Sales is a complex profession. People in this field not only have to deal with the intricacies of being a salesperson -as most people deal with the ins and outs of their profession- but they also have to deal with the less than honourable image that being a salesperson has.
But why? Where did it all start?
The profession of selling is one of the oldest ones in the history of the world, so what happened to cause it to develop such a negative reputation that most people don’t want to be associated with it, or – even more so –no one’s aspiration is to “become a salesperson when they grow up.” To understand how and why this negative view of selling came about we need to look at the evolution of modern sales methodologies. You can read our findings in our white paper: The History of Sales Methodologies – why some work and others don’t (you download a copy of the whitepaper from our publishing site Sales Essentials Shop).
This whitepaper will also assist the reader to become more discerning about what sales methodologies are really new, revolutionary, or merely an iteration of something that has been done before. It’s natural that sales methodologies evolve – new times, new rules, new systems and models require different ways, different skills and even different frameworks; but it’s important to be aware that some methods are evolutions of previous models and not shiny new toys that will work miracles. Claims for new and different sales methods are not new. They have also not always resulted in success in selling. That is not to say that new sales methods and techniques aren’t relevant or even critically important. They are. It’s just that corporations, sales leaders and salespeople themselves, let alone captains of industry, should not allow themselves to get caught up in the hype often generated by pundits promoting their own “new” sales methodologies.
For a quick overview of the different sales methodologies over the last 200 years you can view the table below which outlines the different types of Selling Methods, when they came into being, their philosophies, who developed them and the key characteristics of the salesperson using those methods.
