Arthur Sheldon: A City and Lake Named After a Sales Philosophy Yes. This happened: Imagine developing a sales philosophy you love. Then, you buy 800 acres of land, incorporate it as its own city, and name the city after the philosophy. Then, you dam a lake on the...

The Sales Profession Has Not Changed Years ago, I entered the sales profession in what many would deem to be “dramatically” different from its current state.  I wore a suit daily - one of the two I could afford. I was given a company car - a baby blue Chevy Corsica...

Combatting Misinformation in Sales “This whole idea of traveling via locomotive is silly. Everyone knows that when the human body reaches a speed of 30 miles-per-hour, blood circulation will stop.”. This was a commonly held truth in the early 1800s. If you were...

The Sales Profession in 5 Years This week, I was interviewed by a prominent analyst firm in their effort to predict what the world of sales will look like in 5-10 years. Here’s my attempt to summarize the perspective I shared. At its core, I believe the sales...

Sales Travel Challenges, A Troll, And The Realization of Modern Comforts I got lit up by a troll…and in hindsight, maybe he was right.  I’m right in the middle of a travel binge, flying to a city, speaking, flying to the next, doing it again…six times in less than...

Do We Need Salespeople?  “Salesmen are an economic waste in industry, and, therefore, as such, should be eliminated.” - Herbert Hoover, 1923 While serving as the United States Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover believed that salespeople were an unnecessary...

Are You Selling the Butter...Or the Revolutionary Advancement? Imagine a convention filled with exhibits. There are two exhibits near one another: One displays an invention that will completely revolutionize communication for generations. The other is a life-sized...

Is Rachael Ray a recipe thief? The answer has a lot of overlap to sales philosophy and theory…oh, and that answer is "no - she's not"  Three weeks ago, my wife was leafing through a cookbook published by the chef Rachael Ray. She landed on a page that had a recipe...

The First B2B Cold Calls Do you remember making your first telephone “cold call”? You probably just did it, right? Very little forethought, other than the fact that it was part of your job. My first selling job required a certain number be made each day, selling...