Describe how you might use the advanced capabilities of your new tool line to
assist the buyer at Federal Metal Stampings to realize a needs gap and thus create
an opportunity to sell them the new product.
Situation: Read Item 2.
Characters: Yourself, salesperson for Accu-Press Corporation; the buyer,
director of purchasing for Federal Metal Stampings
Scene: Location—The office of the director of purchasing at Federal
Metal Stampings.
Action—As described, this is the most recent of several sales calls
you have made to Federal Metal Stampings. Your objective for this
sales call is to utilize the potential increased productivity your new
line of tools offers the buyer in order to create a needs gap and
thereby create an opportunity to sell them your new products.
Role play how you might create a needs gap for this buyer. Begin with
the usual greeting and small talk that might typify a repeat sales call.
Proceed to the point where you demonstrate the enhanced production
capacity of your new tool line in a manner that will alter the buyer’s
desired state and create a needs gap that you might address.
Upon completion of the role play, address the following questions:
(a) How do the buyer’s perceived actual and desired states of being impact and
activate their recognition of a need?
(b) Other than the method role played in the assignment, in what other ways might
the salesperson for Accu-Press influence the buyer’s recognition of a needs gap?
3. Put yourself in the role of salesperson for National Computer Corporation. You are
currently working to sell the College of Business at your university a large number
of upgraded personal computers. These computers will be placed in staff and faculty
offices for use with a variety of networking, word processing, spreadsheet, and
statistical analysis applications. The committee responsible for the purchase decision
includes two faculty members and the director of purchasing for the university.
Based on your work with these members of the buying team, you have compiled the
following list of buyers’ expectations of the salesperson and supplier organization:
Coordinate all aspects of the product/service mix to provide a total package.
Provide counseling to the customer based on in-depth knowledge of the
product, the market, and the customer’s needs.
Engage in problem solving with a high degree of proficiency so as to ensure
satisfactory customer service over extended time periods.
Demonstrate high ethical standards and be honest in all communication.
Advocate the customer’s best interests within the selling organization.
Be imaginative in meeting the buyers’ needs.
Be well prepared for sales calls.
Demonstrate a high level of dependability.
From the perspective of this buying scenario:
(a) Explain what each of these buyer expectations mean.
(b) Discuss the implications of each expectation and how it might influence your
behavior.
(c) Give an example of how a salesperson might fulfill each buyer expectation
using the list below.