Types of Personal-Selling Objectives

The qualitative personal-selling objectives are long term and concern the contributions management expects personal selling to make in achieving long term company objectives. These objectives generally are carried over from one period’s promotional program to the next. Depending upon company objectives and the promotional mix, personal selling may be assigned such qualitative objectives as

• To do the entire selling job (as when there are no other elements in the promotional mix).
• To “service” existing accounts (that is, to maintain contacts with present customers, take orders, and so forth)
• To search out and obtain new customers
• To secure and maintain customers’ cooperation in stocking and promoting the product line
• To keep customers informed on changes in the product line and other aspects of marketing strategy
• To assist customers in selling the product line (as through “missionary selling”)..
• To provide technical advice and assistance to customers (as with complicated products and where products are especially designed to fit buyers specifications)
• To assist with (or handle) the training of middlemen’s sales personnel
• To provide advice and assistance to middlemen on management problems
• To collect and report market information of interest and use to company management.

The basic considerations in setting qualitative personal-selling objectives are decisions on sales policies and personal-selling strategies and their role in the total promotional program. After this role is defined, qualitative long term personal selling objectives are set. In turn, the qualitative personal-selling objectives become the major determinants of the quantitative personal selling objectives.

The quantitative objectives assigned to personal selling are short term and are adjusted from one promotional period to another. The sales volume objective – the dollar or unit sales volume management sets as the target for the promotional period – is the key quantitative objective. All other quantitative personal- selling objectives derive from or are related to the sales volume objective. Thus, discussion here focuses upon the setting of sales volume objectives. Setting the sales volume objective influences the setting of other quantitative personal selling objectives, among them the following:

• To capture and retain a certain market share
• To obtain sales volume in ways that contributes to profitability (for example, by selling the “optimum” mix of company products).
• To obtain some number of new accounts of given types.
• To keep personal-selling expenses within set limits
• To secure targeted percentages of certain accounts’ business

Some Important Terms: Before examining the planning and analytical work involved in setting sales volume objectives, it is important to define three terms: market potential, sales potential, and sales forecast. Some executives use these terms synonymously, but, as the following discussion indicates, there are good reasons for distinguishing among them.

Market Potential : A market potential is an estimate of the maximum possible sales opportunities present in a particular market segment and open to all sellers of a good or service during a stated future period. Thus, an estimate of the maximum number of low-priced pocket cameras that might be sold in San Mateo County, California, during the calendar year 1987 by all sellers competing for this market would represent the 1987 San Mateo County market potential for low-priced pocket cameras. A market potential indicates how much of a particular product can be sold to a particular market segment over some future period, assuming the application of appropriate marketing methods.

Sales Potential: A sales potential is an estimate of the maximum possible sales opportunities present in a particular market segment open to a specified company selling a good or service during a stated future period. To illustrate, and estimate of the number of low-priced pocket cameras that might be sold in San Mateo County, California, during the calendar year 1987 by the Eastman Kodak Company would be the 1987 San Mateo County sales potential for Eastman Kodak low-price pocket cameras. A sales potential represents sales opportunities available to a particular manufacturer, such as to Eastman Kodak Company, while a market potential indicates sales opportunities available to an entire industry.

Sales Forecast: A sales forecast is an estimate of sales, in dollars or physical units, in a future period under a particular marketing program and an assumed set of economic and other factors outside the unit for which the forecast is made. A sales forecast may be for a single product or for an entire product line. It may be for a manufacturer’s entire marketing area, or for any subdivision of it. Such forecasts are short-term, or operating, sales forecasts rather than long-range sales forecasts, which are used for planning production capacity and for long-run financial planning. Long-range sales forecasts, although of interest, are so tentative that sales planners give them only passing attention. It is the short-term, or operating, sales forecast that it important to the sales executive. Keep in mind, then, that an operating sales forecast is a prediction of how much of a company’s particular product (or product line) can be sold during a future period under a given marketing program and an assumed set of outside factors.