To appreciate how and why selling has become commoditized, it’s useful to understand how concepts about selling evolved (or not) in the United States during the past century. Professional selling developed during the post–Civil War era with westward expansion, post-war reconstruction, and the relentless march of the Industrial Revolution. In late nineteenth-century America, armies of commercial travelers rode horses, wagons, steamboats, and rails to hawk their wares to a rapidly developing class of merchants, storekeepers, manufacturers, miners, builders, and craftsmen as they were laying the foundations for the vast middle class of consumers who have always been the backbone of the American economy. From 1865 to 1910, America was transformed from a predominantly agrarian economy to a predominantly industrial economy, and with that transformation came the development of selling as a profession. Competition was increasing, and there was a greater need for a competent and repeatable approach to persuading customers to buy one’s wares.
One of the first American authors to articulate the art of selling was William Miller, whose slim, leather-bound advisory on selling life insurance is a classic on early sales thinking. Like many nineteenth-century authors, Miller takes a trait-based approach to selling: “An Agent’s natural fitness for this profession,” he argues, “depends chiefly upon his business qualifications, industry, persistence, alertness, and a certain tact and persuasiveness which are acquired by practice, rather than by observation and instruction. It is the art of doing and saying the right thing at the right time, in the right way, and of discreet suppression when silence is golden.”² Miller believed that successful salesmen had the essential qualities of politeness, honesty, and industry; that they won the confidence of their customers by being earnest and direct; that they cultivated customer friendships through geniality and kindness; and that they built their business by being methodical. “Appear cheerful and happy,” he advised. “Do not complain of hard times. Seem to be happy and prosperous. People will like you all the better for it. Be honest and conscientious. Try to satisfy and please your customers.”³
In the language of the times, a salesman’s canvass was his sales pitch or presentation. Like many early authors on the art of selling, Miller believed that it was crucial to practice your canvass until you could recite it from memory and then to present it forcefully and earnestly. Furthermore, he did not believe in giving customers alternatives: “Have no option for your patrons. By presenting different plans you induce the disposition to compare and hence to delay. This defeats you, temporarily at least. It is better to take a given point and carry your patrons to it.”⁴ Nor did Miller believe in responding to or anticipating objections: “Never anticipate objections,” he counseled. “It is ‘borrowing trouble.’ Ignore them if possible. If compelled to answer them, do so very briefly, though courteously, and resume the original argument.”⁵
In these kinds of statements, Miller was reflecting the origins of the hard-sell approach. Get the appointment. Make your pitch. Ignore objections and stick with your argument. All you need is the right stuff and the discipline to be systematic in your selling: “System is indispensable. It can accomplish wonders. It reduces labor to its simplest form and is essential to the rapid dispatch of business and the accomplishment of great results.”⁶ Although Miller’s advice is aimed at insurance salesmen working in a much simpler world than today, his advice can still be found, in one form or another, in the pages of Selling Power magazine and in numerous recently published books on sales.