Selling is offering to exchange an item of value for a different item.
The original item of value being offered may be either tangible or intangible.
The second item, usually money, is most often seen by the seller as being of
equal or greater value than that being offered for sale.
A person or organization expressing an
interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential
buyer, prospective customer or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to
be two sides of the same "coin" or transaction. Both seller and buyer
engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The
exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is
implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the
parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying,
involve getting acquainted, assessing each party’s need for the others item of
value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly
so, or, in buyer's terms, "worth the price.”
From a management viewpoint it is
thought of as a part of marketing, although the skills
required are different. Sales often forms a separate grouping in a corporate structure,
employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons
(singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading "art".
Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic
process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates
his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to
achieve their goal in an economic way. While the sales process refers to a
systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, the definition of
the selling is somewhat ambiguous due to the close nature of advertising, promotion, public relations, and direct marketing.
Types of selling
Selling is the profession-wide term,
much like marketing defines a
profession. Recently, attempts have been made to clearly understand who is in
the sales profession, and who is not. There are many articles looking at marketing, advertising, promotions, and even public relations as ways to create a
unique transaction.
Two common terms used to describe a
salesperson are "Farmer" and "Hunter". The reality is that
most professional sales people have a little of both. A hunter is often
associated with aggressive personalities who use aggressive sales technique. In
terms of sales methodology a hunter refers to a person whose focus is on
bringing in and closing deals. This process is called “sales capturing”. An
example is a commodity sale such as a long distance sales person, shoe sales
person and to a degree a car sales person. Their job is to find and convert
buyers. A sales farmer is someone who creates sales demand by activities that
directly influence and alter the buying process.
Many believe that the focus of selling
is on the human agents involved in the exchange between buyer and seller.
Effective selling also requires a systems approach, at minimum
involving roles that sell, enable selling, and develop sales capabilities.
Selling also involves salespeople who possess a
specific set of sales skills and the knowledge
required to facilitate the exchange of value between buyers and sellers that is
unique from marketing, advertising, etc.
Within these three tenets, the
following definition of professional selling is offered by the American Society for Training and
Development
(ASTD):
"The holistic business system required to effectively develop, manage, enable, and execute a mutually beneficial, interpersonal exchange of goods and/or services for equitable value"
Team selling has grown to become
one of the most common ways to influence sales. Team selling is “a group of
people representing the sales department and other functional areas in the
firm, such as finance, production, and research and development”. (Spiro) Team
selling came about in the 1990s through total quality management (TQM). TQM occurs when companies work
to improve their customer satisfaction by constantly improving all of their
operations. If a company decides to use a team-selling approach, there are some
factors to consider:
- The size and diversity of the team
- Management will decide the reward of the individuals apart of the team and the whole team.
- Strategic objectives will be the basis for the majority of the decisions in team selling.
Team selling is not always the best
choice in all situations. Team Selling can be expensive and should be used when
there is a chance for high sales and profit. Companies will need to weigh the
pros and cons of the situation and base their decision on whether the approach
will match the needs of the buyer. If team selling is executed correctly it can
offer advantages such as:
- By having two salespeople approach an account allows for “continuous learning”. Before, after, and during presentations team members can help identify each other's flaws during their portion of the sales pitch. They also may identify particular problems that may be preventing a sale and also identify additional features to be added to their sales pitch to entice the customer.
- When a small company uses two salespeople to call on a client together it helps the image of the company appear to be impressive and large. When companies use team selling it helps identify them from their competitors.
- Customers sometimes like a company which uses team selling because if they have a concern or problem they have two salespeople they can contact to address their concern or problem.
- Team selling also shows prospective clients that the company does not only have one person who has strong selling capabilities, but several of equal calibre. Allowing clients to get to know more than one member at once will help give them a higher comfort level about the company.
- With effective team selling, the cost of sales calls will decline, however, the number of people assigned to each sales call will double. This will increase their batting average which will then increase their productivity.
Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service
to customers, for the purpose of selling that
product or service.
Marketing
can be looked at as an organizational function and a set of processes for
creating, delivering and communicating value to customers, and customer relationship management that also benefits the
organization. Marketing is the science of choosing target markets through market analysis and market segmentation,
as well as understanding consumer behavior and providing superior customer
value. From a societal point of view, marketing is the link between a society's
material requirements and its economic patterns of response. Marketing
satisfies these needs and wants through exchange processes and building long
term relationships.
Brief History of Marketing
The
origins of the concept of marketing have their roots with the Italian economist
Giancarlo Pallavicini in 1959. These roots are accompanied by the initial
in-depth market research, constituting the first instruments of what became the
modern marketing, resumed and developed at a later time by Philip Kotler.
Giancarlo Pallavicini introduces, the following definitions: Marketing is
defined as a social and managerial process designed to meet the needs and
requirements of consumers through the processes of creating and exchanging
products and values. It is the art and science of identifying, creating and
delivering value to meet the needs of a target market, making a profit : delivery
of satisfaction at a price.
Earlier approaches
The
marketing orientation evolved from earlier orientations, namely, the production
orientation, the product orientation and the selling orientation.
|
Orientation
|
Profit driver
|
Western European
timeframe
|
Description
|
|
Production
|
Production
methods
|
until the 1950s
|
A firm focusing
on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a
given product or service. Thus, this signifies a firm exploiting economies of scale until the minimum efficient scale is reached. A
production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or
service exists, coupled with a good certainty that consumer tastes will not
rapidly alter (similar to the sales orientation).
|
|
Product
|
Quality of the
product
|
until the 1960s
|
A firm employing
a product orientation is chiefly concerned with the quality of its own
product. A firm would also assume that as long as its product was of a high
standard, people would buy and consume the product.
|
|
Selling
|
Selling methods
|
1950s and 1960s
|
A firm using a
sales orientation focuses primarily on the selling/promotion of a particular product, and not
determining new consumer desires as such. Consequently, this entails simply
selling an already existing product, and using promotion techniques to attain
the highest sales possible.
Such
an orientation may suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or
otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of
changes in consumer tastes that would diminish demand.
|
|
Marketing
|
Needs and wants
of customers
|
1970s to the
present day
|
The 'Customer
orientation' is perhaps the most common orientation used in contemporary
marketing. It involves a firm essentially basing its marketing plans around
the marketing concept, and thus supplying products to suit new consumer
tastes. As an example, a firm would employ market research to gauge consumer
desires, use R&D (research and development) to develop a product attuned
to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure
persons know the product exists. R&D companies often parallel customer
orientation with R&D phases to ensure the desired customer specifications
are produced. Customization Maximization (similar to profit maximization in
economics,) is the measurable approach to more efficiently sustaining
specific customer needs, in effort to maximize the customization of the
product or service offered to the customer, by the measure of data relating
to responses, feedback, and elasticity.
|
|
Holistic Marketing
|
Everything
matters in marketing
|
21st century
|
The holistic
marketing concept looks at marketing as a complex activity and acknowledges
that everything matters in marketing - and that a broad and integrated
perspective is necessary in developing, designing and implementing marketing
programs and activities. The four components that characterize holistic
marketing are relationship marketing, internal marketing, integrated
marketing, and socially responsive marketing. Market segmentation and
positioning have increased the divergence of society, further segregating and
preventing a holistic population. Holistic Marketing helps converge the
segments in an approach to improve the entire market through social
responsibility and convergence. Holistic marketing disengages the political
marketing activities of "divide and conquer", or market
segmentation.
|
The difference between marketing and selling
BASIC UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENT OF SELLING & MARKETING
Many
business owners and practitioners mistakenly think of selling and marketing as
interchangeable concepts. This is particularly true in the case of small
businesses, which often equates marketing with selling deliberately due to
organizational and resource limitations.
But
even if sales and marketing are intrinsically linked, the fact is that they are
two very different business activities.
The difference.
Selling begins when a product or service becomes available for consumption or use. This function covers retailers’ awareness and confidence on the product and cultivating customer advocacy for the maker of the product or service.
Selling begins when a product or service becomes available for consumption or use. This function covers retailers’ awareness and confidence on the product and cultivating customer advocacy for the maker of the product or service.
Marketing, on the other hand, is much broader in scope
and starts long before the selling process takes place. It covers everything
about the market, the consumer, and the brand.
Marketing is about creating consumer-relevant brand
that satisfy specific market needs. It is about building product and brand
awareness, influencing consumer’s purchase considerations, and making them
repeat customers.
Marketing and sales are complementary functions, any
one of which can’t achieve its goals without the other. And they need two key
elements to make them successfully do this: (1) an extensive understanding of
their customers and (2) the ability to adapt to the changing needs, attitudes,
and behaviors of the market.
To
ensure continuing sales success, a marketing strategy needs to achieve four
specific goals for a particular product or service: strong consumer focus,
meaningful segmentation, clear and compelling brand positioning, and a relevant
marketing mix.[related|post]
A strong consumer focus.
A strong consumer focus.
Nobody
buys a product for what it is.Consumers buy a product if they think it benefits
them. It is therefore critical for a company to understand the psychology of
their target market. A company can do this by doing relevant research on the
demographic they want to attract.
Marketers
have the tendency to want to develop products that carry superior functional
claims. Though this is a good thing, it is not always possible to achieve such
demonstrable product superiority such as technical or cost limitations.
Moreover, such superiority may not always be sustainable as competitors often
try to outperform, if not match, benefits or propositions being offered by
competition.
This
is why it is important for companies to come up with offerings that more than
demonstrate functional superiority, satisfy specific needs or desires of
consumers. This can come in various forms—packaging, sizing innovation,
distribution, advertising—and dimensions that are functional, sensual and
emotional.
Meaningful segmentation.
Meaningful segmentation.
To really know their target
market, marketers need to identify the group of consumers that has the
strongest need for or affinity to the brand. Every consumer is, of course,
unique. Each has needs that are different from others, so it would be unwise to
custom-fit a product or service offering to a single individual. For the same
reason, it would be impractical to expect the needs of all consumers to be
satisfied by a single product or service offering. Thus, the most
cost-effective, practical way to market a product is to target a specific group
of customers and consumers with largely similar needs.
This is where market segmentation comes
in—identifying and targeting a group of consumers that are in some demonstrable
way similar to one another but different from the rest of the market.
Determining the most apt group of consumers for its product or service can, of
course, be done through an appropriate market segmentation study.
Clear and compelling brand positioning.
Creating an image for your product and clearly positioning it in the minds of the target market—these are musts for establishing a long-term relationship with the consumers. Brand positioning, which sustains the brand image and explains the product’s unique selling proposition (USP), is ultimately what makes the consumers choose a product over its competitors and patronize it over the long term. It is what makes a brand uniquely meaningful to its target markets and what clearly distinguishes it from the other players in the same product category.
Solid marketing mix.
Clear and compelling brand positioning.
Creating an image for your product and clearly positioning it in the minds of the target market—these are musts for establishing a long-term relationship with the consumers. Brand positioning, which sustains the brand image and explains the product’s unique selling proposition (USP), is ultimately what makes the consumers choose a product over its competitors and patronize it over the long term. It is what makes a brand uniquely meaningful to its target markets and what clearly distinguishes it from the other players in the same product category.
Solid marketing mix.
A strong marketing mix that is
consistent with the brand positioning is a must for ensuring that a brand will
continue to sell. The marketing mix is simply the totality of the activities
done by the company that affects the marketing and selling of the brand. Each
element of the mix—product, packaging, pricing, distribution, promotions,
advertising—has its own characteristics, but each must be carefully considered
in its relationship with the other elements and with the overall marketing
strategy to ensure that the delivery of the brand promise is maximized.
This marketing mix should be balanced
and made consistent with the brand’s desired position and image in the market.
To have it any other way would just confuse consumers and weaken the standing
of the brand in their minds.
DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN SELLING AND MARKETING
In
general we use ‘marketing’ and ‘selling’ as synonyms but there is a substantial
difference between both the concepts. It is necessary to understand the
differences between Marketing vs Selling for a successful marketing manager.
Selling has a product focus and mostly producer driven. It is the action part
of marketing only and has short – term goal of achieving market share. The
emphasis is on price variation for closing the sale where the objective can be
stated, as “I must somehow sell the product”. This short – term focus does not
consider a prudential planning for building up the brand in the market place
and winning competitive advantage through a high loyal set of customers. The
end means of any sales activity is maximizing profits through sales
maximization.
When
the focus is on selling, the businessman thinks that after production has been
completed the task of the sales force starts. It is also the task of the sales
department to sell whatever the production department has manufactured.
Aggressive sales methods are justified to meet this goal and customer’s actual
needs and satisfaction are taken for granted. Selling converts the product in to
cash for the company in the short run.
Marketing
as a concept and approach is much wider than selling and is also dynamic as the
focus is on the customer rather than the product. While selling revolves
around the needs and interest of the manufacturer or marketer, marketing
revolves around that of consumer. It is the whole process of meeting and
satisfying the needs of the consumer.
Marketing
consists of all those activities that are associated with product planning, pricing, promoting and distributing the product or service.
The task commences with identifying consumer needs and does not end till
feedback on consumer satisfaction from the consumption of the product is
received. It is a long chain of activity, which comprises production, packing,
promotion, pricing, distribution and then the selling. Consumer needs become
the guiding force behind all these activities. Profits are not ignored but they
are built up on a long run basis. Mind share is more important than market
share in Marketing.
According
to Prof. Theodore Levitt ‘The difference between selling and marketing is more
than semantic. A truly marketing minded firm tries to create value satisfying
goods and services which the consumers will want to buy. What is offers for
sale is determined not by the seller but by the buyers. The seller takes his
cues from the buyer and the product becomes the consequence of the marketing
effort, not vice versa. Selling merely concerns itself with the tricks and
techniques of getting the customers to exchange their cash for the company’s
products, it does not bother about the value satisfaction that the exchange is
all about. On the contrary, marketing views the entire business as consisting
of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse ad satisfy customer
needs’.
SELLING
1.Emphasis is on the product.
2.Company Manufactures the product first.
3.Management is sales volume oriented.
4.Planning is short-run-oriented in terms of today’s products and markets.
5.Stresses needs of seller.
6.Views business as a good producing process.
7.Emphasis on staying with existing technology and reducing costs.
8.Different departments work as in a highly separate water tight compartments
9.Cost determines Price.
10 Selling views customer as a last link in business.
2.Company Manufactures the product first.
3.Management is sales volume oriented.
4.Planning is short-run-oriented in terms of today’s products and markets.
5.Stresses needs of seller.
6.Views business as a good producing process.
7.Emphasis on staying with existing technology and reducing costs.
8.Different departments work as in a highly separate water tight compartments
9.Cost determines Price.
10 Selling views customer as a last link in business.
MARKETING
1.Emphasis on consumer needs wants.
2 Company first determines customers needs and wants and then decides out how to deliver a product to satisfy these wants.
3.Management is profit oriented
4 Planning is long-run-oriented in today’s products and terms of new products, tomorrow’s markets and future growth.
5.Stresses needs and wants of buyers.
6.Views business as consumer producing process satisfying process
7 Emphasis on innovation on every existing technology and reducing every sphere, on providing better costs value to the customer by adopting a superior technology.
8 All departments of the business integrated manner, the sole purpose being generation of consumer satisfaction.
9. Consumer determine price, price determines cost
10. Marketing views the customer last link in business as the very purpose of the business.
2 Company first determines customers needs and wants and then decides out how to deliver a product to satisfy these wants.
3.Management is profit oriented
4 Planning is long-run-oriented in today’s products and terms of new products, tomorrow’s markets and future growth.
5.Stresses needs and wants of buyers.
6.Views business as consumer producing process satisfying process
7 Emphasis on innovation on every existing technology and reducing every sphere, on providing better costs value to the customer by adopting a superior technology.
8 All departments of the business integrated manner, the sole purpose being generation of consumer satisfaction.
9. Consumer determine price, price determines cost
10. Marketing views the customer last link in business as the very purpose of the business.