Concluding Remarks

In this lesson we have discussed one of the more important topics in the course. This is because being a great sales manager requires having a solid understanding of the personal selling process. One of the most important aspects of personal selling is understanding customer needs and understanding the need behind the need. The old-school way of selling was to pitch features and dazzle clients with knowledge about the product and offering. However, modern salespeople educated with research understand the importance of discovering the needs of the client before attempting to satisfy those needs with the offering. This ultimately involves a questioning strategy in which the sales person is in fact listening and inquiring such that the prospect is often doing most of the talking. By starting with a general questioning strategy, the salesperson can begin to uncover the needs of the prospect and move toward a more specific questioning strategy. Once this process is implemented, the salesperson may go through with the presentation, focusing on features, advantages, and benefits.

To conclude this lesson, we should remember that we cannot stop with the level of knowledge we have obtained when it comes to personal selling skills. Personal selling skills are important not only to facilitate the exchange of value but also to function in our everyday lives. When you think about it, we are constantly facilitating transactions as we interact with other people, rather than trying to be manipulative. Therefore, our continuous development as businesspeople is important: taking part in training on a continual basis, trying to gain feedback doing role-play scenarios with others, and even taking personal selling classes and seminars, which will help us in our interactions with people in our business and in our personal lives.