Учебно-методическое пособие по развитию навыков профессионального общения. В двух частях Ч.2: Marketing. Руденко Т.П. - 27 стр.

                           PRACTICE                                            Activity 2.

       Activity 1.                                                           I. Scan the text and say which of the points in this text you
                                                                       agree or disagree with?
      Work in groups. Think of eight products (goods and services)
that are produced or provided in your city or region and answer the                 ‘Hard sell’ versus ‘soft sell’ approach
questions below:                                                              Anyone who has contact with customers is a sales person – that
       1. a brand of beer or a soft drink                              includes the telephonist who answers the phone and the service engi-
       2. a grocery product (breakfast cereal, health food, etc)       neer who calls to repair a machine. So that probably includes you!
       3. an industrial product (machines, consumer goods, vehicles,          The relationship between a sales person and a client is important:
etc)                                                                   both parties want to feel satisfied with their deal and neither wants to feel
      4. a service (cleaning, temporary employment bureaus, etc)       cheated. A friendly, respectful relationship is more effective than an
      5. a place of entertainment (theatre, cinema, etc)               aggressive, competitive one.
      6. a public service (telephones, mail, transport, etc)                  Sales people should believe that their product has certain advan-
      7. an educational service (maybe the course you're doing now?)   tages over the competition. Customers want to be sure that they are
      8. a financial service (bank, insurance company, etc)            buying a product that is good value and of high quality.
                                                                              No one in business is going to spend his or her company's
      9. another well-known local product:
                                                                       money on something they don't really need (unlike consumers, who
      – What competition does each product face? (This may not be
                                                                       can sometimes be persuaded to buy 'useless' products like fur coats and
another brand, but another type of product: people may prefer to buy
                                                                       solid gold watches!). Some sales people prefer a direct 'hard sell' ap-
clothes instead of going to the cinema, for example.)
                                                                       proach, while others prefer a more indirect 'soft sell' approach. Which-
      – What is the image of each product?
                                                                       ever approach is used, a good sales person is someone who knows
      – What is the image of the company that produces it?             how to deal with different kinds of people and who can point out how
      – How strongly or weakly is each of the products marketed?       his or her product will benefit each individual customer in special
      – Where is each product advertised?                              ways. A successful sales meeting depends on both the sales person
                                                                       and the customer asking each other the right sort of questions.

                                                                               II. What sort of questions are most useful in a sales meeting?
                                                                               – What answer is each of these questions likely to provide?
                                                                               – Which of the questions are likely to give more useful informa-
                                                                       tion?
                                                                               'Do you think the product is too expensive?'
                                                                               'What are your reactions to the prices I've quoted you?'
                                                                               'Is the machine designed to operate 24 hours a day?'
                                                                               'Tell me about the operation of the machine.'
                                                                               'Are you worried about the question of reliability?'
                                                                               'Are there any particular points you're worried about?'

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