Personal Selling: The Key to Small Business Success

As a small business owner, you do not have the budget of a large company with regards to advertising. Television commercials, billboard ads and even radio spots may be too expensive to buy. However, a small business can effectively get the word out about its products by using personal selling techniques.

Personal selling, as the name suggests, involves person-to-person interaction during the sales process. Such interaction may take the form of face-to-face discussion, personal correspondence (e.g., e-mail), or telephone communication. Personal selling is specifically targeted to a given potential customer or set of customers, and is therefore easily altered if the desired effect (i.e., sale) does not occur.

Because personal selling puts the seller "on the spot" with the customer, complete product knowledge is of paramount importance, as well as any add-on, upgrade and troubleshooting information, if applicable. Good communication skills, a pleasant demeanor, and a commitment to follow-through on promises or guarantees made are also critical. Building a relationship with the customer is key if the seller hopes to sell the business's products and future products.

Because sellers must be extensively trained on product specifications as well as the company's history, they are expensive to hire and retain. Depending on what types of products are being sold, the small business owner has two choices for personal selling: the individual salesperson, or door-to-door selling and home demonstration parties.

The individual salesperson is expensive to hire but very effective at gaining customers and generating sales. A salesperson is typically required if your small business sells high-end items such as computers, appliances or security systems. In such a case, the costs of employing a salesperson are outweighed by the number of high profit margin customer sales that he or she generates. A salesperson can also effectively sell "second generation" items like product warranties, service agreements and upgrades.

If your small business carries relatively inexpensive items such as cosmetics, kitchen utensils, vitamin supplements or food containers, your personal selling needs will be better served by door-to-door selling or home demonstration parties. In this case, the salesperson will actually be one of your customers who, for the cost of a few free products, will go door-to-door selling your goods or will host customer gatherings at his or her house.

Such a salesperson has a high attrition rate because his or her qualifications do not always meet the demands of the job. Likewise, the level of training for such a position is lower than that provided for a company-paid salesperson. However, because hiring these salespeople costs very little for the small business, many candidates apply and are hired. Of the salespeople who do remain with the company and learn effective personal selling techniques, some become quite successful and valuable to the small business.