Main Topics
The Core Principles: Communication
Communication: It Takes Two
The Buyer’s Personality Should Be Considered
Adaptive Selling Based on Buyer’s Personality Style
Nonverbal Communication: Watch for It
Communication: Improve Your Encoding and Decoding
Learning Objectives
The ability to effectively communicate both verbally and nonverbally is crucial to sales success. This chapter introduces this important sales skill. After studying this chapter, you should be able to
1. 4–1 Present and discuss the salesperson–buyer communication process.
2. 4–2 Determine a person’s personality type.
3. 4–3 Discuss and illustrate the importance of using nonverbal communication when selling.
4. 4–4 Define and recognize acceptance, caution, and disagreement nonverbal signals.
5. 4–5 Explain ways of developing persuasive communication.
FACING A SALES CHALLENGE
Amos Skaggs, purchasing professional, stands as a salesperson enters his office. “Hi, Mr. Skaggs,” the salesperson says, offering his hand. Skaggs returns a limp, one-second handshake and sits down behind his desk. He begins to open his afternoon mail, almost as though no one else were in the room.
The salesperson sits down and begins his canned sales talk by saying, “Mr. Skaggs, I’m here to show you how your company can lower manufacturing costs by 10 percent.” Skaggs lays his mail down on his desk, leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, and with a growl says: “I’m glad to hear that. You know something, young fellow, pretty soon it won’t cost us anything to manufacture our products.” “Why is that?” the salesman mumbles, meekly looking down to the floor. “Well, you are the ninth person I’ve seen today who has offered to save us 10 percent on our costs.”
Skaggs stands up, leans over the table, and while peering over his glasses says slowly, “I believe I’ve heard enough sales pitches for one day.” The initially enthusiastic salesperson now apologetically says, “If this is not a good time for you, sir, I can come back at a later date.”
The problem facing this salesperson is common. The buyer has been seeing salespeople all day. Basically, they say the same thing: “Buy from me and I’ll save you money.” The buyer has communicated his feelings toward the salesperson both verbally and nonverbally.
What message has Skaggs sent to the salesperson? If you were the salesperson, what might you do now?
page 120Although many other factors are crucial to sales success, the ability to communicate effectively is of prime importance. To convincingly convey this important sales skill, this chapter directly applies a basic communication model to the buyer–seller interaction. We describe several factors influencing communication, along with possible barriers to effective
