Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e

15. Personal Selling Text © The McGraw−Hill
    Companies, 2002

Personal Selling 425

What Kinds of Personal Selling Are Needed?

Order Getters Develop New Business Relationships

If a firm has too few salespeople, or the wrong kind, some important personal

selling tasks may not be completed. And having too many salespeople, or the wrong

kind, wastes money. A sales manager needs to find a good balance—the right num-

ber and the right kind of salespeople. This balance may change over time with other

changes in strategy or the market environment; that’s why many firms have been

restructuring their sales forces.

One of the difficulties of determining the right number and kind of salespeople is

that every sales job is different. While an engineer or accountant can look forward

to fairly specific duties, the salesperson’s job changes constantly. However, there are

three basic types of sales tasks. This gives us a starting point for understanding what

selling tasks need to be done and how many people are needed to do them.

The three basic sales tasksare order-getting, order-taking, and supporting. For

convenience, we’ll describe salespeople by these terms—referring to their primary

task—although one person may do all three tasks in some situations.

As the names imply, order getters and order takers obtain orders for their com-

pany. Every marketing mix must have someone or some way to obtain orders. In

contrast, supporting salespeople are not directly interested in orders. Their function

is to help the order-oriented salespeople.

Personal selling is

divided into three tasks

Producers’ order

getters—find new

opportunities

Order gettersare concerned with establishing relationships with new customers

and developing new business. Order-gettingmeans seeking possible buyers with a

well-organized sales presentation designed to sell a good, service, or idea.

Order getters must know what they’re talking about, not just be personal con-

tacts. Order-getting salespeople work for producers, wholesalers, and retailers. They

normally are well paid—many earn more than $80,000 a year.

Producers of all kinds of products, especially business products, have a great need

for order getters. They use order getters to locate new prospects, open new accounts,

see new opportunities, and help establish and build channel relationships.

Top-level customers are more interested in ways to save or make more money

than in technical details. Good order getters cater to this interest. They help the

customer identify ways to solve problems; then they sell concepts and ideas, not just

physical products. The goods and services they supply are merely the means of

achieving the customer’s end.

For example, Circadian, Inc., sells high-tech medical equipment. Changes in

Medicare rules mean that doctors can no longer routinely order expensive tests in

hospitals because the costs can’t be recovered easily. But the doctors canbe paid for

tests done in their offices—if they have the right equipment. When Circadian order

getters call on doctors, they show how the firm’s testing equipment can improve

patient care and office profits. Reps can often get a $20,000 order on the spot because

they can show that the equipment will pay for itself in the first year. The doctors don’t

care about technical details as long as the machines are accurate and easy to use.^5

If competitors offer nearly the same product, the order getter’s crucial selling job

is to establish the relationship and get the company’s name on the approved sup-

pliers list. Keeping it there requires constant attention to the customer’s needs, and