Personal Selling

 Personal selling consists of individual and personal communication in contrast to mass advertising communication.

According to Cundiff and Still, "Personal selling is basically a method of communication. It involves not only individual but also social behavior each of the person in face-to-face contrast salesman and prospect influence the other."

It is face-to-face interaction with one or more prospective buyers for the purpose of making presentations, answering doubts and taking purchase orders.

Qualities of Personal Selling:

Personal selling is the most effective tool at later stages of the buying process in building up brand preference, conviction and buying decision.

Personal selling or salesmanship has four main qualities:

Personal Interaction: Personal selling creates an immediate and interactive episode between two or more persons. Each party can observe the other's reaction.

Cultivation: Personal selling also permits all kinds of relationships to spring up, ranging from a mater-off fact selling relationship to a deep personal friendship.

Response: The buyer may feel under some obligation for having listened to the sales talk. reordering is most affected by personal selling.

Information Seeker: By way of personal interaction, the salesperson can collect information about a customer's buying behavior, buying motives and product attitudes.

Kinds of Personal Selling:

Creative Salesmanship: It is educating the public in an innovative way that they begin to demand new products. It requires creative thinking and an impressive personality. The salesman is using imagination and originality in making sales presentations. He provides extensive information to the customer for a favorable response.

Competitive Salesmanship: When a salesman is pitching on the product's advantage in relation to the substitutes or competitor's products, he is using competitive salesmanship. In changing technology and changing lifestyle, competition is becoming intense, sales people resort to this type of selling approach.