Advantages and disadvantages of personal selling. Personal selling for effective business. Personal selling in the complex of marketing communications

The concept and functions of personal selling in marketing

One of the marketing tools, along with advertising, sales promotion, public relations and direct marketing, is personal selling. Some sources view personal selling as a form of direct marketing because it involves direct contact between the seller and the consumer. This is what distinguishes personal selling from other elements of the marketing communications mix.

Definition 1

Personal or personal selling is the presentation of a product to one or more potential customers, during which a decision is made to make a purchase.

The goal of personal selling is to make sales and establish long-term, trusting relationships with consumers.

Before the advent of information and computer technology, the sales process was carried out primarily face-to-face. In modern conditions, personal selling is also carried out face to face, by telephone, and via the Internet.

Personal selling is an expensive and effective marketing communications tool. The subjects of personal selling are sales agents who have special qualities:

ability to listen carefully;
ability to persuade;
possessing the ability to make the customer satisfied and ready for a new purchase.

Personal Selling Features:

a link between the company and its clients (mandatory coordination of the company’s interests with the needs of clients);
a sales agent is the face of the company;
main role in the marketing program (when applying a product push strategy).

Advantages and Disadvantages of Personal Selling

Product presentation during personal selling rests on the so-called “three pillars”. Firstly, the individualization of product information that is provided to a specific consumer. Such information stimulates purchasing decisions. Secondly, the opportunity to increase the company's competitive advantage through personal selling. Thirdly, the ability to demonstrate the product at the point of sale

Benefits of personal selling:

providing personal contact;
adaptation to the needs and requests of each potential client;
calling for a response and creating feedback;
focusing on specific target segments;
the amount of costs that do not produce an effect is less than in advertising;
retaining loyal customers;
freeing indecisive buyers from unnecessary doubts.

Despite the high effectiveness of personal selling, they also have a number of disadvantages.

Disadvantages of Personal Selling:

significant costs per potential client;
inability to cover a large market area;
ineffectiveness of using personal selling to inform the consumer.

Types of personal selling

There are the following types of personal selling:

reciprocal selling;
missionary selling;
technical sales;
creative selling;
sales to trade representatives;
consultative selling.

Responsive selling involves an agent traveling along the route to consumers and selling goods at retail. In this type of personal selling, the sales agent must respond to demand. Examples include the delivery of drinking water to offices and apartments upon customer requests. Sellers of household appliances in stores also engage in similar sales when customers turn to them for advice.

In missionary selling, the sales agent is not involved in collecting orders. Its function is to disseminate information about new products before they go on sale. An example is drug sales agents who inform doctors about new drugs from pharmaceutical companies. Representatives of hospitals and clinics are provided with free samples for demonstration and recommendations to patients. Consumers remember not the name (it is written in the doctor's prescription), but the packaging. When you go to the pharmacy, you buy the recommended medicine.

In technical selling cases, sales agents offer products, services, and equipment that solve consumers' technical problems. This type of personal selling is used for industrial goods (machinery, equipment). A sales agent must understand the technical characteristics of products and be able to identify, analyze and solve customer problems.

Creative selling occurs when new products are sold or old products are introduced into a new market. The sales agent convinces consumers that they have a serious problem and that this particular product will solve this problem best of all. Sales agents create, stimulate demand and distribute orders.

Selling to trade representatives is similar to reciprocal selling. The sales agent takes orders and is also responsible for service. This type of personal selling involves calling dealers, taking orders, making deliveries, setting up promotional materials, and tracking orders. It is used in the food, textile, clothing and household goods industries.

Consultative selling is a form of relationship marketing (partnerships). The sales agent organizes a meeting with clients and informs them about the possibility of cooperation, i.e. forms the basis for the development of long-term relationships. Asking leading questions allows you to understand the needs of potential customers. At the next meeting, a cooperation program is developed and the current order is placed. After the transaction, the agent provides after-sales service, thereby reinforcing the sale and favorable relationship.

Personal Selling Process

Definition 2

The sales process is a sequence of stages, each of which must be studied by the sales agent. All its stages are aimed at winning new consumers and receiving orders from them.

Stages of the personal selling process:

reconnaissance (compiling a list of potential clients based on studying various sources of information);
preparation for contact (collection of information about the possible target audience and compilation of databases);
establishing contact with potential clients (the key point is the first impression; to attract interest, references to mutual friends, recommendations or a quick presentation of products are mentioned);
conducting a presentation (the goal is to turn a potential consumer into a real client);
eliminating objections and conflict situations that arise during negotiations and product presentation;
concluding a transaction (obtaining consent to purchase);
transaction support (after-sales service, contacts).

After employers realized the fact that the organization’s sales and, ultimately, its future work entirely depend on the level of qualifications, programs for training employees in professional sales of company products began to rapidly grow. Moreover, not only sales agents, but also simple consultants from sales offices, as well as various project managers and line managers can undergo training in sales techniques for staff and other types of training. And this is not at all surprising, since services are available not only directly in the hall or a special office, but also during negotiations and at top-level business meetings. So, what is the sales technique of a sales consultant, and what are the

What sales stages exist today?

Today, business education has a stable systematization of sales stages. So, let's look at the stages of selling a product for a sales consultant:

preparations for sales (advertising);
establishing contacts with the client;
identifying needs;
product presentation;
trial deal;
discussion of business proposals;
completion of the transaction;
establishing long-term cooperation.

Don't be afraid of rejection

Today, various kinds of objections, confrontation and differences in goals should not be perceived as something unusual or problematic. If we talk about sales, then everything is quite the opposite. It should be said that only when the seller is faced with a client’s refusal or the buyer’s disagreement with the transaction does the sales technique of the seller of a consultant for furniture and other goods begin to manifest itself - working on questions and objections and further negotiations regarding cost.

The professionalism of a sales consultant is manifested in how exactly he knows how to carry out negotiations after he has received a refusal at the first purchase offer, so his arsenal should always have a number of techniques that are necessary specifically for further negotiations with the buyer. The variety of all techniques is based on the basic principle of conducting commercial negotiations. It consists in the absence of contradictions on the part of the seller. In a direct confrontation with the client, the only correct step, in his opinion, can be taken - to simply stop negotiations, turn around and leave. Depending on the success with the buyer, the client’s desire for further cooperation with the company, his willingness to give the seller the necessary information at future stages of the sale, as well as his loyalty to the company in general will depend. Therefore, when carrying out commercial negotiations when contradictions inevitably arise, the seller should not put pressure on the buyer, as this will have a very bad effect on the results of the sale, because the client will internally “defend himself.”

Working with questions of interest

Today, there is an established opinion that a seller must be active, energetic, and able to convince anyone and anything. But as practice shows, the most effective sellers are those who know how to listen. The sales technique of a sales consultant is that they are asked leading questions, and they also give the interlocutor the opportunity to say whatever he needs. Even when identifying needs, the seller must be sure to ask questions that will help him determine the real needs of the client and at the same time make him feel truly important, and then he will move into a more comfortable state. This is exactly how a sales consultant should behave. The technique of work is to ensure that the client is satisfied.

Through the questions he asks and his behavior, the consultant should demonstrate such a position that the client understands that he really needs to know how the goods and services offered satisfy the needs.

To do this, the seller must find out what the potential buyer really needs from the product. Taking the position of a simple consultant in this case would be most appropriate, since it is sometimes very difficult for clients to say what they really need, since they themselves do not always clearly imagine their desires.

What are clients afraid of?

Due to the fact that the potential buyer himself does not accurately understand what he needs, in his subconscious he develops a desire to be defensive when negotiating with the seller. The latter should always be ready to communicate with such a client. It is imperative to be aware that the buyer is taking such a position not at all because of his complex nature or because he does not like the personality of the seller. This closed position is based on the client’s usual fears:

he is not sure that his choice is really the right one;
the client is afraid to pay extra, choosing a product with a large markup;
he does not know by what criteria the product and the entire assortment are actually evaluated;
he is afraid of deception from a sophisticated seller;
he does not want to meet with an arrogant and rude consultant;
he does not want to get into an awkward position by showing his incompetence in the properties of the product.

And if even one of his worst fears becomes even slightly justified, he will immediately leave. Sales methods, sales techniques - everything should be aimed at eradicating the client’s fears at this stage and carefully working through all objections.

Dealing with emerging objections

In general, commercial negotiations can be considered to have begun when the seller encounters the first objection. With this type of negotiation, this is the most natural form of buyer behavior. For a qualified consultant, any objection is a signal that the client does not have enough information. For the sales person, the buyer's objections are valuable. The sales technique of the sales consultant is also aimed at the fact that, on the basis of objections, he will always draw a conclusion about the necessary product for the client, and he will try to do everything to remove the uncertainty.

Novice sellers very often take objections as the client’s negativity directed at them personally, which causes a negative reaction. If the seller conducts a conscious, thoughtful conversation, the situation will always remain under control, and he will not react in any way to the potential buyer’s objections, but will simply work with them.

The work should start with a simple compliment. This should be expressed by interest in the client’s opinion and in the response to this objection. Very often this technique is called “joining an objection”, which is built on the principle of “aikido”. For example, in response to a client’s objection that monitors pose a health hazard, we can say that there really is such an opinion, but monitors are now assembled using a special technology with a protective layer, which makes them completely safe. In such a situation, the seller seems to join the objection, creates mutual understanding with the client, and demonstrates that they have much more in common than disagreement. In order to strengthen the “agreement effect,” before answering an objection, you should add: “It’s good that you said this,” “I understand you,” and so on. This is how the seller makes it clear to the client that his opinion is really important to him, and it has a right to exist.

The level of training of a sales consultant is also determined by the fact that he can adapt to each individual buyer.

With the help of affirmative statements, the seller ensures a conflict-free transfer of negotiations to the stage of cooperation. This is achieved by agreeing with the existing objections and then developing the thoughts contained in the objection: “You are indeed right in what you say about the high cost of this machine. But at the expense of such expenses you will get a lot of additional benefits that should also be discussed.”

Very often, objections contain indirect references to advantages. The seller must turn a negative into a positive, pay attention to the good parameters of the goods or services.

“Your product has a suspiciously low price, and besides, you are still new in this business,” the client may say. And he can be answered that it is precisely due to its short existence that the company is forced to adhere to competitive prices.

The most important thing is to reassure the buyer, make suggestions to him, not argue, try to just talk and dispel all his fears.

True objections

The client's real objections are very often masked behind unimportant reservations, since very often he himself does not realize what the true motives are that drive him. Therefore, in order to reach real, and not imaginary, obstacles that will stand in the way of the seller, you should first talk to the client and understand why he does not want to make a purchase.

How should a salesperson break through a false objection to a true one?

A technique called “guessing” can work well in this situation. The seller using it asks questions to all the client’s objections that are aimed at removing all excuses: “If there were no financial restrictions, what would you do?”, “If you didn’t have such a problem, would you make the deal? " If even then the client has objections, then you can repeat the questions. The very last objection will be true.

False objections

At the same time, you should not ignore the client’s other objections, even if the seller can see that they are obviously false. Moreover, if the buyer has expressed several objections, then the simplest of all should be answered first.

Cost discussion

A critical point in commercial negotiations is the client's reaction to the value announced by the seller. There are a number of techniques that make it possible to make this cost reasonable.

A technique called “sandwich” is that during negotiations the price is placed between two “layers”, each of which contains an undeniable benefit for the client. Using this technique, you must strive to ensure that the negotiations end and begin with indications of benefits and benefit, and not just simple numbers.

When using the “comparison” technique, the seller correlates the cost of the product with its benefits that it will bring to the client: “If you think about how much money you can save with this product in a year...”, “Think about how much benefit this will bring to you.”

The “division” technique involves deciphering the value by decomposing it into small components. Thus, you can divide the cost of a purchased product by the number of years during which you plan to use it, and then calculate the cost per month of its use.

How to control your voice?

We all know that depending on a person’s voice, one can give an assessment with 80% probability of age, character, current emotional and physical state. Based on the pronunciation of words, the interlocutor can draw a conclusion about where the speaker is from, what education he has and the general level of development of the speaker.

The sales technique of a sales consultant with a high level of qualifications must have a well-developed skill in establishing emotional contact with the buyer due to the vocal mood of the second. In everyday life, people intuitively adapt their own voice to the voice of their interlocutor, especially when they want to achieve something from him. The professionalism of the seller is also manifested in the conscious control of his voice and intonation, depending on the personality of each client, his goals, and the stages of sales.

The consultant must be “on the same wavelength” with the buyer and help him with the choice of goods, using his wealth of knowledge about the qualities of goods or services. If he manages to make friends with the buyer, then he will get a regular customer.

In conclusion, when the question arises on how to increase personal sales as a salesperson, it is safe to say that you should use all the above tips and strive for more.

It is no secret that various companies strive to attract customers to sell their goods, works or services. To do this, they use persuasion techniques, various reminders, etc. This influence on a potential buyer is called promotion. One type of promotion is personal selling. Let's consider this method in more detail.

Definition of the concept

The term “personal selling” refers to the direct contact that occurs between sales personnel and the buyer. The main purpose of such interaction is the sale of a product or service.

The relevance of this concept is constantly growing. Thus, previously, personal selling was a means of marketing communications and was actively used only in industrial goods markets. Today, they complete any process of acquiring the necessary product. That is why mastering sales technology is important for all specialists, including retailers, those involved in advertising, and also those who form long-term relationships with clients.

Advantages

What are the main advantages of personal selling? Their advantages lie in the following:

1. Direct contact with the buyer. This allows you to see the reaction of a potential client to the offers received to him, evaluate his non-verbal signals, as well as determine the mood and identify expectations that he has regarding the service and product.

2. Opportunities to demonstrate the quality and features of the product. This is especially true when selling perfumes and cosmetics. The consumer will quickly buy the product that he saw and tested. Demonstration of a product greatly affects the success of its sale.

3. Opportunities to become more than just a salesperson for the client. During the conversation, it is desirable for company personnel to find out certain personal information about the person standing in front of them. This could be his date of birth, any life facts, interests, etc. The information obtained should subsequently become an important factor in increasing satisfaction from the purchasing process. Numerous examples of the use of this mechanism can be found in modern clothing boutiques. They not only wish their client a happy birthday, but also offer him a product with a holiday discount. The buyer is pleased, and the company has an increase in sales.

Factors influencing successful implementation

What personal selling tools are there? When drawing up plans for the sale of its product, any company must have a general idea of its market demand. Of course, the company is not able to control a large number of different factors influencing sales. This can be said about the amount of indirect and direct taxes, weather, international crises, etc. However, there are certain market factors that are amenable to necessary changes. These include sales impact parameters.

When the market is heterogeneous, the seller, as a rule, does not seek to adjust the level of sales with prices. Most often they use a factor indicating the quality of the product. This parameter is usually determined by the buyer himself. However, as the quality of a product increases, its service life increases. And this, in turn, threatens that sales volumes will be difficult in the future. If the market is saturated, then the demand for a particular product exists within the limits of the volume of things that have already failed. That is why many product groups have new models every season. This applies to clothing and shoes, cars, as well as video and audio equipment. Only in this case does the buyer begin to consider previously purchased goods as unfashionable. He seeks to replace them with new ones.

Advertising

In order for personal sales to be carried out as effectively as possible, it is important to familiarize the target audience with information relating to the company, as well as the goods produced or sold by it. This will create a certain image for the company and form an attitude towards its product. Also, such a move will significantly increase personal sales. Advertising will help form those ideas on the basis of which it will become easier for the seller to build his relationship with the client.

Improving Personal Selling

It is not surprising that in our time, all the technologies at the disposal of mankind are gradually mastering more and more new directions. Personal selling of goods and services does not lag behind this process.

Today she uses the following:

Business negotiation technique, which represents the first stage of sales;
- a sales presentation technique that helps put forward reasoned arguments indicating the benefits of a particular product;
- telemarketing, which maintains connections between managers and potential clients;
- network marketing, represented by a network of sellers performing personal sales.

Increase in personal sales volume

Today, the HR departments of most companies strive to attract good managers to their staff. However, finding such specialists is extremely difficult. A salesperson who has just started working is unlikely to be able to effectively offer customers the entire range of products that exist in the company. That is why managers often simply “grow” the employee they need. To do this, they turn to training programs. Many of them advise that the seller needs to find out related and related products that are useful to the customer. In theory, everything seems simple. In practice, all this is much more complicated.

In order for a manager to continually increase his personal sales, he will need to ensure that the Ten Principles of Good Selling are followed. Let's look at them in more detail:

1. The first principle encourages the manager who carries out personal meetings and sales to always remember who his client is. Sometimes sellers forget about this concept and face their first difficulties when selling goods. It is worth remembering that each buyer is individual. Therefore, this should be the approach to it. For a good manager, it is important not only to have knowledge of his business, but also to be able to understand the psychology and motives of the buyer.

2. The second principle of personal selling is the personalization factor. After all, not only the client is a person, but also the seller. This statement may seem somewhat strange. However, it does suggest that the trade welcomes the use of human data. In other words, every manager must present himself in such a way that he is interesting to the interlocutor. If there is hostility towards the seller, success in personal sales cannot be expected.

3. The third principle reminds us of the importance of dialogue. This is the basis of any negotiation. A well-structured dialogue is based on the ability to present questions well and correctly perceive the answers. Survey techniques must be constantly improved. Do not forget that a person has one mouth and two ears. Therefore, you need to spend only twenty percent of your time talking, and leave the remaining eighty percent for receiving answers.

4. According to the fourth principle, the seller must always be aware of all the events that occur not only in his company, but also in the store, as well as in the industry as a whole. This will require some participation in the life of your market in the form of discussing pressing issues on thematic sites, creating your own blog, etc. The effect of such actions will become noticeable after a short time.

5. The fifth principle concerns an individual approach. It is unlikely that the manager will be able to provide the buyer with any unique offer. This doesn't happen often on the market. That is why the features of a product should not lie in its exclusivity, but in the work of the seller. It is the manager who carries out personal sales of services or goods who must create a unique offer for his client.

6. The sixth principle indicates the need to sell the result. Many of the most popular methods say the same thing. How to achieve this principle? This will be done by a conversation with the client, during which the seller must find out all his “painful points”, and then indicate the way to eliminate the problem.

7. According to the seventh principle, the seller must forget about logic. After all, according to many studies, it influences purchases to the extent of only 16%. The remaining 84% are motives of an emotional nature. That is why the seller must remember that the client is most likely driven by greed, prestige, status, ambition, fear and other feelings, but not by logic. To successfully complete a transaction, you need to find out the emotional motive that guides the client.

8. The eighth principle states that knowledge is power. Stimulation of personal sales can only occur on the basis of providing the buyer with sufficiently extensive information about the product or service. The dialogue should be built on this knowledge.

9. According to the ninth principle, price should not be the most important issue. What does this mean? Reducing the cost of a product should not serve as a method of persuasion. For a good salesperson, the greatest value comes from his products and services, as well as his own level. For this the corresponding price is set.

10. The tenth principle of personal selling emphasizes the importance of presentations. The presentation of goods carried out with their help makes the right impression on the buyer and increases the likelihood of concluding a profitable transaction by 10 times.

Sales scripts

Sooner or later, it becomes clear to every manager that a certain set of standard preparations is important for the quick implementation of transactions. These are scripts. However, you should not rely on them completely. After all, it is important for a manager not to turn into a robot who has trouble understanding what he is saying.

Personal sales scripts are a pre-recorded script of behavior, dialogue, and manager reactions. Using this template, the seller is able to convince the client of the correct approach to choosing a particular product. A pre-written script will more likely lead the client to a purchase, and the seller to a sale.

Translated from English, “script” means “algorithm” or “scenario”. It is on this basis that the survey takes place, and then the final decision is made to continue the dialogue.

Example script

How to sell goods quickly and profitably? Let's consider an example of a sales script that is carried out between organizations during a personal meeting of managers. At the first stage, it is important for the seller to carry out self-presentation. This is necessary not only for preliminary acquaintance, but also to convey to the client the key tasks that must be resolved during the meeting. The conversation usually begins with the phrase “Good afternoon, my name is... I represent a company... Let's discuss cooperation that will allow your company... (followed by a description of the benefits of the deal).”

At the second stage, it is important to determine the client’s interest that prompted him to meet. This move will allow you to appeal to this fact throughout the negotiations. For example: “I am engaged... You agreed to meet with a certain interest in concluding a deal... Please clarify your motives.”

At the third stage, it is important to identify the key issues of the dialogue. They may relate to prices and delivery conditions, cooperation options, etc. For example: “Thanks for the information. Now let’s discuss the key issues that will be raised during the negotiations.”

At the next stage, the sequence of consideration of questions is set. For example: “To maximize the effectiveness of our meeting, let's do this: I will immediately find out some nuances with the help of certain questions, and then talk about our products, terms of the transaction, prices and other details. Agreed?".

Next, you should ask questions to understand the key motives for which the client agreed to the meeting. After this, a presentation of the product or service is carried out, based on the interests of the potential buyer.

The next stage is needed to summarize preliminary results. For example: “(Buyer’s name), I have completed the presentation of my product, and let’s now take a quick look at the issues that we outlined at the very beginning of the meeting.”

Once the preliminary results have been summed up, you can proceed to finalizing the transaction and considering options for cooperation. For example, if the buyer has objections about the high cost or that he is not satisfied with the delivery time, it is important to ask a very effective question: “So in general, do you mind working with us? Then we will meet you halfway and decide......".

Thus, the script is a technology that allows the manager to constantly achieve success in personal sales.

Sale of a personal car

Buying a car is much easier than then selling it. After all, every buyer dreams of purchasing a vehicle for literally pennies. Therefore, he will always try to reduce the price, finding fault with everything.

That is why selling a personal car has its own subtleties. At the first stage, you will need to assess the appearance and technical condition of the machine. This will be the starting point for pre-sale preparation.

The priority indicator for a car is its appearance. That is why it is worth replacing worn tires, removing traces of rust, removing chips and dents. All the effort expended will definitely pay off. Next, you should thoroughly clean the interior and remove everything unnecessary from it.

After an external inspection of the car, the buyer will certainly want to open the hood. That is why there must also be order here. In particular, the seller will first need to check the battery mounts and terminals, as well as clean the engine. There is no doubt that the buyer will look into the trunk. Ideal order must also be established here.

Selling a personal car is never without bargaining. This is the golden rule of the market. The buyer may begin to reduce the price due to high mileage, cracks on the body, etc. What if there are hidden faults in the car? It is better to warn about them immediately. After all, then there is a high probability of going to court and canceling the deal.

Sales of used clothing

Today, the sale of personal belongings is carried out, as a rule, by posting advertisements on special websites. What is the recommended algorithm of action?
The sale of personal items begins with washing the item.

Next, it is photographed (preferably against a light background) and identified with a category (women's clothing, children's clothing, etc.). In order to correctly set the price for an item, you will need to look at similar products, paying attention to the quality of the fabric, service life, presence of stains, etc. Only after this a special platform is selected on which the ad is placed. The dimensions of the item must be indicated in the comments. All. You can wait for a call from the buyer and make a deal.

Personal (personal) selling is the presentation of a product to one or more potential clients, carried out in the process of direct communication and with the goal of selling and establishing long-term relationships with these clients; This is an oral presentation by employees of a company of its products and services in a conversation with consumers, involving personal contact in the form of dialogue rather than monologue.

Types of personal selling strategies:

Standard sale;

Flexible sale.

Unlike other forms of product promotion on the market, personal selling establishes a direct connection with consumers. Before the development of modern electronics and telecommunications, selling was primarily done face-to-face. Today, personal selling is done face to face, by telephone, using fax, computers, and the Internet. Sellers can establish immediate and direct contact with buyers, counter objections, overcome declines in consumer demand, and develop long-term relationships that lead to various cross-selling opportunities. The disadvantage of personal selling is the expense associated with it. Therefore, it is not used for the purpose of reaching the mass market. The salesperson is an important strategic tool because he establishes a special sales relationship with consumers and has access to important environmental information. There are many different types of salespeople and their tasks. Trade management involves recruiting, selecting, hiring, training, motivating, evaluating, and sometimes terminating personnel. Every trading staff, even if it is only one person, must be governed.

Standard selling is a pre-worked and identical approach to all customers. This approach is effective when selling well-known, relatively cheap consumer goods.

Flexible selling is a sale that involves an individual approach to each buyer, “adjusting” the seller to the individual needs of the consumer. This approach is effective when selling industrial goods, services, and in cases where the product is little known or relatively expensive.

Advantages of personal selling:

Individual attention to each customer;

Flexibility;

Involving consumers in dialogue;

Availability of immediate and clearly expressed feedback;

A strong focus on getting the buyer to make a purchase immediately.

Disadvantages of Personal Selling:

High costs per customer;

A limited number of buyers per seller at any given time;

The success of a sale is often highly dependent not on the properties of the product, but on the personal qualities of the seller.

There are several different types of personal selling:

Peripheral sales - concluding deals on site with a sales representative.

Retail sales - assistance at a point of sale from a full-time salesperson.

Home-based sales - transactions with a sales representative who comes to customers' homes.

Personal selling is most important for companies that sell products that require explanation, demonstration, and service. Modern companies spend huge amounts of money on training sales staff in the art of selling. All training approaches are aimed at transforming the sales representative from a passive order taker into an active order taker.