Professional Selling

Read these sections and answer the review questions at the end of each section. This chapter discusses the role selling plays in marketing strategies.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Activities

  1. Contact a salesperson and ask if you can spend a half-day observing sales calls. Whether you are able to observe or not, ask these questions: What are the segments within that salesperson's territory? How do they make decisions and what are the key sales activities?
  2. Contact a professional who works with salespeople. This exercise can be done with physicians who have reps call on them, professors who have sales reps call on them, as well as professional purchasing agents. What do they think of salespeople and the value that these professionals get from their salespeople? What separates the good salespeople from the ones that are not so good?
  3. You are trying to convince a potential roommate to move into your apartment. Develop a list of questions you would use to understand what that person needed in a place to live and in a roommate. Then, with someone else in the class, take turns selling each other on why you should room together.