Literature Background and Context

Abstract

This chapter sets out to provide the background and context to personal selling, the evolution of personal selling, and how personal selling has progressed. It will also look at what factors have influenced the B2B selling environment. The presupposition offered up by Mayer and Greenberg still resonates within businesses today, due to the salesforce's consistent incapacity to perform at targeted levels. This hypothesis was further illustrated by various studies, which maintain that there is a disproportionately high percentage of the salesforce, who continue to underachieve and fail to achieve their targets on a consistent basis, and this has been one of the fundamental reasons for this examination. The aim of this chapter is to research the function of personal selling and establish how the personal selling environment has evolved, developed, and affected the way in which the salesforce performs their role.