivity just prior to delivery as opposed to the prior research done before creation of the ads (Jamail, 2013). References Berger, John (1999). Ways of Seeing. London, England: BBC. Breakenridge, D. (2012), Social media and public relations: Eight new practices for the PR professional, New Jersey: FT Press. Brock, D. (2012, January 12). Retrieved March 12, 2014, from The Importance of Push and Pull in Sales: http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/the-importance-of-push-and-pull-in-sales. Christopher, C. (2008). “A Hedonist’s Reckoning,” Financial Times (12 March31 October):7. This article can also be found at: http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto 103120081426409516. Harvard Business Review. (2004). Marketing. Massachussetts: Harvard Business School. Jamail, N. (2013). The Sales Proffesional Playbook. New York: eBookIt.com. Karadeniz, M. (2009). The Comparison of Public Relations and Advertisements Activities in a Successful Marketing Management. Journal of Naval Science and Engineering , 5 (2), 43-54. Poon, a., & Fatt, T. (2000). Criteria used for Evaluating Sales Persons. Management Research News, 23(1), 27-32. Read More