1. Is an aggressive approach required for successful salespeople today?
2. Why do many firms today use the job title of “Sales Representative” rather than “Salesperson”?
3. How can knowledge of buyer behavior, including the psychological variables of buying behavior, be helpful to a salesperson?

The functions of marketing, and one of these functions is selling. Selling falls into the category of promotion, one of the four aspects of the marketing mix. In the eyes of many observers, selling is a basic foundation on which marketing is based. This lecture looks at two different concepts of selling. The first concept deals with an illustration of a young college graduate in the 1950s who thought she might like to sell insurance for a living. The second concept is shown in a story about a young man just getting started as a life insurance company representative.

A young woman reported to the Chicago office of a large, nationally known insurance firm for an interview and a test. The testing was not to be a measure of intelligence or a monitoring of the woman’s interests and beliefs. It turned out to be a very crude device for determining just how aggressive the woman would be in grabbing people by the lapels and forcing a life insurance policy on them.

The test consisted of 100 questions. Early in the examination, the woman encountered this question:

You are planning to sell a life insurance policy to a busy executive in a large metropolitan center. His secretary tells you that he is not in. After hearing this, will you:

a. Accept this information and return another day.

b. Barge into his inner office anyway.

c. Persist in making an appointment with the executive for another day.

d. Try to sell a small life insurance policy to the secretary.

The young woman wavered between answers (a) and (c). As she proceeded through the test, the woman found that the very same question was asked nearly 40 times in a slightly different way. Each time, she would opt for the polite response, to make a future appointment or promise to come back another day. When the young woman had completed the test, the administrator told her: “Don’t call us; we’ll call you. We’ll look over the results of the testing and be in touch with you in a few days.”

That was the 1950s. The woman has yet to hear from that major insurance company. Over the years, she has thought back to what she could have done to pass that test. She came to believe that the answers the company wanted were: “Barge into his office anyway.” That was the response the company must have been looking for. If the woman avoided that answer every time, then it’s easy to understand why the firm never called her back.

Times have changed; so have tests and insurance companies. Chances are very good that the same insurance firm uses a much more sophisticated testing device. It’s also possible that the firm has learned that millions of policies have been sold by field personnel who were not pushy. In defense of the firm, perhaps it was not looking for sales personnel who would actually barge into the executive’s office and sell him or her a policy.