Nature of the sales environment free essay sample

The purpose of this essay is to analyse the key aspects of sale environment, including the international sale and legal and ethical issues. Based on the above this essay will first look at the importance of selling environment in the UK economy, it then discus and analyse the techniques of sales control and measurements for evaluation, supported with practical examples. Every business in the world has some certain unique features, which has to be learnt and practiced a lot in order to be successful in an enterprise. For example, a swimmer has to do practice regularly for hours in order to keep them fit for competitions. Even though the swimmer has succeeded in number of competition he has to work out regularly, everyday in order to defend his position at the highest level. During his training swimmer should focus on the mistakes which had made in the past competitions, also should train and prepare himself in such a way that shouldn’t repeat the same mistakes in future. There is an analogy between the competitive sports and salesmanship. As like in sports salesperson has to master the art of selling the products of the enterprise to the customers. The sales person himself should learn the fundamentals of selling and master them in order to get best results. The nature of sales personality depends on certain extent on heredity and environment. An intelligent salesman would combine the study and actual practice of the fundamentals by analysis. (Management-hub, 2012) Many studies have been conducted on understanding the customer and uncovering why some sales seem so easy and others seem almost impossible, even when the salesperson is using the same technique. In fact, the correct environment for customers to purchase and have business dealings with companies is a science. There are many rules and verifiable factors that can either increase or decrease the likelihood of making a sale. To understand the findings of these studies, everyone need to examine the common points listed below. (Sale Creators, 2007) 1. Leave the customer in their comfort zone. 2. Let the customer see you want to help and serve. 3. Do not feel hurried or pressured. 4. Do not hurry or pressure your customer. 5. Have effective human relations communications skills. 6. Have the sales environment maintained, clean and uncluttered. To increase a buyer’s receptiveness, a business has to take the findings of the points above and replace or correct any area that might be a concern for their customer. Every customer has anxieties when they meet a new person for the first time, or when they are in a new environment like a shop or store. This anxiety comes from the always present ‘unknowns’ with a new encounter. A lot of people have similar thought of or expressed these statements at one time in their lives. This is what defines their comfort zones. When comfort zones are challenged to expand humans often fight the process. Many times nobody do not want to change from what is comfortable. The removal of any of these buying anxieties creates a more positive sales environment. (Sale Creators, 2007) Pete Keon says: that generally in the business, it is necessary to find efficient methods of changing the sales environment. This might be necessary while the company evaluates it profitability during a sales year and finds they have experienced a loss. Transforming the sales environment will be no easy job for a company, however management can achieve this through utilizing the five major factors of sales success. It is essential that every sales staff, including the managers, are trained in 5 features of sales strategies; defining the sales campaign, sales motivation, sales presentation, sales methodologies, and sales leadership skills. These five vital elements of sales techniques will arm your company with a successful sales team, the backbone of a companys overall profitability and long-term viability. (Sales Success, 2012) The first sale success will need in changing the sales environment is defining the sales operation. This begins with knowing targets of client including demo graphic factors like age, educational background, earnings level, geographic location, and ethnicity. By knowing whom to go after with a product or service, available efficiently develop the companys sales presentation. A sales team needs the proper amount of time to prepare an effective sales technique when making the presentation. This consists of correct training in the next part of the five major elements of sales success, sales methodologies. Provide the workers proper training including online programs and in-house training so people would be ready to stay updated with modern sales presentation trends. Giving  the sales team the required training would assist to stay motivated to do the best possible job in their sales efforts for any company. When the success of the company relies upon changing the sales environment, equip your sales team with the very best tools offered by training them sales techniques. (Sales Success, 2012) As was discussed, role of selling plays an important thing for any business, but for example, international selling for economic survival of every cou ntry, because it permits to have the balance between their export earnings and import expenditure also known as the balance of payments. (Jobber and Lancaster, 1997) Economy Watch news wrote out: that the UK is the 7th leading importer and the 11th leading exporter in the world. Accordingly, the UK holds a massive trade deficit with the rest of the world, second only to the US. In 2010, UK imports were worth US 546.5 billion dollar with exports valued at only US405.6 billion dollar. Despite recent attempts by the government to reduce the trade deficit, the latest data from UK’s Office of National Statistics points to an ever-widening trade gap. Since the beginning of 2011, UK’s monthly trade deficit has hit record levels of more than  £4 billion per month. The monthly deficit in the UK for 2011 is also exceeding the previous record level of  £3.5 billion per month reached in 2007. The increase in UK’s budget deficit has also affected UK’s trade deficit. Therefore, the UK’s austerity plan to cut down public spending is necessary in order to reduce the trade deficit as well. So here is seen how necessarily international sales for UK in a whole. (Economy Watch, 2012) Importing is when an individual or business brings goods or services into the UK from another country. Careful consideration as to the practicalities needs to be given if intend to imports goods; this may include how to get the goods into the country, as well as the legal requirements.Under UK law, a number of legal responsibilities are imposed on a company, if wish to import goods in the UK. One of the first and probably most important duties being that will have to check if the Department for Business, Innovation Skills (BIS) requires business to have a licence. (Inbrief, 2012) By the way selling overseas is different compared to the domestic market, it however, provides individual firms with a number of benefits. As access to international markets becomes easier and more companies enter those markets, the competition between companies becomes harder, no matter which industry they operate in. Donaldson (2006) notes that even if the company does not do business abroad it is more likely to face competition from foreign firms in their home market, therefore by deciding to sell abroad it becomes more competitive and less vulnerable to economic crises. Other benefits are the opportunity for companies to achieve cost savings through increased economies of scale, as well as greater sales and faster growth due to demand in other markets which in turn can compensate the loss in the domestic market. All these is now possible due to technology which allows firms to control and coordinate operations globally because through the invention of internet and telecommunication the interaction with external customers and suppliers became much quicker and easier. Another important factor is Language because the first challenge when dealing with international markets is to overcome the language barrier. It is especially crucial in direct selling. Good knowledge of the another language will make sales easier and can make a dramatic difference because the salesperson has greater access to a local society and no interpreter is required. Companies usually translating theirs product advertising in local language, for example, Umbro the UK sports manufacturer had to withdraw a whole range of trainers called Zyklon, after a number of complains from individuals and other organisations regarding its name. This is because Zyklon was the name of the gas used to murder millions of Jews in concentration camps. This problem exists in any foreign company not only for UK firms; Chevrolet Nova also suffered poor sales in Latin America because No va in Spanish translated as does not go . Honda introduced their new car Fitta into Nordic countries in 2001. If they had taken the time to undertake some cross cultural marketing research they may have discovered that fitt was an old word used in vulgar language in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. In the end they renamed it Honda Jazz. The Swedish furniture giant IKEA somehow agreed upon the name ‘fartfull’ for one of its new desks. All these examples show that the companies were not fully aware of the translation and meaning of their brand names implied in the native languages of the markets they were dealing with, which proves and study of the language would have saved them a lot of money. (Kwintessential, 2010) This proves that differences in culture creates some ethical dilemmas or misbehaviour and in order to overcome potential pitfalls the companies should refer to the help of specialists such as a cross cultural consultant,  who would examine words, images, pictures, and colours to ensure that they fit w ell with the targeted market. Also companies must do cross cultural training to equip their representatives with the knowledge of two or three cultures that are likely to be at the table during a negotiation, as well as pay more attention to marketing and advertising requirements in overseas markets. (Kwintessential, 2010) Also possible to add that, any material intended for import is sourced consistently with the legal and ethical review requirements in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. When an individual, establishment or organisation imports material for research, it is good practice for approval to be obtained from a research ethics authority or the local equivalent in the source country beforehand. Many countries have research ethics arrangements which operate to agreed standards. The ethical review in the source country may, in some cases, be considered to provide suitable assurances for the importing of material into UK market. (Human Tissue Authority, 2012) For example, tobacco manufactures use different pricing depending on the country they import to, in the UK cigarettes are more expensive than in Russia or some European countries, because of the high import tariffs and taxes imposed by the UK government. Political factors can also affect methods of selling that companies choose to distribute their products, Opway Corporation that used direct selling techniques failed to enter Japan market because this form of selling is considered by the government as a base for criminal activity. In order to comply with Japans regulations Opway should have changed its business plan to selling its products in retail stores. (Inbrief, 2012) Other difficult area of management is Sales forecasting. Most managers believe they are good at forecasting. However, forecasts made usually turn out to be wrong. Marketers argue about whether sales forecasting is a science or an art. The short answer is that it is a bit of both. Businesses are forced to look well ahead in order to plan their investments, launch new products, decide when to close or withdraw products and so on. The sales forecasting process is a critical one for most businesses. Key decisions that are derived from a sales forecast include: Employment levels required Promotional mix Investment in production capacity For example, accurately forecasting sales and building a sales plan can help to manage production, staff and financing needs more effectively and possibly avoid unforeseen cash flow problems. While its always wise to expect the unexpected, a well-constructed sales plan, combined with accurate sales forecasting, can allow to spend more time developing business rather than responding to day-to-day developments in sales and marketing.(Tutor to you, 2012) In conclusion, it is definitely possible to state: that on nature of selling in general affects a lot of important aspects, because with the development of the UK and global market individual companies have been affected in different ways. To avoid any negative impacts, companies should include and underline all arguments which was stated above. The main responsibility of the Sales managers is to meet and interact with a variety of customers including their own employees so as to understand the real needs of customers and devise qualitative and effective plans to meet the requirements of the customers. Some companies were waited success, they discovered new opportunities for expansion and growth, while others faced fierce competition and struggled to overcome the external pressure caused by cultural, ethical, economic, legal and political and other differences. Therefore, operating in nature of sale market it is important for firms always to be aware of what customers need and want, afterwards any business will be successful. Words: 2450