Professional Selling

Professional Selling

An interview with a sales representative:

According to a sales profession I interviewed it is clear that increasing sales and still earning a profit entails strategizing on many issues, these issues include advertising, promotions, competitive pricing, unique display of products, brochures and distribution.

This paper is all about how to succeed as a sales representative, we discuss the most important strategies to use to achieve high sales levels and also high profits.

Advertising:

Advertising plays a major role to increasing sales of products, adverts help inform the customer of existence of certain products and also new products, it also persuades the consumer to buy products and also they play a major role in informing consumers about the products price, quality and purpose.

Professional Selling

The sales representative pointed out that advertising is costly, however the common means of advertising include the mass media which include radio and TV, other forms of advertising include road side advertising and recently the most effective way to advertise is through the internet, further he pointed out that there is need to have adverts designed in a way that they convey both the message and clear embedded text, this involves associating the product with whatever image is used in this adverts.

Pricing:

Consumers are all rational decision maker, every consumer will try to maximize his or her utility and at the same time wants to spend less for products available, however there exist many types of goods because when dealing with luxurious goods price will not be a big issue, however for a normal good the price is very important.

The price of goods and services should be very competitive in the market, this means that in one way or another we must under price our competitors but should be careful in a way that the price still yields sustainable profits, when sales levels increase then definitely the profits will rise.

Professional Selling

Availability:

After taking into consideration the price and informing the consumer about the existence of goods, the next step is to make this goods available to the consumers, adverts should help inform consumers on the availability of these goods, the distribution of these goods should be well distributed and information about the availability passed on to consumers through signs in shopping malls and streets where these products are sold.

Web marketing:

A competitive sales representative should have his or her own website where he or she advertises the products he or she sells, these websites should be easy to follow links, list all the products available, be fast in browsing and also have the ability to purchase products online, if these websites possess these value then definitely consumers buy these products online and these products delivered to the consumers by the closest distribution unit, these reduces the problem of time wastage for those consumers having to physically visit the store and purchase these products.

Offers:

Every successful sales person has to give offers to consumers, such words as “offer is valid until the …” this ensures that consumers purchase the products before the date stated,

Professional Selling

consumers want to get the products that derive maximum utility and at the same time are not expensive.

Free samples should be given to consumers example when a consumer buys two products he or she gets one free, and if the consumer buys four of these products he or she gets two free, other strategies include involving the consumers to have competitions using certain promotions, example introducing raffle tickets whereby consumers are awarded for winning in certain competitions.

Packaging:

Finally the other important issue is packaging, products must have proper packaging, it is the role of a sales representative to advice on the certain packages that attract consumers, further the sales representative should undertake market research on preference and taste of consumers, this will aid in improving the quality of products sold in the market, in turn this will aid in improving the quality increasing consumer satisfaction and needs, and in the long run there will be an increased level of sales and profits.

Finally the sales representative should provide brochures to consumers as a way of informing consumers on the availability of certain goods and services, this will also inform consumers on available offers and in turn this will increase the sales level. In conclusion the sales representative job is a tough one, it involves choosing the most appropriate strategy to increase sales volume, this include pricing strategy, advertising, promotions, offers, packaging, distribution of the products and web marketing.