Picture yourself as a Procter & Gamble salesperson who plans to call on Ms. Hansen, a buyer for your largest independent grocery store. Your sales call objective is to convince Ms. Hansen that she should buy the family-size Tide detergent. The store now carries the three smaller sizes. You believe your marketing plan will help convince her that she is losing sales and profits by not stocking Tide's family size. You enter the grocery store, check your present merchandise, and quickly develop a suggested order. As Ms. Hansen walks down the aisle toward you, she appears to be in her normal grumpy mood. After your initial greeting and handshake, your conversation continues: Salesperson: Your sales are really up! I've checked your stock in the warehouse and on the shelf. This is what it looks like you need. [You discuss sales of each of your products and their various sizes, suggesting a quantity she should purchase based on her past sales and present inventory.] Buyer: OK, that looks good. Go ahead and ship it. Salesperson: Thank you. Say, Ms. Hansen, you've said before that the shortage of shelf space prevents you from stocking our family-size Tide-though you admit you may be losing some sales as a result. If we could determine how much volume you're missing, I think you'd be willing to make space for it, wouldn't you? Buyer: Yes, but I don't see how that can be done. Salesperson: Well, I'd like to suggest a test-a weekend display of all four sizes of Tide. Buyer: What do you mean? Salesperson: My thought was to run all sizes at regular shelf price without any ad support. This would give us a pure test. Six cases of each size should let us compare sales of the various sizes and see what you're missing by regularly stocking only the smaller sizes. I think the additional sales and profits you'll get on the family size will convince you to start stocking it regularly. What do you think? Buyer: Well, maybe.

Questions

1. Examine each item you mentioned to Ms. Hansen, stating what part of the customer benefit plan each of your comments is concerned with.

2. What are the features, advantages, and benefits in your sales presentation?

3. Examine each of Ms. Hansen's replies, stating the mental buying step she is in at that particular time during your sales presentation.

4. At the end of the conversation, Ms. Hansen said, "Well, maybe." Which of the following should you do now?

a. Continue to explain your features, advantages, and benefits.

b. Ask a trial close question.

c. Ask for the order.

d. Back off and try again on the next sales call.

e. Wait for Ms. Hansen to say, "OK, ship it."