The situation where a salesperson approaches a client to make a sale is termed as a Selling Situation. Selling situations can be of two types : Service Selling and Developmental Selling.
Service Selling
Salespersons often make sales calls to customers who may already be awre of the company’s products. This type of selling has less difficulty associated with it, as it does not require convincing the customer about the company and about the value for money that the product offers. So Service Selling aims to obtain orders from existing customers whose habits and patterns of thought are already conductive to the products.
Consider a scenario. Jack Webster is a Team Leader in the Direct Sales Divisionat DreamKids. He has been assigned the target of selling 200 units of the virtual reality video game recently launched by DreamKids. His team comprises eight salespersons.
Jack divides the team into two groups. The first group is assigned the northern part of the city. They decide to approach customers directly utilizing the DreamKids Mobility Van.
They park near Dembel City Center, the most popular shopping area near DreamKids’ biggest retail outlet. During their conversation with customers,they are delighted when a group of young professionals reveal that they are regular customers of DreamKids. These salespersons realize that they don’t need to convince this group about the quality of products offered at DreamKids. Thus, the sales process is smooth and successful.
Service selling also includes sales of newer or enhanced versions of products offered by the company, salespersons still need to convince them regarding new product being offered.
Developmental Selling
Developmental selling aims at converting prospects into customers. It seeks to create customers out of people who may not view the company products favourably, be unaware of the company’s products, or are resistant to changing their present source of supply. Unlike service selling,developmental selling is relatively tougher. It requires a lot of convincing before a customer finally agrees to buy the product.
The second team at DreamKids is assigned the southern region of the city. Their competitor, Toys & Toys Inc., is already offering such games at much lower rates. The team is faced with the task of convincing prospective customers about the value for money of their product. One prospective customer ,Elizia Smith shows some inclination towards the video game. Mary Bigelow, the Group Leader, attempts to convince Eliza by conducting a detailed demonstration and giving out a free sample of the game. Mary’s efforts finally pay off and she makes a successful sale.
