Download free eBooks at bookboon.comMarketing Communications
Organizination And Management Of Advertising
Agencies And Advertising DepartmentsQUALITY AND STYLE OF PERSONAL SELLING – FACTORS TO CONSIDER
- The quality of personal selling varies with products, and target group.
- Personal selling is not seen as a prestigious occupation in most countries.
- Practitioners in personal selling are usually not adequately trained in less-developed
countries resulting in lower practicing standards. - Leads generated by advertising may become worthless because of low standard personal
selling practitioners. - Selling styles may differ significantly. For example, door-to-door selling style may not be
embraced because of cultural and social differences among countries. - The personal selling tactic may have to be modified in some markets.
- Personal selling must receive proper support in terms of training and information.
- It may be difficult for sales persons to be effective without advertising support.
INTER CULTURAL NEGOTIATION
Successful negotiations demands some understanding of each party’s culture and may also require
adoption of a negotiation strategy that is consistent with the other party’s cultural system. The strategy
of stereotyping personality traits could assist salespersons in achieving better negotiation. Stereotyped
personality traits can be used to identify various types of customers that could assist the salesperson in
his approach during negotiation. Such personality traits could be business-minded person, stubborn,
argumentative, hot-tempered, illiterate and others.
The salesperson must, however, avoid generalization which may lead to believing that members of the
group must share the same traits. These prejudices, if believed, may affect business negotiations and
their outcome. International marketers should be interested in the effects of cultural adaptation on
intercultural communication.
RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION OF SALESPERSONS
Recruitment and selection of salespersons will be done in the local market or host country by those who
know the market’s situation best. To aid recruitment and selection of salesmen, many companies develop
job descriptions and personal specification lists of screen candidates for sales jobs. In the firm’s foreign
markets the salesperson’s job depends on the function of the firm’s product line, distribution channels,
its overall marketing mix, and other variables in the firms marketing environment – such as cultural
variables. In various foreign markets factors such as religion, education, race or tribe characteristics
must be considered.
The international marketer can make some contributions to the selection and recruitment of salesperson
in the host country – such contribution may be in form of aptitude test or techniques which have been
successfully used in domestic operations in some other subsidiary country or markets. (Onkvisit, and
Shaw, 1993)