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 story of gettin...

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 of ethical professions...along with politic...

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 women for the boardroom, and i...

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 extreme skepticism....

The early 1900s were made up of the foundation layers for our great profession. Incredible ideas. Great Writing. Things we all use still today. However, there were a few odd ideas out there, too. Here’s a collection of ten ...

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 sales2) The mindset - quality prospecting over simply focusing on metrics and scale3...

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...

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 the early 1900s. 

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 the wheel on these ide...

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, and many more throughout the 1900s.

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 strategies, and almost all of the sel...

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 the sales profession. these "cre...

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...

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 t...

Sales compensation plans - where did they come from? How did they evolve to where they are today? Are there lessons we can learn from their origins we can apply today to make our plans more of what they are meant to be?In today's episod...

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 uncovered a sales history well ov...

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 a...

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 episode, we track ...

“It is far better that the quota be right than that it be simple.” – 1926Something 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...

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 highlight six of many books...

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 throughout th...

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...

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...

A once admired profession, taught in colleges and high schools in the early 1900s, was detested by the 1960s. Why? And can we get our mojo back?In this episode, we explore a 1965 study on what makes a profession prestigious matched up a...

Sales 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 episo...