RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RECESSION AND SALES PERFORMANCE OF SMES IN BENUE STATE

Many studies have reported the relationship of recession on the economy but none of the studies conducted assessed its relationship on the performance of SMEs in Nigeria. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the relationship between recession and sales performance of SMEs in Benue State. For the purpose of investigation research questions and hypotheses were formulated and the study adopted the cross-sectional survey design, as such, a total of fifteen (15) questions were designed in questionnaire form which was distribution in order to elicit responses after validity and reliability test. The study employed the spearman’s rank order correlation methods with the aid of SPSS 23.0 to analyze the formulated hypotheses. The study found that recession has significant influence on the sales performance of SMEs in Benue State. It is therefore recommended that SMEs should be strategically positioned to increase their competitiveness during the period of recession through aggressive marketing to boast sales involved in R&D to improve it product quality.