Sales strategies
Personal selling is a process that involves the seller’s promotional influence over the buyer, conducted on a person-to-person basis.
Main types of personal selling
Telemarketing sales
This would involve setting up a sales team for WE CLEAN that takes up orders from customers over the telephone. The team will be tasked with calling up business premises using a call list in order to find potential customers and close the sale.
Delivery sales
The salespeople will be expected to deliver cleaning services to business premises that have called up for the service (Garber 12). Existing customers can also subscribe to having the cleaners over during particular days (Pride 406). They will benefit from the cleaning delivery service.
Outside order takers
This type of personal selling involves the sales team meeting with the business premises and taking orders from the customer, after which they can transfer these orders to the WE CLEAN delivery team.
Missionary sales
The aim of this sales team would be to approach the housekeeping department of a business premise and to make them aware of WE CLEAN services.
Point of sale merchandising
This will involve face-to-face contact between the sales team of WE CLEAN and the retailers within their area of jurisdiction. The retailers are visited by the sales representatives and are asked to use WE CLEAN products.
How do these types of personal selling support the promotion mix?
Personal selling supports the promotional mix in the following ways:
Ensuring high customer attention
The business premises that are the target customers for WE CLEAN will be informed at a personal level about the cleaning services offered thereby making them aware of these services. The customer’s attention is attracted by the attitude, appearance, and extensive product knowledge that the sales team portrays.
The message is customized
The sales team approaches the potential customers in person. The interpersonal contact ensures that WE CLEAN presents their brand and sells it over other competitor services.
Interactivity
The direct contact between the WE CLEAN sales team and the businesses promotes an interaction between the two that helps build future relationships between the two parties.
Adaptability
Personal selling can be adapted to suit different customers or situations. For example, WE CLEAN offers cleaning services to individual homeowners and businesses. In the U.K, WE CLEAN will be looking to tap into the business front.
Personal selling will attach a personalized feel to it. A potential customer will get the opportunity to get on-the-spot advice on the range of services offered by WE CLEAN (Lamb, Hair and McDaniel 12).
The sales team will be out to promote the services offered by the company through their attitude, appearance, and how well they can display knowledge of the products and services. All of these will be with an aim to inform and encourage business premises to try out WE CLEAN services.
How are sales strategies revised in line with corporate objectives?
- Sales strategies should be made to reflect on the mission of WE CLEAN. The company aims to exploit the business market in the U.K. One sales strategy is to attract and retain customers to ensure future customer loyalty.
- In order to outsell the pre-existing competition that also offers cleaning services, WE CLEAN will aim to offer its customers the best cleaning solutions, with a variety to choose from.
- The mission of WE CLEAN is to supply home cleaning services and daily office cleaning to businesses. WE CLEAN aims to target and penetrate the most profitable market, which in the case of the U.K, is the offices in businesses.
- WE CLEAN is an established brand in the USA. In looking to penetrate the UK market, the company will help in refining and maximizing the competitive advantage and service differentiation so as to increase its market margin and share (Holden 6).
New sales staff
How will you organize /structure the sales team and what procedures will the team need to work to?
The sales team will be organized around a team organizational structure. WE CLEAN is a small, albeit well-established cleaning services company in the U.S where it already has a small sales force. WE CLEAN are looking to establish in the U.K. It would be best to have people working in teams so that they can combine their competencies to achieve the company’s targets.
The team structure can also duplicate the various departments and functional areas of the U.S office in the U.K. The company needs to focus on localized sales strategies best suited for the UK market. Working in teams enables greater flexibility that will make it easier to adapt to the dynamics of the U.K market. This will keep in mind the competition as well as customer demands in the UK market.
The team will have to work on the same goal of reaching the businesses and promoting the cleaning services. The UK sales team would benefit by working closely together with their US counterparts so as to gain important tips on promoting their brand.
In a sales team, each person has a specific role assigned to them. A team structure will work best in bringing together professionals with different expertise. Integrating the team structure ensures that the members get to work more closely together. This is especially profitable in a global business venture, as in the case of WE CLEAN setting up an office in the U.K. This opens up many avenues for promotions. The sales and marketing departments can share important feedback and support each other to attain the company’s goals. Team managers will be put in place to ensure interdependence and that the needs of each team are dealt with.
The interdependence of various teams within the company will provide more opportunities for the sales team to benefit from this co-ordination. A good example is where the sales team makes use of the marketing strategies made by the marketing department to prospect for clients. This requires that there is open communication between the departments to enable full utilization of resources to meet client needs and demands.
The internal organization structure should maintain its focus on serving the customer. The challenge of working in different closely related teams within an organization is the creation of another layer of internal reporting and staffing challenges.
Explain the importance of selecting sales professionals and how they will be selected and recruited.
A sales professional will play the role of a problem-solver whose focus will be on meeting customer needs as well as achieve the company’s targets. He will identify customer needs and offer solutions to their problems. He will be able to sell the company and develop relationships to ensure future customer loyalty. A professional salesperson will be ready to go the extra mile to fulfill customer’s needs beyond their expectations. He should be a self-starter with great finishing power to enable him close sales. A sales professional will have the relevant sales skills and excellent communication skills which are important in a professional.
The sales professionals can be selected and recruited through internal recruitment, external recruitment, direct applicants, referrals, advertisements, private employment agency, or via outsourcing.
- WE CLEAN is an established company in the US with a small sales force. Amongst these, an experienced sales professional can be recruited to head the newly formed UK team.
- WE CLEAN can also seek to recruit a sales professional from the UK market who knows and understand the market demographics of the UK.
- WE CLEAN is an established company with a human resource management system where interested jobseekers can drop their CVs. The management can pick out a qualified sales professional from this job pool.
- The current sales team of WE CLEAN can also offer up referrals of qualified people with the relevant sales background.
- The post of a sales professional is of a specialist nature, WE CLEAN can invest in advertising the job vacancy through the internet and other media.
- WE CLEAN can use a private employment agency whose role is to collect information from unemployed and also employed people about their job skills. From, here, and the agency can find a sales professional who fits the criteria that WE CLEAN is looking for.
- WE CLEAN are expanding its services globally. It can also use a firm based in the UK to outsource a sales professional to work for the company.
How will they be motivated?
The sales professional can be motivated by offering a relocation allowance if he comes from a region outside the U.K.
A comprehensive medical cover can be extended to the employee and his family.
The pay package can also come with paid vacations, food allowance, trips, and bonuses on hitting company targets.
How will they be remunerated?
Remuneration of sales professional will be based on a fixed basic salary and commissions calculated as a percentage on hitting set company targets.
What training will be provided?
Training will be offered both in-house and externally.
In-house training will bring together all the employees of the WE CLEAN sales department and the training facilitated by the sales managers. External training will be conducted periodically by trainers from qualified training institutes. These will aim to improve the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the sales professionals. Training provides professional development by maintaining, upgrading, and updating skills throughout professional life.
Describe two techniques you will use to coordinate and control sale output.
Customer relationship management (CRM)
The interaction with existing and prospective customers for WE CLEAN is managed using an automated sales system. With regard to sales, software that tracks and records every stage of the sales process for each potential client can be incorporated in order to project on the sales output.
Sales forecast
WE CLEAN are an already established company. Sales data and internal accounting records from previous years together with external current market and economic indicators can be used to make a sales estimate for the forecast period.
Alternatively, market research into the U.K market and industry information can be aligned with the sales strategies and organizational objectives in order to come up with a sales estimate for the forecast period.
Automatic sales output
Print programs and layout sets control the content which should be displayed in the output condition recorded.
Describe how databases will be used in managing the sales function.
The sales team will collect client information that can be recorded and stored in a computer in the office system. A database will then collect and integrate customer data from the office system. The company will use the customer data from the database to make a sales analysis which includes evaluating the actual and potential value of customers (Armstrong 23).
The U.S.A sales professionals
The roles of these sales staff in the organization
- First and foremost, an international sales team is a sign of globalization
- The U.S staff will bring international sales talent to the U.K domestic market
- They will bring in new ideas and knowledge that will be particularly helpful in setting up the sales team in the U.K
- The integration of different cultures will create a multicultural working environment that will give the company an international outlook and harmony while working with different people.
- The U.S staff will promote US CLEAN as an established cleaning services company in the U.K since they have experience from the U.S market.
- They will promote teamwork by working together with the newly formed sales team in the U.K.
- They will create a competitive advantage by tapping into the market in the U.K
- They will set an example to the U.K sales team by achieving their assigned targets
- The U.S sales team will improve the company’s image and brand
Trade fairs
What would be the reasons and benefits of the company attending a trade fair?
Trade fairs are organized by vendors who serve the industries. They aim to display and demonstrate their products and services for prospective customers as well as examine recent market trends and opportunities.
Trade fairs will give WE CLEAN the opportunity to advertise its cleaning services freely to the public, including its target market of business offices.
It is a perfect opportunity for the company to promote its brand in the U.K and make it as established as it is in the U.S.A. It will help enhance the image of WE CLEAN in the new market.
The free publicity gained from this kind of advertising and promotion will serve to increase the sales of the company by creating awareness amongst its target market. It is a fresh way of prospecting for new customers.
Trade fairs can help generate sales leads.
Trade fairs help to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the company’s marketing efforts.
This is an excellent opportunity to introduce new products and services to the market using customer needs for this innovative approach.
It is a great opportunity to meet with potential customers, competitors in the cleaning industry as well as suppliers.
Some marketing channels are restrictive, like telemarketing. Trade fairs offer the chance to demonstrate the services offered by WE CLEAN in ways that are not possible through the restrictive marketing channels.
Trade fairs can serve as recruitment channels for sales professionals.
Through trade fairs, WE CLEAN can get the chance to educate its target customers about its services.
It is a fairly cost-effective way for interested parties to establish their presence in the market (Havaldar 12).
Works Cited
Armstrong, Michael. Employee Reward, New York: CIPD Publishing, 2002. Print.
Havalder, Krishna. Industrial marketing:Text and cases, New York: Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 2005. Print.
Holden, Reed. Eight sales strategies to defend your price and value, New Jersey: FT Press, 2012. Print.
Garber, Peter. 25 Sales Strategies and Activities, UK: Human Resource Development, 2006. Print.
Lamb, Charles, Hair Joseph and McDaniel, Carl. Essentials of Marketing, New York: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.
Pride, William. Foundations of Marketing, New York: Cengage Learning, 2007. Print.