APPRAISAL OF PERSONAL SELLING AS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR ACHIEVING DEEPER MARKET PENETRATION

 

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

According to Kotler and Keller (2006) personal selling is increasingly becoming a major promotional tool in contemporary business organization.  It is the most effective tool at later stages of the buying process, particularly in building up buyer preference, conviction and action. The role of personal selling continuer’s to increase in significance day-to-day.  Few product or services are sold without personal salesmanship.  Sale procured through catalogue, direct mails and other impersonal techniques are merely expectations to the general role.  Personal selling include the activities of both the inside sales person or retails, wholesales, and services establishments and the outside sales representative who call on business establishment and ultimate consumers.

Kotler (2004) avers that personal selling is the most effective tool at later stages of the buying process, particularly in building up buyer preference, conviction, and action.

Personal selling can be classified according to the sales job performed by the sales force Bello, (2005).

Account Representative: This sales person also known as a sales representative, calls on a large number of already established customers.  Selling is low-key, orders are taken, and there is little effort to develop new business.  The account representative is frequently used in goods, textiles, etc.

Missionary Salesperson:  The task of this salesperson is primarily to introduce products and to perform promotional activities rather than to solicit orders.  Among pharmaceutical manufacturers, the missionary salesperson are called ‘detail salesperson’, and their job is to call on doctors, distribute samples, and persuade them to write prescriptions that specify the brand being  pushed Bello, (2005).    

Station (1981) in making a deep analysis in to personal selling vis-à-vis other promo elements argues that the goals of all marketing efforts is to increase profitable sales by offering want satisfaction to the market over a long run.

Personal selling is by far the major promotional methods used to reach these goals with a view of penetrating deep into the market.  The number of people employed in advertising is in thousands.  In personal selling, the number is in millions.  He argued further that in many companies, personal selling is the larges single operating expenses, often equaling 8 to 15% of net sales.  Expenditure for sales peoples salaries, commissions, and the expenses of managing these sales people all add up to a tidy sum.  To develop, maintain and sustain a competent team of sales, personnel needs high degree of investment (money, time, energy, etc) in all the nation’s in general and developing ones in particular like Nigeria Skiera and Albers, (2008).

This investment is huge and claims a lion share of marketing budget in the case of any brand belongs to any product category in any type of industry.   Personal selling is one element in a company marketing mix.  It is classified with other promotional elements including advertising, sales promotion, and publicity.  It has been discovered that personal selling is the only verbal promotion amongst the promotional tools mentioned above.

For any marketing orientated organization to excel in business, it must appreciate the indispensable role of personal selling as a marketing tool.  Personal selling seeks to bridge the gap that exist between the company and her customers.  It paris the right product with the right customers, Bello (2005).  The need for consumers to buy the right product at the right time in the right quantity at the right price at the right place from the right person with the right company has been emphasized in personal selling.

 There has been an attempt regarding the function of personal selling as only applicable to the large scale companies.   This is myopic of the part of these schools of thought.  Every business enterprise whatever its complexity or not must accept the overriding need for personal selling to be able to achieve the anticipated level of sales.

The middlemen between the company and her numerous customers is the salesmen.  Aside from providing the needed information, the presence of salesmen provides assurance to the potential customers, help to establish report, explain and interpret company’s objectives and policies and maintain constant flow of information between the customers and the company, Onah (2002). 

The closeness of the sales representative to the customers leads to flexible decision taking and reshaping of selling strategies by the company’s representative especially where territories are allocated to salesmen Kotler (1990).

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