The Sales History Podcast

John Patterson's Notes To His Salespeople in 1893 Imagine: it's spring 1893. You're a salesperson for the National Cash Register Corporation (NCR). Your ultimate boss? Oh, it's just the founder of the modern sales profession...John H. Patterson. The person...

Will AI Kill the Sales Profession - What History Tells Us Is AI coming for the sales profession? Will "everything change"? Turns out, history can help us predict the future of the sales profession in the face of the rise of AI. Because, as I read all of the...

Selling During World War I: Selling With Purpose What would it be like to be a salesperson during a World War? Well, it's happened twice, and in this episode, we explore the lens by which salespeople were asked to do their jobs during World War I. It's an...

"Bradford, you're fired!" A Salesperson's Story from 1918 In the January 1918 edition of Business Philosopher Magazine, a story by William W. Woodbridge was printed. It's the story of a down-and-out salesperson, John Bradford, who essentially fired himself! It’s a...

From Trusted - to Derided. Where the Sales Profession Went Wrong The beginnings of the modern sales profession (1890-1920) were associated with trust, respect, and even admiration. 100 years later, the sales profession sits at the bottom of Gallup's annual listings...

Pioneering Women in Sales: Barbara Pletcher   Some individuals from sales history moved mountains - and nobody knows about them today! This time, I wanted to highlight one from the 1970s & 1980s - Barbara Pletcher. She noticed a void in the development of...

How Founder Led Sales Changed the World The way we live today wasn't defined just via the invention itself. Things like the steam engine, telegraph, reaper, highways, the telephone, the automobile...and just about every other revolutionary advancement was met with...

10 Strange Quotes/Theories On Sales - From the Early 1900s The early 1900s were made up of the foundation layers for our great profession. Incredible ideas. Great Writing. Things we all still use today. However, there were a few odd ideas out there, too. Here’s a...

Prospecting Fundamentals - From Sales History This episode dissects prospecting from 50 to 120 years ago...discussing five key elements: 1) The origins of the word "prospecting" as it relates to sales 2) The mindset - quality prospecting over simply focusing on...