Salesfolk: When Did We Become the Villain?

One of the most endearing facts around the influence of sales in everyday life lies in the practice of moving society forward. By uniting the everyday person with the latest offerings in science, engineering, cross cultural exchange, art, the salesperson has been the lock keeping the wagon of society hitched to the horse of innovation. So how did we become the villain? Where did we lose the trust of the public and how will we win it back? Let’s retrace our steps..

The merchant started as a villain. It was easy for an agrarian laborer to scoff at the soft hands of a trader who seemed to be avoiding all understandable virtues of labor. As the sun beat his back to leather, little respect was afforded to someone who rode boats all day and exchanged the product of one person’s labor for another.

Merchants were responsible for linking the learning of all civilizations with each other. For bringing the latest in science, medicine, and commodities to places where they weren’t readily available. In this time, the merchant was a student of customs and languages. An early observer of human behavior, social trend and psychology, and a scientist in his own right. The merchant was the traveler who ventured into places unknown, and risked life and limb to make contact with all corners of a shrouded, terrifyingly mysterious world. They were the bringers of innovation and their near monopoly of discovery and understanding was not limited to the knowledge and dissemination of rare spices from dark distant lands, fabric and colorants or even tomes and manuscripts from the far east.

In the 50’s and 60’s the merchant became the door to door salesman. A fast talking handsome traveler readily invited into suburban living rooms by bored housewives to unveil the latest the world had to offer. Modern middle class America was born on the mouth of the salesman. America was introduced to it’s own genius and because this was the house wife’s link to the wonders of the modern world, the salesperson was a welcomed and necessary part of life.

In the 70’s and 80’s the merchant made his most fatal mistake. After bringing a telephone into everyone’s home, the salesman stepped out of the living room and into the cubicle. The image of the handsome, energetic stranger who welcomed you to the marvels our era had to offer receded into the sedentary, probing, interrupting and faceless script on the phone. Cutting into your dinner, prayer time and moments of personal stress to milk one penny or another out of your pocket.

The merchant died in the cubicle. Television was now your introduction to the latest and greatest. The department store had more than enough of the world’s best ideas stocked from shelf to shelf. The salesperson lost the trust of the average person who could neither shake their hand, see their expression nor believe the script they were obviously under pressure to sell you on. In this time People became digits, relationships a waste of time, and research a setback. Sales entered a dark rebuttal tainted decline, as few trusted a random call to bring any lasting value to their lives or the world around them.

Today things are changing. The information age has made the consumer king with an unprecedented power and independence. People now have unlimited resources for research, suggestion, and assessment before making a purchase. The consumer knows exactly what she wants today and how she wants it and can get it without communicating to a single soul...and the salesperson has never been more necessary.

In an ironic twist, the burst of technology that is bringing the consumer closer to the latest, is also bringing them further from it. The speed of technology has firmly outpaced the rate of adaptation and understanding and more than ever in our history, what is possible is decades ahead of what is understood. The genius of our era is struggling to take root in the lives of everyday people. The salesperson that made great ideas into great lifestyles is necessary today for demystifying and spreading the advancement of science, art, literature, and engineering. We as merchants have a role to play by leaving the cubicle, and once again reestablish our relationship with being the barer of new world’s and ideas.