Approach is the very heart of the selling process. Sales are made or marred at this stage. It is the approach stage which helps the salesman to get the door of prospect open or closed In a way significance of approach differs with the type of selling. It goes without saying that the importance of it is less in case of selling minor and cheap goods than major and costly products In latter case it is obviously vital.

So is the case when a salesman is calling on the prospect for the first time and calling for the subsequent times. The first impression is the last impression. Put in other words, the importance of approach can be boiled to four points:

(a) Man of today is busy. He hardly gets time to know all about the product or products or service or services in terms of features, new developments, and new concepts all in detail. It is during the stage of approach only a prospect gets easy and is able to get these details of information from the sales people. It does not mean that he has not heard or read of these products and services.

(b) An approach is the apparent stage that enhances the sales. Hence, it is the stage of very importance for making or marring the business success.

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(c) Approach broadens and deepens the customer knowledge: The prospect realizes the real cost of a product as the sales people give every dimension of product in forms of quality, quantity, size, weight, design, cost, benefits, side effects and so on.

(d) Approach is a must in competitive atmosphere: This business world is moving fast because of the forces of competition and technology. A business house, which is not able to click the sale or commit, others are ready to grab the opportunity. That is how speed marketing has developed. If you say ‘yes’ to every question of a prospect, you will succeed else lose the game.

It is but natural that the procedures and practice adopted by salesmen differ widely while they approach the prospects. Thus, the approach of the travelling salesman is different from those of retail salesmen. They follow variant procedures and practice. Hence, these problems of approaches can be broadly classified into two categories namely — Approach by travelling salesmen and Approach by retail salesmen.