Assignment

This exercise will give you practice in selecting the appropriate kinds of salespersons. Several situations involving a need for personal selling are described below. For each situation, indicate which of the following kinds of salespeople would be most appropriateand then explain why in a written discussion.

-Order getter

-Order taker

-Missionary salespeople

-Technical Specialist

-Customer service rep

a. A video rental store needs a person to operate its checkout counter.

b. A producer of hand soapsthat sells to retail food stores and drugstores through their normal wholesale supplierswants to get retailer promotional support and shelf space for a new line of liquid soaps.

c. A group of Cisco managers who have taken early retirement wants to hire a salesperson to promote their new business which is performing "MIS Audits"evaluating the expense and effectiveness of firms' current management information systems and offering suggestions for improvement. Some firms" do this" type of evaluation themselves, but many companies don't have the technical or management expertise to know about all the alternative ways the MIS might be improved.

d. A group of lawyers wants to sell prepaid legal services to unions and other employee groups; although the idea has been popular in other areas of the country, they are the first law firm to offer this service in their city.

e. A company that manufactures radio equipment for commercial aircraft wants to add a new salesperson to be responsible for global positioning satellite systems (a type of radio receiver which can compute a plane's position based on satellite signals) with its existing customers, a small number of very large commercial aircraft manufacturers.