Effects of a Sales Person’s Traits and Skills on Sales Performance of Fast-moving Consumer Goods Multinational Manufacturers in Nairobi Kenya

Abstract

There exist various factors that have a contribution to the performance of a salesperson and they may range from the sales persons skills or sales personality traits. Other authors and scholars have established that sales person personality skills play a very crucial role towards sales performance. This study focused on determining the effect of sales person personality traits and skills on sales performance among FMCG manufacturing companies in Nairobi Kenya. The main goal of the study was to enumerate the effect of sales person’s traits and skills on sales performance among FMCG Manufacturers in Nairobi Kenya. The population of study for this research consisted of sales people from 20 Multinational FMCG Manufacturers in Nairobi Kenya. Primary data was collected by means of a structured questionnaire this gave room for homogeneity in terms of how respondents would tackle the queries. The structured questions were in form of a five-point Likert scale, whereby respondents were required to indicate their views on a scale of 1 to 5. Moreover, secondary data was also used from different brochures’ and journals from the FMCG manufacturing companies’ public information, websites and libraries. A descriptive research design was the most suited for the study. This research proved that not only certain personality traits that a sales person should possess, the management should also consider demonstration of a certain level of skills to help in execution of their jobs as sales people. Based on the finding, the big five personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability) and sales person skills play an important role in influencing salesperson’s performance in work. The findings could provide a clear picture for the management of private and public firms to apply greater emphasis on personality and autonomy issues. Lastly, the researcher was faced with certain limitations which included the geographical coverage, size of the sample and the short time frame used to conduct the study, however this did not affect the findings of the study.