1 Advise senior management on the appropriateness of adopting a relational approach to selling. Relationship marketing plays a significant role in modern sales management. Companies have for some time realised the benefits of practising a relational approach to selling rather than a transactional one. Nevertheless, many markets are volatile or else have long product life-cycles, which make the practice of relationship selling challenging.

Microcom is a UK firm supplying high-quality broadcasting equipment used by national networks such as the BBC, ITV and their equivalents abroad. The product is chiefly customised to customers’

specific requirements and has a 10–15-year lifespan. Senior management are troubled by the fact that at present the firm practises a largely transactional approach to selling. They are keen to adopt a relational selling approach, but are uncertain how this might be achieved. The Marketing Director has explained the meaning of relationship marketing and stressed that a relationship is between people.

One of the problems Microcom has in this respect is that when a company it has previously sold to requires new equipment the original buyer has often left to go to another job, been promoted away from the buying function, retired, or in some circumstances may even have died.

Although the company is keen to adopt a relational selling approach, another major reservation is the long time between repurchases. One senior manager expressed this issue as follows:

Relationship marketing cannot work because you can guarantee the places we sold to this year won’t be in the market to buy again for 15–20 years.