The Sales History Podcast

Death of a Salesman? We've heard it all before - the "death of" this, and the "demise of" that as it relates to the sales profession. Everything is dead, right? Well, like so many other sales-related things, this concept isn't new, either. Experts have been casting...

Discounting & Price Cutting: History, Commentary, and Unbreakable Habit? Let’s explore sales discounting…it’s history, commentary, and why we haven’t been able to break this terrible habit. It's a problem that's as prominent and as recognized today as it was in...

10 Mottos For Being Your Best - Circa 1937 In 1937, Paul W. Ivey released a second edition of his book, Salesmanship Applied. Chapter 6 is one of my favorites from my collection of books from 75+ years ago. Want to be the best version of you? Instead of recreating...

We Are Selling Ideas, right? Here's 400 Years of "How To" Advice Sales - the most brilliant minds in the profession view our responsibility as "selling ideas'. Those brilliant minds date back to the 1600s and Sir Francis Bacon, the late 1700s and Benjamin Franklin,...

Why Does Sales Exist The Way It Does - And Should It? Our version of sales recruiting, sales training, dedicated territories, quotas, salary + variable compensation plans, even sales kickoffs all began between 1890-1920.  The process designs, compensation...

Salesman's Creeds - The "In Thing" of the Early 1900s Salesman's "Creeds" - There was a concept that started popping up around 1905, spreading to individual companies, industries, and eventually to entire cities by the 1910s. Established to change the perception of...

It's the story for so many - great at selling, promoted into leadership without training or a holistic understanding of what the role actually is. In today's episode, I share a parable written by Worthington C. Holman in 1909 about a medieval military leader named...

I went digging...into the origins of email as a communication medium. Along the way, I found a ton of really interesting timeline milestones that are amazing, interesting, and in some cases pretty funny. So, in this episode, we explore those milestones - from...

The Rise of the Roman Empire – and the Deplorable Salesperson Can you imagine - a profession so deplorable that those in it were rounded up and murdered? As crazy as it sounds, I found that it actually happened during the Roman Empire B.C. In an incredible find, I...