THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PERSONAL SELLING STRATEGFIES IN MARKETING OF CAPITAL GOODS CASE STUDY OF ANAMCO LTD ENUGU

According to L.A. Rogers (1980) personal selling has become one of the vital promotional tools in marketing.  He further buttresed the above proposition by stipulating that after all the theorists, planners must have had their moment and the predicaments associated with production, finance and labour have been resolved, then someone has to go out and knock at someone’s door and sell.

This revelation is apparently acceptable because a product cannot be produced at Enugu and is not available in place like Lagos where such product is highly needed.  This is the significance behind the notion of sales contention that, they should investigate into the needs of consumers as well as filling them with satisfaction and maximize profit objectives.

A critical analysis of the above statement highlights the importance of the effectiveness of personal selling on the marketing of capital goods.  A product may be of extremely high grade bu8t has no utility until it gets to the hands of prospective buyers, and the most appropriate route for passing products from manufacturing arena to the hands of potential buyers happens to be through personal selling.

Personal selling is dynamic, flexible and volatile.  Traditionally, it is mainly associated with commercial transactions which has passed through distinct eras that are characterized as, the eras of the early traders – the American peddlers and the era of the professional sales people.  The early traders exist in most ancient cities.  Some of these earliest states based the primary portion of their nomies on trading with other communities.  Trades typically have the ownership of the goods being sold, manufactured either by themselves or their immediate families.  At times, they perform their marketing functions like, transportation, and storage, in addition to selling obligations.

The American peddlers of the colonial era enable them sell their goods to the then settlers.  Most of these settlers were immigrants who view their respective jobs as one of the available means of getting a fresh start in a new country.  Professional selling started shortly after the World War II.  Under this seen, the economy switched from the previsions situation of sellers’ market to that of buyers’ market in which goods were plentiful in supply.  Due to the industrial revolution of the 17th century which encourage the birth of a number of new companies of which capital goods companies were among.

The companies had varieties of products with moderate qualities. A s at the said era, many industries operated under the philosophy “that the customers will buy any product provided it can be supplied” goods had to be marketed mainly for the facts that consumers now have choices and the selling adopted a radical change to reject this new seen.

MB Anamco is a global and also a franchising company whose head quarter is a Germany with its subsidiary manufacturing plant located at Emene Industrial Layout here in Enugu State.  It started its operation around 1980.  As the company began to experience increase in productivity and sales volumes, it started opening sales branches in different states of the country.  It has been a leading firm in the motor industry with transparent image.

Anambra Motor Company at its inception was not hing but a mere motor assembly plant, but the prevailing situation with the company has changed drastically from a mere assembly plant to a manufacturing company.

The progress and high demanded of the product is a partial brain behind the company’s elevation in product capacity in previous years, and this also created rooms for the absorption of more workers in the divergent department, thus helped to reduce the high rate of social menace that would have associated the situation of mess unemployment.

However, the aforementioned company, which hit her to had attained the peak in the motor manufacturing industry, has started experiencing a divindling ground in its sales volume and market share.  According to an insider, this experience is accounted for by a number of recent, developments. Some of era, the incessant increase in the number of companies currently involved in the manufacturing and sales of different cars, buses, truck, etc, and besides the increase and efficient application of the divergent promotional tools.

Thus, the management of Anamco is not skeptical regarding the wonders of personal selling in the marketing of capital goods and that this promo tool could only justify its wonders in capital goods marketing, only when it is effective to this end, the management is interested in knowing of the sales force is effective or otherwise.  This is the core of the study.