What Is Personal Selling? Pros and Cons

Personal selling is regarded as one of the most effective ways to do business for any company, whatever its size, business model or direction. It is not only a sales channel but also a very effective customer care platform, and a great channel for marketing and advertising your products and services. In this article, let's MONA Media look at what personal selling is and how to run personal selling below.

What is personal selling?

The concept of

Personal selling (also called Personal Sales) is a process of interaction, communication and direct exchange between seller and buyer, here meaning a business and its potential customers. The process aims to influence the customer's buying decision.

Today, the rapid growth of the Internet has added many other ways to communicate in business. Personal selling is no longer limited to face-to-face meetings. A salesperson can use video calls, phone calls, email and other direct channels to build relationships with a company's potential customers.

So does a business need to build a personal brand? And what should you do Branding hay personal branding to win customers' "liking" faster and grow revenue? Hùng (CEO & Founder of MONA, with more than 10 years in digital marketing) talks it through in the video below.

Click the video to watch.

Characteristics of personal selling

It runs on person-to-person communication

Personal selling means direct contact and exchange between a salesperson and a customer.

The main purpose is to sell a product or service

Personal selling has one purpose: to encourage and persuade customers to buy the product or service package they were planning to buy.

It uses personalized sales strategies

The salesperson needs to learn what the customer needs and wants. From there, they build a personal connection, make the offer and persuade the customer to decide to buy.

The role of personal selling

Now that you know what personal selling is, what role does it play in raising sales and building customer loyalty? Specifically:

• Builds a close, long-term relationship with customers through two-way, person-to-person contact
• Builds awareness of the company's brand and products by educating customers about the products and the benefits they get from buying
• Sales growth by persuading customers who have no need yet, and potential customers, to buy the company's products and services
• Supports customers by answering their questions (usage instructions, offers, after-sales service, complaints, etc.)
• Multitasking. It is a very effective sales channel, an effective advertising channel, and a thorough way to look after potential customers.

Pros and cons of personal selling

Everything has two sides, advantages and disadvantages, and personal selling is no exception. Here are the advantages and difficulties of personal sales:

Advantages

Ability to convey information

Personal selling lets a business convey more information than any other form of promotion. By learning what the customer needs and persuading them to try the product or service, the business collects more information about its customers, and can then convey more specific information to each customer group.

Easy to adjust the message

By observing, interacting and talking with customers, salespeople can adjust the product or service message flexibly. In other words, they answer what the customer expects and cares about, which draws them in and moves them faster to a buying decision.

Supports two-way communication

Unlike promotional tools such as advertising or public relations, where one side is active and the other passive, personal selling lets customers talk to the business and judge it directly, and clears up their doubts and concerns before they buy.

Builds good relationships with customers

Personal selling is a long-term process, but it also extends the relationship between customer and business, by making use of the trust that direct interaction creates. A long-lasting, reputable, trusting relationship makes it easier to close the order.

Disadvantages

Narrow reach

And although the cost is high, this way of doing business has a narrower reach than other tools such as advertising and public relations, because it only works one-to-one.

Hard to control

Leaving full responsibility to the salesperson can lead to bad behavior: staff hiding revenue, quoting prices higher than the company's set price, or even leaking or selling customer information to competitors.

High cost

If a business uses personal selling, be ready for a large budget: staff costs, the cost of trial products and services, and many other factors.

Lack of consistency

Even when staff are trained in the same program, each person understands and delivers the message differently. The message customers hear then differs from person to person, with no guarantee of consistency.

Personal selling (Personal Sales) takes more than communication and persuasion skills. It also takes the right business mindset. Yet many people are still wary of talking about business and selling, and some hold negative prejudices about it. The video below will help you understand the business mindset in Vietnam, so you can approach building your personal selling skills more effectively.

How to run personal selling effectively

Preparation

A personal salesperson needs to know the following:

• The product or service you are offering: Technical specifications, pros and cons, and how it differs from competitors in the same segment or product category.
• The company: Besides pitching a product, you represent the company and are its public face. The better you know the company, the easier it is to win customers' trust and persuade them to buy quickly.
• Dress: If you are preparing for meetings to present a product, choose polished, professional clothing that carries the company's brand (logo, colors, etc.).

Build a profile and a relationship with potential customers

Sketch out your customer profile potential customers using several factors:

• Personal information: gender, age, job, income, etc.
• What value do your products or services bring them?
• Who directly influences their buying decision?
• Is the customer easy or hard to deal with? Do they decide quickly or slowly?
• What are their shopping habits? What is their consumer behavior?

Based on this, the salesperson builds a relationship with potential customers through meetings, calls and messages. This builds trust in the benefits the company provides.

Product introduction

Once you understand them, build a script that works the features, uses and characteristics of your product or service into the conversation to draw the customer in. Stress what they care about and meet their needs and wants, but keep the interaction sincere.

The fastest way to introduce a product or service is through social media, especially TikTok. It is a platform with a huge user base that attracts many potential customers. But how do you build a TikTok channel "from zero for beginners"? Every solution is MONA Media packed into The TikTok channel building service at the best cost and timeline. So why wait? Contact HOTLINE 1900 636 648 for advice and a quote on TikTok channel development services today.

Answers to their questions

Do not rattle off facts about the product or service. In personal selling, stay flexible, quick and tactful, and give the customer room to respond and ask questions. Stay calm and gentle when you answer their concerns, even when the feedback is negative.

Closing the sale

Staff need to pick the right moment to close the sale effectively. In addition, promotions, and offers help customers decide faster.

Build the relationship after the sale: after-sales and customer care

Closing the order is not the end. You need a customer care process after the sale. Ask about their experience after using the product, or help with any complaints. Repeat purchases from existing customers make up a sizable share of most companies' revenue. Building the customer relationship after the sale also builds brand credibility and improves the customer experience, increasing customer loyalty to your brand.

With this process in place, you can build a standard personal selling "model" and earn a return that matches your investment. You can also consider supporting software such as sales management software – MONA Ecommerce, to streamline and shorten every step of the process above. This leading sales software is built with a full set of useful features for effective business, saving time and effort and boosting revenue for businesses. It is a step "a strategy" worth investing in.

In business, Personal selling is seen as a golden key that helps a business understand its customers better and lift sales in the short term, which leads to better profit. We hope this information helps you run personal selling effectively.