In the marketplace the salesperson is the eyes and ears of the company, an essential element in the success or failure of the business and in the perception of many customers the salesperson is the business. Primarily this thesis attempted to establish the criteria of Irish manufacturing sector buying centre members in selecting suppliers, the relative importance they attach to various sources of information in choosing between alternative products, their opinion of the essential qualities of a good salesperson and their rating of the Irish sales force on the basis of twenty two personal attributes and selling skills identified from the literature as being of particular importance. Buying centre members were classified as Professional Purchasers, and Other Buying Centre Members, made up of managing directors, production executives and production/design/maintenance engineers. Two independent samples (80 Professional Purchasers and 164 Other Buying Centre Members) were selected in order to establish whether or not a statistically significant difference existed between the opinions of the two classifications. Use of chi-square tests, t-tests and f-tests proved that, except in the case of a minority of minor issues, no such difference existed. This finding is contrary to the findings of much research cited in the literature. The research established that the essential qualities of a good salesperson from the perception of buying centre members are product knowledge, personal impression and customer understanding in that order. The most important criteria used in selecting a supplier are product quality, price and delivery and the most important source of information in selecting a new product is the salesperson. In addition the research further established that Irish salespeople are perceived by buyers as being in particular need of improvement in follow-up, sales call preparation, customer understanding, appreciation of buyers time and technical competence.