Professional Selling [antikvár]

PrefaceThe concept for this text originated in the authors' combined experience in teaching more than 45,000 sales professionals and their managers over the last 26 years. During this time, sales managers consistently lamented their inability to hire individuals with even a basic understanding of the importance of maintaining customer relaüonships during the sales process. To verify this impression, the authors conducted a formai survey of professional sales managers to determine the specific skills they considered most important in a can-didate for a sales position with their company. To ensure that the text and pedagogy would meet the needs of the academic community that would be asked to teach with it, the authors alsó conducted a survey of hundreds of college and community college professors teaching a sales course to determine the subjects and skills they considered most important in an introductory sales text. Finally, each chapter was reviewed by experienced professors actu-ally teaching introductory sales courses to make certain that it would meet the needs of both teachers and students. This text is the result.It has been demonstrated beyond question that customers, not corpora-tions, are the fmal judges of the quality of products and services they pur-chase. Sales professionals today can no longer simply "pressure" customers to buy based on their charm, force of personality, and a glib tongue. Today's sales professional must be just that, a professional, who is as highly trained and motivated to work with and help customers solve their needs or problems as any doctor, lawyer, or other professional. Not only must today's sales professionals be able to communicate effectively with their clientele, they must alsó be able to elicit and diagnose needs and then work with the customer to solve them.Professional Selling: A Consultative Approach has been written by three sales professionals with more than 50 years of combined sales and sales training experience. In addition, the authors have taught collegiate and postcolle-giate courses on the art of marketing, sales, and sales management. Dr. Kari Gretz and Steven Drozdeck authored the dominant books on consultative selling and sales management for the financial services industry.PROFESSIONAL CHALLENGESToday's sales professionals face a variety of challenges in meeting their customers' needs, includingServing, not selling, customers! Customers want people to help them meet their needs, not just convince them to buy something.Promoting and maintaining ethical sales practices. Caveat emptor ("let the buyer beware") may still be a legal sales practice in somé circum-stances, but it is never good business. A sales professional who always places the needs of the customer first will rarely become involved in ethical dilemmas.