Industrial selling is distinguished from other kinds of selling by ‘customer penetration’. As a rule, when distributing a product for resale, the sale is made by a salesperson to the buyer or the merchant acting as their own buyer. Rarely does the sales executive have to ‘sell’ both the buyer and the owner of the shop, though a smart person makes sure that anyone who sells their product understands its sales points. In industrial selling, however, it may be necessary for the sales executive to persuade several people before walking out with an order. First, the user of the product has to be sufficiently interested to suggest to their immediate supervisor that this particular product be specified when a requisition is next placed; since few workers are capable of effectively relaying a sales presentation, the sales executive must also ‘sell’ the supervisor. After the supervisor requisitions the product, the matter may go to the works manager or the engineering department for approval, if it is sufficiently important. Again, the salesperson has to make sure that these executives understand the engineering advantages of the product. After being approved by the engineering or operating department, the requisition may travel to the financial controller, who approves the budgetary expenditure and passes it along to the purchasing department.
The buyer or the assistant mayor may not issue a purchase order at this point. After checking the price against competition, some similar product may be found which seems ‘just as good’ and may be cheaper. So, unless the sales executive is on the job, the requisition may travel back to its point of issue to ascertain whether the cheaper product may not be acceptable. This process is quite usual in industrial selling. In the case of equipment involving a considerable outlay of money, it may be necessary to ‘sell’ several executives and the board of directors. There are usually ‘no people’ in every organization, who may not actually have much buying authority, but who can, if not otherwise persuaded, wreck the sale.
