Business Studies

Promotion and Advertising Topic 7 Q2

It has been said that the importance of the sales force varies at different stages in the communication hierarchies. Discuss this idea, providing examples to support your position.

ANSWER

Sales Force

Generating finances and other revenues will need an active role in the sales force. Any sales group or team must work together to enhance brand awareness and drive sales towards achieving the set goals and objectives. In addition to generating revenues, a sales force should build a firm trust with customers, essential in all stages of the relationship. New consumers should be engaged constantly to know more about the brand (Sleep et al., 2020). Users or buyers will only gain trust in the products through continuous communication and follow-up with the sales representative. A sales representative should also re-engage previous customers through communication, discounts, and promotions.

Communication hierarchies play a significant role in the sales force because of the various stages of the business. Advertising always takes a vital role in the first stages of hierarchy where awareness has to be considered the primary objective while the cost to exposure comes low within the medium. From this perspective, personal selling can be applied at later phases to demonstrate the items, increase trial, and close the deal. In such a scenario, with the three elements, it is easy for a business entity to restructure the existing loopholes and work towards accomplishing the more important goal (Reid et al., 2017).  When introducing a new product into the marketplace, advertising is essential in creating awareness necessary for sales. Sales force can break or do a business relying on the degree of their professionalism and communication hierarchies. Sales preventatives should be vetted according to the company’s culture and goals. Therefore, when a product is at its initial stages in the market, the sales force must play a significant role in making it popular.

References

Reid, D. A., Plank, R. E., Peterson, R. M., & Rich, G. A. (2017). Examining the use of sales force management practices. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.

Sleep, S., Dixon, A. L., DeCarlo, T., & Lam, S. K. (2020). The business-to-business inside sales force: roles, configurations and research agenda. European Journal of Marketing.