COMMERCE ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The Impact of Personal Selling in the Marketing of Industrial Products in Owerri

Municipal in Imo State, Nigeria
Iwunze FC1
1
Department of Marketing, Imo State Polytechnic Umuagwo, Nigeria.

Abstract
Personal selling is an interaction between buyers and sellers. What
happens in these interactions is crucial because the behaviour of the
*
Corresponding Author: salesman will impact the buyers’ perceptions of quality. Buyers’ quality
evaluations are based on the behaviour of salesmen. The main objectives
Iwunze FC are to open to companies the concept of personal selling, educate
management of companies on the benefits accruable to any firm that
Email: emmaocy@yahoo.com embarks on personal selling. The study adopted the descriptive design
which made use of questionnaire and interview to gather information while
Yaro Yamen sampling techniques was used. However, findings revealed
Received: 04/06/2018 that firms should be careful in recruiting and selecting salesmen. Selected
Accepted: 03/07/2018
personals should be adequately trained, physically, technically, socially and
intellectually sound to actualize the purpose of the responsibility assigned
to him.

Keywords: Personal Selling, Marketing, Industrial Products, Owerri

Municipal, Salesmen, Firm.

1. Introduction strategically planned to be effective in today highly

Olukosi (2005) defined personal selling as a
process of conversing the sale of a company’s products
or service by sales man or woman, it is a dynamic
process involving direct contact between the seller of a
product or service and the prospective buyers through
oral or face to face or telephone discussion or written
mail exchange of ideas through opinion. Discussing the
importance of selling Girei et al. (2013) defined selling
as the process of inducing a prospective customer to act
favourably on an idea advantage to the buyer and
commercial significant to the seller.
Every marketing manager ought to have sales
persons beside him that have a thorough knowledge of
what personal selling is all about in order to bring
about a good level of profit to the company (Gaedeke
and Tootelian, 1983). The increasing prominent of
identifying them as the focus of a firm’s assistance has
made it imperative for marketing organization to go for
more sales persons (Fletcher, 2005).
Personal selling is a branch of marketing that is
also broad which is expedient for continued existence
of every marketing company. Most marketing
organization today does not take into consideration the
impact of personal selling; it has to do with person-to-
person communication of which an immediate
feedback is provided to the audience. To achieve and
gain more customers personal selling needs to be
competitive market place. The tactics implementation
of the selling strategy takes place in a process
according to Nasiru (2012).
Personal selling as known as a matter of
persuasion (persuading others to buy your proposition)
is when we persuade people we do not merely change
their thinking on the subject, we crass them to do
something; their actions are modified as well as their
thought. People are motivated by their desire for the
benefit you offer them; therefore every sales
presentation must convince them. Adebabay (2009)
further defined personal selling as a process of
conversing the sale of a company’s products or service
by sales man or woman, it is a dynamic process
involving direct contact between the seller of a product
or service and the prospective buyers through oral or
face to face or telephone discussion or written mail
exchange of ideas through opinion. Discussing the
importance of selling Duguma and Janssens (2014)
defined selling as the process of including a
prospective customer to act favourably on an idea
advantage to the buyer and commercial significant to
the seller. Every marketing manager ought to have
sales persons beside him that have a thorough
knowledge of what personal selling is all about in order
to bring about a good level of profit to the company.
The increasing prominent of identifying them as the

Commerce Economics and Business Management | Year-2018 | Volume 01 | Issue 01 | Pages 06-09
© 2018 Jakraya
Iwunze…The Impact of Personal Selling in the Marketing of Industrial Products in Owerri Municipal in Imo State,
Nigeria
focus of a firm’s existence has made it imperative for
marketing organization to go for more sales persons.
In the same view of Hellin et al. (2008) personal
selling serves major roles in firm overall marketing
efforts, sales people are the critical link between the
firm and its customers, this role requires that sales
people match company interest with customers’ needs
to satisfy both parties in the exchange
process. Markelova et al. (2009) noted that for personal
selling to be effective the personal salesman has to
have an in-depth product knowledge which is
indispensable in handling the highly technical and
professional customers that abound in the industrial
sectors. In communicating face to face with these
customers, the industrial salesmen use such aids less
calendar, cardholders and other small gift items as
reminders to the customer of himself, his product or
service offering (Tsehay, 2001). The importance of
these sales people in information gathering and selling
functions need not to be over emphasized. It is in the
realization of this that the researcher critically looks at
the effectiveness of personal selling in the marketing of
industrial product.
Personal selling is simply to make a sale on
individual’s basis. Sales person serves as the link
between the selling and buying system (Kapungu,
2013). Today, sales persons are required to have more
education and technical training than their
predecessors. Salesmen have many resources at their
disposal and are better equipped to develop long term
relationship with buyers (Johnson, 1990). They are
backed by a team of specialists, including market
researchers, financial experts and engineers. Salesmen
are also very good diagnosticians of customers’ needs
and they are also problems consultants who make well
considered recommendations. Salesmen are at home to
all facets of a prospective customers business that
relate to the goods and services to be sold (Robson,
2002). By selling the industrial products to customers,
salesmen were guaranteed a stable market, as well as
technical guidance received directly by customers in
Owerri Municipal Council in Imo State, Nigeria.
The determination of the contract price was
based on the quality of products sold. In order get good
quality industry parties regularly, audits
implementation of Standard Operating Procedure
(SOP) concerning the condition of the products for
public needs and the feasibility of the equipment need
to be conducted.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1 Area of Study
The study is being structured and directed on the
impact of personal selling in the marketing of industrial
Commerce Economics and Business Management | Year-2018 | Volume 01 | Issue 01 | Pages 06-09
© 2018 Jakraya
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products in Owerri Municipal, Imo State, Nigeria.
Owerri consists of three Local Government Areas
including Owerri Municipal, Owerri North and Owerri
West; it has an estimated population of about 1,401,873
as of 2016 and is approximately 100 square kilometers
(40 m2) in area. Owerri is bordered by the Otamiri
River to the east and the Nworie River to the south.
Owerri Municipal is a Local Government Area in Imo
State, Nigeria. Its headquarters is in the city of Owerri.
It has an area of 58 km² and a population of 127,213
according to the 2006 census. Owerri Municipal is
situated at 5°28'34.7160''N North Latitude: 7°1'
33.0708''E East Longitude. The estimate terrain
elevation above sea level is 61 meters. (IMLS, 2013).
Imo State is one of the 36 states of Nigeria and lies in
the South East of Nigeria. Owerri is its capital and
largest city. The state lies within latitudes 4°45'N and
7°15'N, and longitude 6°50'E and 7°25'E with an area
of around 5,100 km2.
2.2 Research Design
The researcher used descriptive survey design.
The design was chosen because of its usefulness in
collecting primary data from the target population. This
helped the researcher in establishing relationship
between the variables that were used to generalize the
research results on the entire population.
2.3 Population for the Study
The population for this study comprised 400
respondents being structured and directed to staff of
companies involved in marketing of industrial products
in Owerri Municipal in Imo State, Nigeria.
2.4 Sample Size and Sampling Procedure
The sample size of the study was drawn from
the population using the Yaro Yamen’s formula (n-N).
2.5 Data Analysis
Structured questionnaire was used to collect
primary data from staff of companies involved in
marketing of industrial products in Owerri Municipal
in Imo State, Nigeria to justify the objective and
research questions. The questionnaire items were taken
to experts for test validation and evaluation. They made
corrections and suggestions which were effected before
the researcher used the questionnaire items. Descriptive
statistics was used to present and analyze the data in
tables and percentages while the instrument for testing
of the hypothesis was chi-square (Kothari, 1996).
3. Results and Discussions
Two hundred and forty respondents (60%) -
Iwunze…The Impact of Personal Selling in the Marketing of Industrial Products in Owerri Municipal in Imo State,
Nigeria

Table 1: Research questions and answers from respondence

Questions Responses Respondence Percentage

(%)
Sex Status
Male 160 40
Female 240 60
Total 400 100
Age 18 – 25 100 25
26 – 30 100 25
31 – 35 80 20
36 – 40 70 17.5
41 and above 50 12.5
Total 400 100
Educational Background West African School Certificate 100 25
Examination (WASSE).

National Diploma or National Certificate 120 30

in Education (ND / NCE).

Higher National Diploma or Bachelor of

Science Degree (HND / B.Sc.) 150 37.5

Master of Science, Master in Business

Administration or Master of Arts (MSc,
MBA or MA) Certificates. 30 7.5

Total 400 100

Is Personal Selling activity a difficult Yes 160 40
exercise? No 120 30
Indifferent 120 30
Total 400 100
Do you believe that further growth and Yes 160 40
development in direct marketing will No 120 30
negate the relevance of personal selling? Indifferent 120 30
Total 400 100
Do you consider sales personnel as well Yes 160 40
compensated with the high risk incidence No 160 40
associated with the job? Indifferent 80 20
Total 400 100
Does the skill of the sales person reflect Yes 240 60
on the sales volume of the company? No 80 20
Indifferent 80 20
Total 400 100
Does personal selling have any Yes 240 60
contribution to the profit maximization of No 80 20
the company? Indifferent 80 20
Total 400 100
Hypothesis Questionnaire table used. Yes 250 62.5
No 80 20
Indifferent 70 17.5
Total 400 100

agreed that personal selling had contribution to the
profit maximization of companies while eighty
respondents (20%) had different views respectively.
Churchill (1983) results agreed with the findings of this
work. Out of four hundred respondents, one hundred
and sixty were males while two hundred and forty were
females. This indicated that the marketing as a
profession can be effectively managed by women as
shown in table above. These findings are in agreement
with (Azuonwu, 2013; Bada and Rahji, 2010) that

Commerce Economics and Business Management | Year-2018 | Volume 01 | Issue 01 | Pages 06-09
© 2018 Jakraya
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Iwunze…The Impact of Personal Selling in the Marketing of Industrial Products in Owerri Municipal in Imo State,
Nigeria
discovered that customers determine the pace of any
product development in business. In the view, one
hundred and sixty people (40%) said that selling
activity was a difficult task. One hundred and twenty
(30%) respondence gave negative views as shown in
table 1 above.
One hundred and sixty (160) respondents (40%)
agreed that growth and development in direct
marketing would negate the relevance of personal
selling but one hundred and twenty (30%) people gave
negative view. The indifferent view was indicated
when one hundred and twenty respondence (30%) said
that growth and development in direct marketing would
negate the relevance of personal selling in table 1
above. These findings tallied with the discoveries of
Coster and Otufale (2010) who stated that direct
marketing of the produced goods encourages the
growth and development of the outfit. In that note, One
hundred and sixty (160) respondents (40%) agreed that
high risks are involved in dispatching goods produced
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4. Conclusion
Institutional conditions of industrial products
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