SALESMANSHIP. No consideration of salesmanship as a serious factor in business science is possible without having simultaneous regard to the larger subject of sales organization and control. The function of selling may be divided under two heads, distributive selling and retail selling. Some special forms are both distributive, in that they are employed by manufacturers; and re tail, in that it is direct to the "consumer" that the selling is done. Usually, however, distributive selling covers the wholesale dis tribution of merchandise in quantity; while retail selling covers the transference of the goods in small lots or single units to the actual consumers. There is a separate, and in many ways quite different, technique of salesmanship for each form of selling.
Briefly summarised, the duties of a distributive sales manager are constructive, investigative and administrative. These three parts are naturally much interrelated. They cover such specific duties as the creation of a sales organization, both internal and external, the formulation of a sales policy, the co-ordination of manufacturing, sales and advertising policies, the adjustment of sales policy to financial policy, the selection and training of sales men, the allocation of territories, the fixing of sales quotas, the appointment of jobbers and agents, the analytic study of the needs, prejudices and pre-conceived ideas of the ultimate con sumer, and so on.
Sales management is as yet very largely empirical, and unanim ity in the choice and employment of terms to indicate its various functions is still to be obtained. There is evidenced, however, a tendency to adopt the terms "marketing" and "merchandising" to indicate the two parts of distributive selling. Marketing covers that part which is concerned with getting the goods on to the retailers' shelves; while merchandising has to do with getting the goods off the dealers' shelves into the hands of the actual con sumers, the public. Many manufacturing concerns both market their goods by means of a highly efficient sales organization, and merchandise them by means of "consumer" advertising in the press and on the hoardings.
"Outdoor salesmen" fall into two groups, usually styled com mercial travellers and speciality salesmen respectively. A com
mercial traveller is normally selling a line of goods to a body of regular customers, such goods being intended for re-sale. A speciality salesman, on the other hand, is usually selling a single article to a continually shifting body of customers, such article being for the purchaser's own use and not for re-sale. A patent scale is a typical example of a speciality. In their relationships with salesmen, few firms rely on verbal agreements merely, as these are certain sooner or later to cause friction. A long and involved agreement needlessly couched in legal (or pseudo-legal) phraseology is even more productive of misunderstanding and unpleasantness. The simpler the agreement, the better , provided it covers such things as salary, commission (if any), expenses, territory, notice of termination required on each side, post-employ ment restriction, and so on. For a complete examination of the whole matter of salesmen's agreements, see the appropriate vol ume referred to in the bibliography. The same work contains useful data on the subject of methods of remunerating salesmen. Broadly speaking, some form of payment by results, with a basic living wage, is invariably preferred. Many firms have a system of sales quotas—the salesman receiving a salary, and drawing com mission only on sales made above a specified figure per annum.
Psychology of Selling.—It is a truism that the sale takes place in the mind of the customer. For this reason the technique of salesmanship is very largely concerned with the thought proc esses of the customer, and might be referred to as a form of applied psychology. The mental "states" through which an indi vidual's mind passes in the act of making a purchase have been propounded as (I) interest aroused, (2) knowledge increased, (3) adjustment to needs, (4) appreciation of suitability, (5) de sire to possess, (6) consideration of cost, and (7) decision to buy. In the actual act of selling, the salesman is primarily concerned with inducing these mental states in turn in the mind of the pros pective buyer.