Reaction Paper on Basic Selling Skills

In the short film by the American Business Videos entitled Basic Selling Skills, Gary Hanson talks about providing the viewers a model for selling company products and services. Selling as described, is a five-step model, a process wherein a salesperson need to know how to establish rapport, uncover needs, present products and solutions, close the deal, and do the follow-on activities in response to the call of his customers.

To illustrate this, Mr. Hanson featured Greg Norwood, a salesman from Lincoln Computer Systems by documenting Mr. Norwood’s whole day customer call. Greg Norwood’s call is divided to new and existing customers. He started off with a new customer, Lakeside Industries. Greg met with the president Mr. Barnett and discussed how Lincoln could help them solve their problems affecting the sales of Lakeside Industries – outmoded laptops, desktops due for upgrading and standardization, and a larger system that can handle powerful accounting software.

I say that Greg handled Lakeside account very well. He did a pre-qualification before setting a meeting with the president. People like Mr. Barnett are expected to be very busy at work everyday and they treat their time very valuable. Doing a pre-qualification before setting a meeting with an executive will be very helpful. This is in order to get a grip of what the company is all about and to know about their requirements. This will also help a salesperson determine what product he should offer to suit the company’s needs. The proposal is not necessary to be given during the meeting itself especially if it is just the first. A salesperson must be given time to think things through to match the client’s needs to the solutions that they have. However, an account manager must always be mindful of the due dates set by the buyer in order not to destroy the trust of the customers.

Greg also visited three other customers of Lincoln Computer: Janet Lund, VP for administration; Barbara Keenan, Manager for