230 ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The major variables in designing an ad campaign are budget, message content, con-
text, choice of media, timing, and means of evaluating effectiveness. New ventures usu-
ally operate on limited budgets and target niches that can be defined geographically or
by consumer interest. This lends itself to the use of local media or special-interest pub-
lications. Yellow Pages and Yellow Book advertising and well designed and targeted
direct mail are often very effective.
Personal sellinguses oral presentation, supplemented by other media (overhead
slides, computer graphics), in formal settings or informal conversations to persuade
prospective buyers.^25 The decision to use personal selling has as much to do with man-
agement and human resources as with marketing, because a company needs a sales force
in order to implement it, though sometimes personal selling is done by manufacturer’s
reps or by the entrepreneurs themselves.
The decisions involved in a sales force strategy are complex and, like advertising, are
contingent on product, distribution, and pricing. The major elements are sales force size,
sales force territory, recruitment and selection of salespersons, training, incentive
schemes and promotions, and supervision and evaluation. Because of this large number
of variables, particularly the social complexity of the relationship between salespeople
and their customers, an effective sales force can be a source of SCA. “Selling” is only one
of the tasks of salespersons.
The basic design of the sales job depends on the rest of the marketing mix and the
characteristics of the market, but the job includes as many as five additional functions:- Prospectingis the search for additional customers. Sometimes these have been
identified by the company. These are known as “leads.” At other times the salesper-
son makes “cold calls,” contacting individuals and companies with no previously
expressed interest in the product or service. This is a difficult task because the sales-
people meet with high levels of rejection, so cold calls can seem like wasted effort.
Now a new set of software tools and online services are available to minimize both
rejection and inefficiencies. These social network services are more effective than
cold calling. According to Anu Shukla of RubiconSoft Inc., “You know who you
are calling and who they report to, to make the call more fruitful.”^26 Some of these
popular sales lead generation tools are:
- CI Radar (http://www.ciradar.com)
- Hoover’s Inc. (http://www.hoovers.com)
- iProfile LLC (http://www.iporfile.net)
- Jigsaw Data Corp. (http://www.jigsaw.com)
- LinkedIn Ltd. (http://www.linkedin.com)
- Spoke Software Inc. (http://www.spoke.com)
- Zoom Information Inc. (http://www.zoominfo.com)
- Communicatinginformation to existing buyers or potential buyers is a basic sales
function. The subject of the communication may be price, product characteristics,
new product developments, or competing product comparisons. - Servicingcustomers includes consulting them about any problems, providing tech-
nical or managerial assistance, and helping with financing or delivery schedules. - Information collectionand gathering competitive intelligence are also parts of a