MKT By Connie D

Telemarketing

Another topic covered in module 3 is telemarketing.  It has happened to us all that we have just sat down to dinner with our family and the phone rings.  When answered we are greated with a solicitation for a contribution to a charity or political campaign.  I hate these.  There has been quite a bit of legislation passed in recent years regaurding telemarketing.  The book mentions that there are two basic types of telemarketing.  These types are outbound and inbound.  With outbound telemarketing the seller calls the account and with inbound telemarketing the account calls the seller.  Outbound telemarketing includes the afore mentioned charity call as well as calls from credit card companies, carpet cleaners, and pest controll services.  An example of inbound telemarketing is calling the phone number on a postcard that advertises timeshare property.  Also worth mentioning here are autodialers.  These are machines or recently computer programs that dial a series of phone numbers one after the other and play a recorded message.  These can be effective for a telemarketing campaign because it eliminates the need to pay a person to make the outbound calls.

Many people do not like being disturbed by telemarketers.  There recently has been laws passed that allow for do not call lists. These lists place restrictins on telemarketers that call individuals on the list.  Here are links to both the national list and the Texas list.https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx

http://www.puc.state.tx.us/ocp/telephone/donotcall.cfm

Trade Shows

Module 3 is much longer than the last one.  There are quite a few things that I could blog about here but the first on that catches my attention is the part in the book on trade shows.  I feel that these are a good way to sell big ticket items.  First of all, trade shows are industry-sponsored events in which companies use a booth to display products and services to potential and existing customers.  Because trade shows are usually held only once a year, they are not to be considered the primary way to sell a product.  They should be viewed as a secondary means only.  I have personally attended a few trade shows and in 2004 purchased a new RV at the Fort Worth RV Show.  One thing to consider with trade shows is channel conflict.  It could be said that sales made at trade shows would be made elsewhere since most people that visit these type of shows intend to make a purchase anyway.  For instance individuals attending a boat show are already interested in boats and boating and likely considering a purchase that would otherwise be made at the boat dealership.

Here is a link to the RV show where I bought mine two years ago.http://www.fortworthrvshow.com/index.htm

Here's a link to the Dallas Bridal Show that is comming up soon.http://bridalshowsinc.com/

Thoughts on Module 2

I read module two and have decided to share a couple of interesting points this chapter discusses.  The title of this chapter is Overview of Personal Selling.  One of the things that I noticed was that more money is spent on personal selling than on any other form of marketing communications.  That's more money than on advertising, sales promotion, publicity, or public relations.  It seems that more attention is often given to advertising however, it might make more sense to pay close attention to personal selling because of the amount of money that is spent there.  The book goes on to discuss various approaches to personal selling.  These include the stimulus response, mental states, need satisfaction, problem solving, and the consultative approach.  The book also mentions the sales process.  The sales process is a cycle of events that salespeople follow and spend most of their time doing.  It is a series of steps beginning with locating qualified prospective customers.  From there, the sales person plans the sales presentation, makes an appointment to see the customer, completes the sale, and performs post-sale activities.

There a bunch of resoruces available on this website.  It is the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management   http://www.jpssm.org/

History of Personal Selling

Personal selling can be traced back to as far as ancient Greece.  The need for salespeople was enhanced by the Industrial Revolution and modern personal selling got its start during the first part of the twentieth century. 

The Industrial Revolution begins in the 18th century in Great Britain. This meant that the local economies where no longer self-sufficient and the need to reach new customers to buy the mass-produced products increased. The birth of the traveling salesperson begins. Salespeople are the primary way for providing paid personal communications to customers.

Personal selling is a communication process that helps salespeople fulfill customer’s needs. Which makes personal selling the most important part of marketing communication for most business. According to the textbook there is more money spent on personal selling than on any other form of marketing communication, weather it is advertising, sales promotion, publicity, or public relations.

According to one source I read there are seven steps to personal selling they are:

Prospecting
developing a list of potential buyers
preapproach
initial preapproach letter, telephone call, etc.
approach
initial face-to-face contact with prospect during which first impressions are formed
needs analysis
discovery and assessment of prospects needs
presentation
presentation/demonstration of how the product fills a need or solves a problem for the prospect
answering questions and overcoming objections
prospect provides feedback and salesperson attempts to further tailor the presentation for the prospect's needs
close
salesperson asks the prospect to buy
follow-up
delivery, customer service, referrals

http://www.avoncompany.com/about/selling.html

From Local to Global

As I mentioned in my previous post Module 1 is an introductory to sales management.  It briefly covers a wide variety of topics in sales management.  One of the things that caught my attention in this chapter is the section titled From Local to Global.  This section touches on the globalization of the world's marketplace and how it is affecting different companies.  Even companies that do not conduct business outside of the United States are faced with these issues as they likely face competition from foreign firms, use international suppliers, work with partners from other countries, or have employees from overseas. 

As communication and transportation costs fall, the world becomes a smaller place.  It now costs only a fraction of what it did twenty years ago to ship an item across the Pacific.  An abundance of fiber optic lines and communications satellites have also served to make the world a smaller place.  And the grandest of them all, the Internet has served to make the world a smaller place. 

Think back to life without e-mail, and cell phones.  Going back farther we recall a world without personal computer and fax machines.  All of these items have converged along with the awakening of several developing countries to create a grand global marketplace unlike any seen before. 

A couple of links for this topic are --------->>>>>>

http://www.translationdirectory.com/article625.htm

http://chiefmarketer.com/online_marketing/global_marketing_online_06162006/index.html

Module 1 -- Retaining Employees

Module 1 briefly covers a wide variety of topics and is an introductory type chapter.  One of the things that this module covers is the fact that it is important to retain employees in the field of sales management.  I agree with this.  In fact I will go so far as to say that retention of well qualified employees is an important issue in just about any industry today more so than ever.  The reasons for this are quit numerous but a couple of them that stick out to me are the high costs of training employees and the large number of "Baby Boomers" that are nearing retirement.

There are almost alwas costs associated with bringing a new employee on board.  The most obvious costs are the labor costs of trainer and the new employee being trained.  It is a very rare instance indeed when an employee can walk into a new job and perform their duties without training.  Today's workplaces tend to be complex and demanding; even experienced employees often require training to keep up with whats going on.

The Baby Boomer generation includes people born between 1945 and 1965.  The leading edge of the baby boomers is just about sixty five years old.  Some of the baby boomers are already retiring at an earlier age.  Its important for managers to recogonize that this will force younger generations X and Y to step up and take the place of the boomers in the workforce.  Its important to be prepared for this type of turnover.

I found a couple of web sites that deal with how to retain employees.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2183_retain-employees.html

http://www.asashop.org/autoinc/aug2005/manage.cfm

And here is an article about the costs associated with training.

http://management.about.com/cs/people/a/WhatPeopleCost.htm

introduction

Hi, I'm Connie D, I'm a Juior at Northwood. My major is management and am minoring in marketing. I am married and have two children and three grandchildren. My husband, Bill, is a senior at Northwood and will be graduating in May.  This is the first class of the marketing cycle that I have taken and am looking forward to this class and learning to properly blog as this is my first ever attempt at that.  For now, I am temporarilly unemployeed.  I have worked previously for a number of social service agencies.  I have an A.A.S. in mental health.  Well, that's all for now.   Connie