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We so often think about the telephone, or email, or the internet, or even AI as being periods of significant change for the sales profession. In today's episode, I want to take you through two underappreciated eras that literally flipped the sales profession completely upside down...and we don't even think about them.

In the early 1900s, it was the automobile that flipped the sales profession. In the 1950s, the rise of automation and technologies suddenly started mechanizing the sales force.

At both times, like every other, it brought more effectiveness and efficiency, but also higher expectations, pressure, and damage to the sales profession's reputation. There are so many lessons for us today...the technology changes so much, but the human requirement never disappears; it shifts. Every. Single. Time.

For more, visit me at www.toddcaponi.com. Or, check out:

@saleshistorian on Instagram - quotes, pics & comics from the past (and can also be found @saleshistorian on X, too)

Four Levers Negotiating - Why do we change personalities at the goal-line of our deals - from building trust to lying - and from focusing on the customer's outcomes to focusing only on our own? It's no longer sustainable. The book lays out a simple way to build trust and add deal value, drawing on lessons from sales history.

The Transparent Sales Leader - This revenue leadership book includes several quotes and lessons from past sales.

The Transparency Sale - the first book, (ironically) named one of the top 100 sales books of all time.

or reach out to info@toddcaponi.com

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What would it have been like to sell during a depression, and specifically, the Great Depression? In this episode of The Sales History Podcast, I take you through it, starting with the boom and prosperity of 1926, then tracing the collapse into the darkest years of 1932–1933 and the uneven recovery that followed.

During the episode, I'll take you through what life actually was like, we'll go into some of the details around why (and how) salespeople were largely excluded from New Deal wage protections, and the advice Norval Hawkins gave businesses in 1931 that is a great way to thinking about selling in any economy.

For more, visit me at www.toddcaponi.com. Or, check out:

@saleshistorian on Instagram - quotes, pics & comics from the past (and can also be found @saleshistorian on X, too)

Four Levers Negotiating - Why do we change personalities at the goal-line of our deals - from building trust to lying - and from focusing on the customer's outcomes to focusing only on our own? It's no longer sustainable. The book lays out a simple way to build trust and add deal value, with many lessons from sales history throughout.

The Transparent Sales Leader - This revenue leadership book includes several quotes and lessons from past sales.

The Transparency Sale - the first book, (ironically) named one of the top 100 sales books of all time.

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In the category of foundation builders in the sales profession that you've got to know, there's Worthington C. Holman. He'd be my fourth on the Mount Rushmore of sales goats. Why? Holman taught an emerging sales profession how to write, and an emerging sales leadership profession how to inspire, through writing, many miles from their teams. He worked under John Patterson at NCR, was a prolific writer on sales and sales leadership, and created the "Ginger Talk".

But this isn't just a biography. His writing was next-level creative, hilarious, and I'm envious of his ability to use metaphors and analogies - spineless jellyfish, sidewalk toads, and salespeople needing a little yeast to rise. Learn about the man, his story, hear of many of my favorite analogies, and the story of how he disappeared in his prime...and what happened to him.

For more, visit me at www.toddcaponi.com. Or, check out:

@saleshistorian on Instagram - quotes, pics & comics from the past (and can also be found @saleshistorian on X, too)

Four Levers Negotiating - Why do we change personalities at the goal-line of our deals - from building trust to lying - and from focusing on the customer's outcomes to focusing only on our own? It's no longer sustainable. The book lays out a simple way to build trust and add deal value, with many lessons from sales history throughout.

The Transparent Sales Leader - This revenue leadership book includes several quotes and lessons from past sales.

The Transparency Sale - the first book, (ironically) named one of the top 100 sales books of all time.

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Send us Fan Mail

In 1926, W.L. Barnhart began publishing something called the Salesman’s Dictionary in How to Sell magazine into 1927. Some of the terms are still familiar today. Others, like “swindle sheet,” “ginger letter,” “information clerk,” and “knights of the grip”, have disappeared completely. And a few, like “character analysis” and “phrenology”, are probably best gone away.

In this episode, I take you through some of the language used 100 years ago in the sales profession. What they used, what we’ve just renamed, and some great advice for the sales profession through the dictionary and terms themselves. Another example of how in many ways, sales hasn’t changed much at all.

For more, visit me at www.toddcaponi.com. Or, check out:

@saleshistorian on Instagram - quotes, pics & comics from the past (and can also be found @saleshistorian on X, too)

Four Levers Negotiating - Why do we change personalities at the goal-line of our deals - from building trust to lying - and from focusing on the customer's outcomes to focusing only on our own? It's no longer sustainable. The book lays out a simple way to build trust and add deal value, with many lessons from sales history throughout.

The Transparent Sales Leader - This revenue leadership book includes several quotes and lessons from past sales.

The Transparency Sale - the first book, (ironically) named one of the top 100 sales books of all time.

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

In the 1950s and 1960s, aluminum siding salespeople, known as “Tin Men”, became infamous for some of the most creative and dishonest sales tactics in American history.

Bait-and-switch advertising. Fake “model home” discounts. Theatrical calls to nonexistent managers. Broken yardsticks. Phony guarantees, misleading financing, fake deadlines and “free” gifts that were neither free nor delivered. Some salespeople even refused to leave a homeowner’s kitchen until a contract was signed.

In this episode, I dig into the aluminum siding history and explore the real schemes that inspired the 1987 movie Tin Men, the government regulations created to stop them, and how the industry transformed the public image of salespeople from semi-trusted professionals into fast-talking, high-pressure manipulators. I may be biased, but some of them are pretty funny, really creative, and sadly, still in use in certain places today.

For more, check out:

@saleshistorian on Instagram - quotes, pics & comics from the past (and can also be found @saleshistorian on X, too)

Four Levers Negotiating - Why do we change personalities at the goal-line of our deals - from building trust, to lying - and from focusing on the customer's outcomes to focusing only on our own? It's no longer sustainable. The book lays out a simple way to build trust and add deal value, with many lessons from sales history throughout.

The Transparent Sales Leader - The book on revenue leadership includes several quotes and lessons from past sales.

The Transparency Sale - the first book, (ironically) named one of the top 100 sales books of all time.

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

A hundred years before many (including myself) thought women really entered sales offices in the 1980s, they were traveling America’s railroads, dirt roads, mining towns, and rural communities, selling books door to door.

In this episode, I dug deep into the stories of the women who "carried a bag", literally, in the 1800s, confronting hardship, danger, sexism, and social stigma in pursuit of income, independence, and opportunity.

#womeninsales

For more, check out:

@saleshistorian on Instagram - quotes, pics & comics from the past (and can also be found @saleshistorian on X, too)

Four Levers Negotiating - Why do we change personalities at the goal-line of our deals - from building trust, to lying - and from focusing on the customer's outcomes to focusing only on our own? It's no longer sustainable. The book lays out a simple way to build trust and add deal value, with many lessons from sales history throughout.

The Transparent Sales Leader - The book on revenue leadership includes several quotes and lessons from past sales.

The Transparency Sale - the first book, (ironically) named one of the top 100 sales books of all time.

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Benjamin Franklin is known as an inventor, printer, scientist, and Founding Father. In this episode, we look at him through a lens he rarely gets credit for - and I had no idea about: sales savant. Turns out, Franklin was a master persuader who sold ideas, institutions, French support for the American Revolution, and ultimately consensus around the U.S. Constitution.

Through stories from his autobiography and things I dug up from 100+-year-old sales books and magazines, we explore Franklin’s sales philosophies that you can use today.

For more, check out:

@saleshistorian on Instagram - quotes, pics & comics from the past (and can also be found @saleshistorian on X, too)

Four Levers Negotiating - Why do we change personalities at the goal-line of our deals - from building trust, to lying - and from focusing on the customer's outcomes to focusing only on our own? It's no longer sustainable. The book lays out a simple way to build trust and add deal value, with many lessons from sales history throughout.

The Transparent Sales Leader - The book on revenue leadership includes several quotes and lessons from past sales.

The Transparency Sale - the first book, (ironically) named one of the top 100 sales books of all time.

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

In 1908, Broadway audiences packed theaters to see The Traveling Salesman, a comedy built on something really familiar - the fact that nobody trusted salespeople.

In this episode, I take you through the play, exploring how the sales profession went from untrusted to trusted and back again, and what this old play can teach us about buyer skepticism, transparency, and reputation.

For more, check out:

@saleshistorian on Instagram - quotes, pics & comics from the past (and can also be found @saleshistorian on X, too)

Four Levers Negotiating - Why do we change personalities at the goal-line of our deals - from building trust, to lying - and from focusing on the customer's outcomes to focusing only on our own? It's no longer sustainable. The book lays out a simple way to build trust and add deal value, with many lessons from sales history throughout.

The Transparent Sales Leader - The book on revenue leadership includes several quotes and lessons from past sales.

The Transparency Sale - the first book, (ironically) named one of the top 100 sales books of all time.

Support the show