ABSTRACT
Business is largely about personal relationships. Even though business people often aim to be totally rational in their buying behavior, the personalities of the people they see convey an image about the personality of the supplying corporation: for the buyer, the sales representative IS the corporation. Personal selling has a special place in business to business transactions. Business transactions may differ greatly from one another. Relationships clearly have at least some of the characteristics of investments. Personal selling is usually the largest single budget item in most business to business markets. Research into sales practice shows a somewhat different picture from that conveyed by most marketing texts. In the salesperson's model, the marketing department occupies a subservient role. Traditional selling emphasizes objection handling, overcoming the sales resistance of the buyer, and closing the sale. Key-account management frequently involves dealing with multinationals: at the same time, the supplying company is often itself multinational.
