The Sales History Podcast
The Nine Traits of a Successful 1913 (and current) Salesperson
Sales tips from 100 years ago If sales has changed so much, why haven't the #salestips? Reading a collection of the top sales tips in 1913 - and I swear I was reading a collection of the top sales tips today. There's no conflict...at all. What's presented as...
The Origins of “Modern” Sales Management
The history of sales management: There's a direct correlation between the difficulty of the selling environment and the need for optimized sales management. There was a lag between the modernization of sales and the modernization of sales management. In this...
What History Got Right: Setting Sales Quotas
“It is far better that the quota be right than that it be simple.” – 1926 Something odd struck me as I was investigating the origins of quotas and variable compensation. 75-100 years ago, organizations did MUCH MORE with MUCH LESS data. Today, not sure anyone could...
The Greatest Sales Books Of All Time – The Snubs
The Greatest Sales Books Of All Time - The Snubs Every "greatest sales book of all time" listing has its share of "snubs", or books that should be on it that aren't. Even worse...I have yet to find a list that hasn't snubbed an entire era! In this episode, I...
What Was The First Sales Methodology?
What was the first sales methodology? In another case of a misguided Google result, it's time to set another record straight. What was the first "modern" sales methodology? What was it? Who developed it? And why did it serve as a baseline for so many companies...
Lessons from the First Sales Kickoff
It's sales kickoff season. Kickoffs, or what was called sales 'conventions", have been around for at least 130 years. Today, we dig into the first known kickoff that I could find, from 1887. We'll dig into what they did, lessons learned from those 100+ year-old...
What History Got Right: Sales Forecasting
Audio Podcast While reading and studying books and magazines on sales leadership from the late 1800s through the 1940s:The problems of sales & leadership are almost all the same today...except for one thing. There are no articles, or even expressions of...
Sales Objection Handling – Circa 1907 – 1920
Audio PodcastSales objections - they've been around since the beginning of time. But the amazing thing is, they read almost EXACTLY as they do today. What's even more amazing? The experts answers to the most common ones that come up. In today's episode, we choose...
The History of Honesty and Transparency in Sales
Audio Podcast"If the truth won't sell it, don't sell it." - the words of Arthur Dunn from 1919. In the early 20th century, the sales profession embraced a culture of honesty & transparency. In today's episode: We start with an amazing passage from...
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