PART 1: Defining Marketing and the Marketing Process (Chapters 1–2)

PART 2: Understanding the Marketplace and Consumer Value (Chapters 3–6)

16 Personal Selling and Sales

In the previous two chapters, you learned about tools, they must be carefully integrated with the other elements
engaging customers and communicating customer of the promotion mix.
value through integrated marketing communications First, let’s look at a real-life sales force. When you think of
(IMC) and two elements of the promotion mix: ad- salespeople, perhaps you think of pushy retail sales clerks, “yell
vertising and public relations. In this chapter, we and sell” TV pitchmen, or the stereotypical glad-handing “used-car
examine two more IMC elements: personal selling and sales salesman.” But such stereotypes don’t fit the reality of most of to-
promotion. Personal selling is the interpersonal arm of market- day’s salespeople—sales professionals who succeed not by taking
ing communications, in which the sales force engages custom- advantage of customers but by listening to their needs and helping
ers and prospects to build relationships and make sales. Sales to forge solutions. Consider Salesforce—the industry leader in cus-
promotion consists of short-term incentives to encourage the tomer relationship management solutions. Salesforce not only pro-
purchase or sale of a product or service. Although this chap- duces market-leading sales management software, it also excels
ter presents personal selling and sales promotion as separate at practicing what it preaches—effective personal selling.

SALESFORCE: You Need a Great Sales Force to Sell Salesforce

S
alesforce is way out in front of the $20 billion mar- from anywhere, on any device with online access—desktops,
ket for customer relationship management (CRM) laptops, tablets, or smartphones. Salesforce also integrates with
solutions. The Salesforce logo, set inside the image major social media, providing tools for social media monitoring
of a puffy cloud, underscores Salesforce’s highly and real-time customer engagement and collaboration on its
successful cloud-based computing model (no software to Salesforce Chatter platform, a kind of Facebook for enterprises.
install or own). Cloud-based systems are common today, Salesforce’s innovative products have made it the world’s
but they were state-of-the-art when Salesforce pioneered the number-one and fastest-growing CRM platform, ahead of
concept more than 15 years ago. Since then, the company has blue-chip competitors such as Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and
established itself as a leading innovator, constantly finding IBM. The company’s revenues hit $6.2 billion last year, up
new ways to help client com- an impressive 24 percent over the
panies connect with customers previous year and more than four
Salesforce leads the market in sales force
and achieve greater sales force times what they were just five
effectiveness using the latest on- automation and customer relationship years ago. Salesforce has placed
line, mobile, social, and cloud management solutions. But even first or second on Forbes World’s
technologies. Salesforce’s innovative products won’t Most Innovative Company in any
Salesforce helps businesses to sell themselves. The company knows industry list for six straight years.
“supercharge their sales.” It sup- that it needs a great sales force to sell Innovative products and plat-
plies what it calls a “Customer forms have played a major role in
Salesforce.
Success Platform,” a wide array Salesforce’s stunning success. But
of cloud-based sales force automa- even the best products don’t sell
tion and customer relationship management tools that gather, themselves. You need a great sales force to sell Salesforce, and
organize, analyze, and disseminate in-depth data about a com- the company excels at practicing what it preaches—effective
pany’s customers, sales, and individual sales rep and overall personal selling. Like the companies that buy its services,
sales force performance. From its home in the cloud, Salesforce Salesforce has its own army of experienced, well-trained,
makes all these data and analyses readily available anytime, highly motivated sales reps who take the company’s products
 CHAPTER 16 | Personal Selling and Sales Promotion 479
to customers. In many respects, Salesforce’s own sales
force serves as a model for the products and services it
sells—not just for using the Salesforce cloud but more
generally for achieving the “supercharged” sales force
results that the company promises its clients.
At Salesforce, developing an outstanding sales
force starts with recruiting and hiring top-notch sales-
people. Salesforce’s aggressive but highly selective re-
cruiting program skims the cream off the top of the
global sales rep candidate pool. Each year on average,
Salesforce hires only 4.5 percent of the more than
100,000 candidates who applied. Experience counts.
Salesforce expects a minimum of two years of prior
sales experience for small-business sales reps and up
to two decades of experience for sales execs assigned to
major accounts. To find such experienced candidates, Salesforce’s cloud-based “Customer Success Platform” provides a wide
array of customer relationship management tools that help its customers
Salesforce freely raids rival companies for new hires, “supercharge their sales.”
counting on its high-energy culture and strong com- Bloomberg/Getty Images
pensation packages to lure successful salespeople into
the Salesforce fold. way to offer solutions is by telling good stories that highlight
Once hired, as you might expect, Salesforce salespeople other customers’ successes with its products. “Storytelling
have access to all the latest high-tech selling tools. In fact, the is very, very important,” says Salesforce’s sales productivity
first major assignment of new hires is to study 20 hours of at- manager. “It can be the foundation of things like the corpo-
home video that teaches them the ins and outs of the Salesforce rate pitch and your interactions with your customers and
technologies that they won’t be just selling but also using. But prospects.” When it comes to handling objections—such as
Salesforce would be the first to tell you that, although its cloud “I don’t trust putting our data in the cloud,” “My current sys-
wizardry can help to optimize customer contact and the selling tem is working fine,” or “It costs too much”—Salesforce tells
process, it doesn’t take the place of good personal selling skills. its salespeople that stories can be the most powerful tools they
So in training and fine-tuning its own sales force, the company have. “When faced with objections, we always relate it back
starts by preaching tried-and-true selling fundamentals, tem- to a customer story,” says a Salesforce marketing manager.
pered by its own modern twists. “We’re not the hero in our customer’s stories,” says another
The first fundamental of good selling at Salesforce is to lis- manager. “It’s how the customer succeeded, not how we
ten and learn. As new recruits go through Salesforce’s weeklong saved them.”
selling boot camp, taught at the company’s Salesforce U, they When it comes to competitors, Salesforce’s salespeople
learn that they should begin building customer relationships by are ferocious. But Salesforce reps are trained to take the high
asking probing questions and getting customers to talk, seeking road—to sell Salesforce’s strengths, not competitors’ weak-
to understand everything they can about a customer’s situa- nesses. “Internally, we have these posters: Crush Microsoft
tion and needs. “Eighty-five percent of salespeople don’t slow and Obliterate Oracle,” says the Salesforce marketing manager.
down enough to really understand their customer’s business,” But, he adds, “when you go out to your customers, you have
says a senior Salesforce sales executive. to be careful that you’re guiding them and not just stepping on
Understanding the customer leads to a second selling Microsoft. Even though we all want to.”
fundamental: empathize—let customers know that you un- Thus, effective professional selling is about much more
derstand their issues and feel their pain. Empathy builds than glad-handing and back-slapping on the one hand or ply-
rapport and trust, an important step toward closing sales and ing high-tech CRM tools and data analytics on the other. Even
building long-term customer relationships. Listening, learn- though Salesforce boasts the best sales and customer connection
ing, and empathizing are important first steps, but more is tools in the business, backed by big data and combined with
needed. “If all you are is responsive and helpful, then all you plenty of new-school techniques, its sales reps stay focused on
are is an administrative assistant,” says the Salesforce sales old-school selling principles. At Salesforce—or anywhere else—
executive. good selling starts with the fundamentals of engaging and lis-
So the next important step is to offer solutions—to show tening to customers, understanding and empathizing with their
how Salesforce’s cloud-based solutions will help clients make problems, and building relationships by offering meaningful
their sales forces more effective and productive in connecting solutions for mutual gain. That’s how you build an incredibly
with and selling to customers. Salesforce believes that the best successful sales force and Salesforce.1