3. Effective business marketing communications can help gain new clients. Explain why personal selling is the favoured form of communication and the options available for organising the personal selling effort.

3.1. Introduction

“The customer is the strategy” (John Chambers, President and CEO Cisco systems)

The marketing communications mix offers a great variety of tools to approach customers. As the number of potential buyers in a business market is relatively small and the sales potential per account is significantly higher, these tools can only reinforce and supplement the personal selling (Hutt and Speh 2001, p.432) Whereas advertising consists of only a one-way communication, the personal selling involves “two-way personal communication between salespeople and …customers” (Kotler 2001, p.706) and should therefore be preferred.

3.2. Personal selling emphasize in business marketing

The organisational buyer often expects the supplier to solve technical problems and to provide additional information. Accordingly, the personal selling approach done by a well trained sales force must be emphasized. This two-way communication can be more effective in complex selling situations. The salesperson can adjust its marketing offer to the customer’s special needs and build a long-term relationship with key decision makers, which is the most desired target in a business market situation. “Sales people serve both masters – the seller and the buyer”. They are the critical link between a company and its costumers. (Kotler 2001, p.707)

3.3. Sales force organisation

The most appropriate form of organizing and building a strong sales force depends on many factors. The nature and length of the product line, the role of intermediaries, the diversity of the market segments served, the nature of the buying behaviour, the structure of the competitive selling and the size and financial strength of the manufacturer will dictate the feasibility of particular organisation forms. (Hutt and Speh 2001, p.432) According to the Business Marketing lecture (Wilson 2002, lecture 6) there are different ways to organise the sales force. The most common one is the geographical approach. Each salesperson is exclusively assigned to a certain area and is offering the whole product range to the customers in that area. Travelling costs will usually be minimized, but each salesperson must be able to perform all selling tasks for all products. For a large, diverse or technically complex product line the product organisation works best. This approach is less cost effective but as each sales person is only specialised in a narrow area of the whole product line the total level of product knowledge that can be delivered will increase. The customer based organisation is the most personalized type. Herein the sales person is prepared to respond to individual requirements and to differentiate his personal selling strategies. Another possibility is the managing the sales force by National accounts. Hereby several functional areas can be integrated into the partner structure, towards improved supply chain management.  For some companies with diverse product lines a combination of the above can be applied. (Hutt and Speh 2001, p.440)

3.4. Conclusion

Due to the greater importance of fewer customers personal selling is the favourable method to approach and accompany business customers. The requirements for good sales people are high and they need to be carefully selected. The sales force should be thoughtfully organised and its performance through a steady ongoing exchange with the customers should be monitored and evaluated. For specific solutions it may be of use to assign key account managers. The inherent target remains to establish and maintain a reliable long-term relationship.