Whom do you believe is the GOAT of sales philosophers?

Zig Ziglar? Dale Carnegie? 

IMO, the answer is clear. It’s Arthur Sheldon.

Arthur Frederick Sheldon (pc LMHS)

In the 1890s, Sheldon sold books to pay for law school, realizing that he was learning a formal system for law, but selling without one.

So, in 1902, he created one. He launched the first independent sales training program. IT was via correspondence, and within a few years, tens of thousands around the world were enrolled. His business required its own post office!

But why the GOAT?

Because everything right about sales even today, everything that has sustained the sales profession through every so-called “threat” – mail order catalogs, advertising, eCommerce, and even AI, he philosophized In many cases, he was the first!

(as a matter of fact, I believe he was truly the first to theorize that all buyers go through A-I-D-A from my research)

His foundational quote, “True salesmanship is the science of service. Grasp that thought firmly and never late go”, from 1911, I believe is the key to the ongoing sustainability of the profession even today.

***Here are some other profound teachings of his, for your entertainment***

– At a Rotary convention in 1910, Sheldon said, “He profits most who serves his fellows best.” Those eight words became the Rotary’s mantra. And today, while a couple of words have been adjusted, it still is.

– In 1906, 120 years before the proliferation of feedback, peer connections, and AI, he wrote, “A satisfied customer, made so by an honest, intelligent salesman, who not only come again, but bring his friends, and this means profit on future sales.”

– He taught that sales was about persuasion, but was emphatic about what that means…and we forget this today! From 1914: “Get it firmly fixed in your mind that by persuasion I do not mean the cyclonic, hypnotic, unprincipled kind of compulsion that some so-called salesmen use. That may sell goods for a time, and it may be profitable for a little while, but it makes neither permanent nor, in the long run, profitable patrons, so it is not salesmanship.”

– As the sales profession’s reputation began to deteriorate after WWI and during the forgotten depression of the early 1920s, he yelled from the mountaintops: “The old era is passing away. The world war marked its culmination. We have ignorantly supposed that in order to survive we had to be selfish. This was a mistake-a most serious one. The fact is that the way to survive is to serve.” – 1922

– His definition of sales is probably still the best I’ve read: “Successful selling is the art of inducing conscious, willing agreement, resulting in a sale mutually beneficial to both buyer and seller.” – 1924

– When people say, “Selling is a transfer of confidence”, that’s a rif off of his words from 1914 when he said, “Confidence is the basis of trade.”

– He was absolutely right when he wrote in 1903 that, “Every advance in every direction means a fresh demand for salesmanship.”

– Another mantra he wrote about that I continue to hold dear is from 1906: “We begin to be wise when we find out how little we know.”

1903

– Simple things like this one…where he wrote in 1906 about employees in general, but specifically salespeople, “The Value of the Employe increases as the amount of Supervision he requires decreases.” He included the visual representation of V = E/S. And yes, “employe” was only spelled with one “e” back then. 

– 1911: “The best advertisement in the world is the wagging tongue of a satisfied customer.”

– 1918: “Does a dissatisfied customer pay? Yes – he pays your competitors. Bad business methods always come home to roost.”

– 1906: “Business success is so simple that most men overlook it. A large part of it consists of three things – first, telling the truth; second, being simple in telling it; and third, in working like working people.” 

I have written much about Sheldon here. The most detailed is in research found from the 1970s of stories curated from his family on his upbringing and goals…including how he bought a massive plot of land in the Chicago suburbs to build a sales university. 

The Man Who Invented Sales Training: Arthur F. Sheldon’s 1902 Legacy Lives On

Arthur Sheldon: A City and Lake Named After a Sales Philosophy

There’s so much more…but IMO, there’s nobody who embodies sales done right. Arthur Sheldon. The GOAT of Sales Philosophers.

(header image is from The Sheldon School in 1910. This is his staff, at the property which is now LIbertyville, Illinois. But at the time, it was called Area, Illinois. Area stood for his sales methodology, represented by ABILITY-RELIABILITY-ENDURANCE-ACTION)

Todd Caponi, CSP® fell into sales and fell in love with the decision science and history behind it. He’s held multiple sales leadership roles, helping build one company into Chicago’s fastest-growing, another to an IPO and nearly $3B acquisition, and earning a Stevie Award as Worldwide VP of Sales. Todd is the author of The Transparency Sale, ranked by Book Authority among the best sales books of all time, and the award-winning The Transparent Sales Leader. His latest book, Four Levers Negotiating, was released on January 27th. He now speaks and teaches revenue teams worldwide and hosts The Sales History Podcast.

Reach out (email to info@toddcaponi.com) – for inquiries about speaking at your event or sales kickoff, for programs to upskill your customer-facing teams and leaders, or just to nerd out on sales or sales history.

And while you’re at it, sign up for the newsletter, which comes out every other week.