Question

Personal selling involves an understanding of how to handle objections of potential customers/buyers. Consider a product/service that could be sold through personal selling (through a sales person). What objection, query or concern could a consumer have relating to that product/service before purchasing? How could a salesperson overcome that objection or answer the query or concern effectively for the consumer?

Answer 1

“Personal presentations by the firm’s sales force for the purpose of engaging customers, making sales, and building customer relationships." Objections are a reality in personal selling which I actually encounter every day in one form or another. I sell digital marketing products for a local news affiliate and 2 flag station television markets. Most of the query, concerns, or objections is that digital advertising does not work, there is no way to track success, it is too expensive, or my favorite is that I can just post Facebook ads myself. I hear at least one of these a day. When they say digital does not work I ask them if they have ever heard of Amazon, Google, Ebay just to name a few nontraditional completely digital retailers that take up a huge portion of the market share. According to Forbes magazine most companies refrain from digital advertising because of lack of knowledge, fear of change, inexperience with digital platforms and products as well as unrealistic expectations.