There are many types of personal selling jobs, and the role of personal selling can vary greatly from one company to anther. Here, we look at the nature of personal selling positions and at the role the sales force plays in modern marketing organizations.
The Nature or personal selling
Selling is one of the oldest professions in the world. The people who do the selling go by many names: salespeople, sales representatives, account executives, sales consultants, sales engineers, agents, district managers , and marketing representatives , to name just a few.
People hold many stereotypes of salespeople¡ªincluding some unfavorable ones. ¡° Salesman¡± may bring to mind the image of Arthur Miller's pitiable Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. Or you might think of Meredith Willson's cigar-smoking, back-slapping, joke-telling Harold Hill in The Music Man . Both examples depict salespeople as loners, traveling territories trying to foist their wares on unsuspecting or unwilling buyers.
However, modern salespeople are a far cry form these unfortunate stereotypes. Today, most salespeople are well-educated, well-trained professionals who work to build and maintain long-term relationships with customers. They build these relationships by listening to their customers, assessing customers needs, and organizing the company's efforts to solve customer problems and satisfy customer needs. For example, consider Boeing, the aerospace giant that dominates the worldwide commercial aircraft market with a 55 percent market share. It takes more than a friendly smile and a firm handshake to sell expensive airplanes.
Salesperson
An individual acting for a company by performing one or more of the following activities: prospecting, communicating, servicing, and information gathering.