MARKETING STRATEGIES AND SALES PERFORMANCE OF SMALL-SCALE ENTERPRISES IN BENUE STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract
The study examined the effect of job stress on job performance in Benue Links Limited Makurdi using job stress neutralization as a mediation variable. The study population was 705 staff of Benue Links Limited Makurdi from which a sample of 255 staff was drawn as determined by the Taro Yamane formula. The study made use of a structured questionnaire for data collection. Four models were used with job stress neutralization featuring as an instrumental variable in the fourth. Descriptive statistics, Standard Regression, 2-Stage Least Squares (2SLS), and Path Analysis were used for data analyses. The study found that job stress has a significant effect on job performance while job stress neutralization has a significant positive effect on both job performance and job stress. The study concluded that job stress neutralization is a partial mediator in the effect of job stress on job performance among the staff of Benue Links Limited Makurdi. It was recommended that the management of Benue Links Limited should ensure that the workload assigned to staff; the number of passengers to register per day, number of trips to undertake per week, among others, should be based on the capability of the staff to reduce fatigue; clearly define the responsibilities of each staff and avoid the situation where a staff carries out many functions a day. Each staff shall focus on doing one thing at a time. Also, the management should sponsor staff such as drivers and mechanics for professional courses to enhance their professional growth and development. However, the Management should not dissipate time and resources on promoting staff recognition and career development as a strategy for improving job performance. This does not suffice to state that staff recognition and career development should be relegated to the background, the emphasis is that they should not constitute the main variables used to promote job performance.
Keywords: Job, stress, performance, neutralization.
Introduction
Marketing strategy has become an important instrument in the world for any firm to remain focused in the competitive market environment and become stronger than other competitors (Daniel, 2018). Marketing strategy is a process by which needs, characteristics, and competitors’ goods and services are determined and an organization that centers its resources on the opportunities to multiply in sales and succeed a competitive advantage (Kotler, 2007). Marketing strategy is significant in any success-driven organization, whether service-oriented or product orient organization. Marketing strategies are series through which firms assess where an effort is a place, and which market niche and market segments they decide to sell their product. Marketing strategies form some useful factors that improve the performance of small-scale businesses. Organizations including small-scale enterprises realized the need to establish strategies that will enable them to gain an in-depth familiarity with the marketing environment (Dzisi & Ofosu, 2014).
The efficient strategy for the marketing of small-scale enterprise covers every action by the fun and its employees which in any way might affect customer behaviour towards the fun and goods or service it sells. Assigning and the use of resources to develop new goods, the design of goods, the effectiveness of production, packaging and promoting credit, branding, the logic of personal selling, physical distribution, ability to supply, and post-sales services influence the success of marketing SMEs today. The ideal marketing strategies of Small-Scale Enterprises should be adequate market to cover the job of getting people to buy. The persuasion of the customer should be the centre of a whole complex of activities ranging from the conception of the products through to a point beyond its sale where every endeavour is made to sustain the goodwill of the customer towards the product and its well-identified producer. Sales performance has been conceptualized to incorporate both the result and behavioural measurements (Bowersox & Closs, 1996).