The Definition Of Sales - Professional Selling Defined

Before I define professional merchandising. Let's look at some of the related professions. Below are some definitions of professions/occupations that relate to professional merchandising from Wikipedia:

  Marketing 21

• Marketing is defined as an on-going process of preparation and execution the merchandising mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) for products, services or ideas to create exchange between individuals and organizations
• Advertising is defined as a form of communication that typically attempts to sway potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service.
• Public relations is defined as the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its audiences.
• Sales Promotions is defined as the pre-determined actions designed to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand or improve product accessibility for a limited time (i.e., contests, point of purchase displays, rebates, free travel, and gross revenue incentives.)

What about the gross revenue profession?

MARKETING NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

Notice in the above definitions, the profession is *not* defined as the individual. For example, merchandising isn't defined as "people who market." Yet, the gross revenue profession is often explained as "individuals who sell." Therefore, merchandising shouldn't be defined in that manner. Notice also, that the above professions are *not* defined by the activities of those individuals. In other words, the profession of advertising isn't defined as "placing ads on television." Therefore, merchandising shouldn't be defined in that manner.

Academically, merchandising is thought of as a part of merchandising, however, the two disciplines are whole different. Sales departments often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing individuals who specialize in sale specific roles. While the gross revenue process refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, the definition of the gross revenue "profession" doesn't exist (until now with this article).

So the questions become:

• Who is "in" the profession and who is not?
• How does merchandising relate to merchandising, advertising, promotions, and public relations?
• What shared competencies do individuals inside the gross revenue profession need?
• How do these competencies align to roles in terms of focus and differentiation?

A definition should provide a meaning. To determine the meaning of the sale profession, it is useful to determine what the gross revenue profession *must* contain.

The following three tenets are required for professional merchandising:

• The focus of the gross revenue profession centers on the human agents involved in the exchange between emptor and seller
• Effective merchandising requires a systems approach, at minimum involving roles that sell, enable merchandising, and develop gross revenue capabilities
• A specific set of gross revenue skills and cognition are required to facilitate the exchange of value between emptors and sellers

Within these three tenets the following definition of profession merchandising is offered by the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD):

Professional Selling is:

"The holistic business system required to effectively develop, manage, enable, and execute a reciprocally beneficial, social exchange of goods and/or services for just value."

Note: this definition was advertised by ASTD in 2009.

What does this definition accomplish?

First, it creates a definition of world class merchandising. An organization wish to bench mark its merchandising effectiveness can leverage the above definition to clearly understand strengths and weaknesses. Without such a definition, most adjustments to the merchandising team are discretionary and subjective. By understanding the system's view required for merchandising effectiveness, organizations can look at indidual gross revenue team members besides as gross revenue team processes and tools and how they align to the emptor.

Second, it allows for more consistent results in performance through the clear establishment of roles regarding who is "in" and who is "out" of professional merchandising. For example, if it doesn't involve a human agent, it is not inside the gross revenue profession -- it's a merchandising function with a dealing (i.e., a "sale"). For this definition, gross revenue operations, gross revenue recruiters, and gross revenue trainers are "in" the profession because they own unique skills outside of their regular job titles. They posses cognition and skill that is unique to facultative the definition.

Third, the definition lays the foundation for gross revenue endowment management/people strategies. With such a definition, gross revenue development employees can create learning solutions that fit the unique aspects of a gross revenue culture. At the same time, front-end enlisting strategies and more clearly tie to retention strategies.

Fourth, it helps organization on exemplary performance. By setting a bar with such a definition, organizations don't have to settle for mediocre gross revenue effectiveness. They can use the definition to help bridge the gap between gross revenue capacity and gross revenue team competency.