A recent story at Slate.com detailed a little-discussed but rather obvious effect of the Great Recession: the decline of sales as a profession.
According to the piece, between 1950 and 1980, sales was among the fastest-growing professions in the U.S.; in the 1980s alone, it grew 54 percent. By 2007, the number of sales jobs was declining, although 11 percent of the workforce still worked in sales – the same as in 2000.
The decline has been particularly noticeable in the auto and pharmaceutical industries. In the latter, there were 102,000 sales reps in 2007, but by 2012, the number is expected to be 75,000.
Much of the decline has to do with the Internet, of course. The kinds of things that salesmen once hawked, like clothes, electronics and small appliances, now can be bought directly from in front of your computer.
The article points out that the decline in sales jobs matters because it hits the middle class hardest. The economy continues to generate both high-paying, high-skills jobs and low-paying, low-skills jobs. But sales jobs – fairly high-paying, but not requiring a great deal of technical skill – are disappearing. Such work built the middle class in this country.
This whole thing resonates with me for two reasons: because my dad was a salesman and because Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” is one of my favorite plays, although I haven’t been able to sit through it for a long time.
My dad was no Willy Loman. On the contrary, he was a roaring success as a salesman. In fact, he ended his career as the national consumer products sales manager for Land O’ Lakes (although, at the end of his career, the company screwed him as thoroughly as Willy Loman’s employers did him).
My dad was the most honest man I’ve ever known, which is what made him a great salesman; he could’ve sold freezers to Eskimos. But there was a little bit of Willy Loman in him, if only that he was very wrapped up in his job and he believed in sales as a profession.
For me, as a kid, having a dad in sales meant he was gone a lot. When I was growing up, he was gone probably a third to half the time. He took up crocheting, of all things, so he’d have something to do on airplanes. I remember many Friday trips into downtown Minneapolis with Mom to pick Dad up at the Leamington Hotel, where he’d always have the airport limo drop him. I have to say, though, that he worked hard to be home when he needed to be; I don’t think he ever missed one of my high school football games, even though I mostly warmed the bench.
And he worked hard. When he’d come home, I’d ask him what he had seen in New York or Atlanta or any of the other places he’d go, and he’d always say, “The inside of a hotel room.” He never made life on the road seem particularly glamorous, something I understood once I grew up and went out of town on business myself.
I could never quite figure out what got Dad so jacked about sales. I say this with absolutely no contempt. But I never quite got why he so enjoyed selling breakfast cereal or ketchup or cheese, products that are hard to differentiate by brand. I always meant to ask him about that, just to understand him better, but never got around to it, and he died 14 years ago.
But as I said, he really believed in sales. He once pointed out to me that I was, in fact, a salesman, because in order to get someone to talk to me for a story, I first have to sell them on my personal credibility and that of my paper. He was, of course, dead on.
But selling yourself is, in some ways, much different than selling a product. I don’t often have to tell somebody why they should talk to me instead of, say, talking to somebody else. When you’re selling yourself, you don’t have to worry about gaps in your knowledge of your product. And unless you really don’t like yourself, you’re going to be pretty committed to closing the sale.
Again, I’m not in any way belittling what my dad did or what other salespeople do. The fact is, Land O’ Lakes cheese put me through college. It would be worse than condescending for me to sneer at what my dad did; it would be immoral and hypocritical. And besides, he was very good at it.
My dad’s success is part of why I can no longer watch “Death of a Salesman.” Willy Loman is sort of the Bizarro World version of Charlie Pantera. Willy was, at the end of the day, a loser, and a liar at that. He loses the respect of his son when the boy catches him in a lie. And while Willy is every bit as wrapped up in his job as my dad was in his, for Willy it’s an involvement born of desperation. Without his job, and what it says about him, he is a hollow man. And when he loses that job and the respect of his favored son, there is nothing left for him but suicide.
I guess what makes it hard for me to watch is to see what my dad could have been – and what I could have been as well.
With its demand for optimism, sales has been a large part of the economic biography of this country and of American culture in general. If it withers, as it appears to be doing in at least some ways, we will have lost not just jobs, but something of who and what we are.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Tammy J Finney
john blumenthal
Jodi Kasten
Rev. Keith Wright
Saturn Smith
Jeremiah Horrigan
Salon.com
Comments
Good to see you back.
In it, you have Hannah Jelkes, a traveling portrait artist and a bit of a hustler who reveals that her success lies not so much in her artistic skill (though she definitely has it), but in her ability to see the customer as they would like to see themselves.
I sold art for several years (though it was not art that I made, nor was it portraits), and I found that this was startlingly true.
Rated and enjoyed.
Oh, my - the customers of that store, and the ladies who shopped for fur coats - and most of all, the other sales staff!
All the products are free shipping, and the the price is competitive, and also can accept the paypal payment.Our service purpose: "Customer is God " Hot products this month:New era cap $15 Bikini (Ed hardy,polo) $25
Sunglasses(Oakey,coach,gucci,Armaini)$16
Tshirts (Polo ,ed hardy,lacoste) $16
Air jordan(1-24)shoes $33
Handbags(Coach,ed hardy,lv,d&g) $35
Jean(True Religion,ed hardy,coogi) $30 NHL Jersey,NFL Jersey,NBA Jersey,MLB Jersey,Sunglass AAA,Not of the update ...
http://www.needaseller .com
Free to pay the freight, 100% Free Shipping.
When I buy something these days, I almost always know more about the product than the sales staff. Fountain pens, handguns, TVs, watches, -- the product matters not. There's about a 98 percent chance I'll know more about the item than the people selling it. Sometimes they don't even know they have it in the store, and I have to find it for them.
It's not because I'm all that smart, but just because so much information is available -- product reviews and comparisons, pricing, reliability -- it's all out there. In my experience sales people no longer add much value to the transaction.
That said, there are some wonderful exceptions, especially when you find someone who thoroughly knows about the products he's supposed to be selling, and you get the feeling that he's really trying to set you up with the best product for you, not trying to make the most money off of you. Those people are golden, and I'll always buy from them even if I have to pay more.
As a career journo who went from the NY Daily News to a PT $11/hr job selling schmatte for The North Face, I've lived life on the sales floor -- a first for me at mid-life and mid-career. Mishima666 calls it! One of the largest issues in retail sales now is how informed customers are and how hopelessly ill-equipped store staff -- because (gasp) it costs money to train them. When Home Depot decided to invest $60m in handhelds for its associates, there was much shock at the notion of actually empowering associates.
I've just finished a book about this experience which comes out next April. I learned a tremendous amount about people, retail, business and myself by doing that job, and I know understand why your Dad may have loved his work -- connecting with people. I saw very quickly, for me anyway, that the stuff I sold was a way to quickly and powerfully connect emotionally with customers, who are so beaten down now by lousy service anywhere that they are thrilled! when someone is smart, trained and really knows their job. To be appreciated in that way was, for me, very motivating -- much more than journalism ever has been. That in itself was a revelation I would never have seen had I not taken the bizarre chance of low-wage work for the first time since high school.
Retail is the single largest source of new jobs in the US and the 3rd largest industry -- paying poverty-level wages. And we still make 90% of our purchases face to face, a contradiction I talk about in the book: why companies cheap out so badly when customers really want and need much much better service?
or ordinary people. Choose came in! Here are not only the fashionable
and popular men's clothing and women's dress.And with beautiful shoe
tide packets can photograph collocation. Make a new you begin from here!
Has a good news to tell everybody: Recently,every bought full 200 US dollars
in this company, then has the present to see off,Vietnam which buys delivers
are more, please do not miss this good opportunity!!!
welcome to ::[ w w w .b i z b o y s e l l .c o m ]
(b..r..a..n..d.)s.h.o.e.s.(34u.s.d),,
==J. a .m .e )) shoes
(1-24) shoes
2010 shoes
c.l.o.t.h.i.n.g,,j.e.a.n,,h.a.n.d.b.a.g(35u.s.d),,
) handbag
(f.r.e.e)s.h.i.p.p.i.n.g
[ w w w .b i z b o y s e l l . c o m ]
we accept PAYPAL/credit card payment and all the products are the FREE shipping .
——————-
Air jordan(1-24)shoes $33
UGG BOOT $50
Nike shox(R4,NZ,OZ,TL1,TL2,TL3) $33
Handbags(Coach lv fendi d&g) $33
Tshirts (Polo ,ed hardy,lacoste) $16
Jean(True Religion,ed hardy,coogi) $30
Sunglasses(Oakey,coach,gucci,Armaini) $12
New era cap $9
,
Bikini (Ed hardy,polo) $18
http://etradinglife.com/
FREE SHIPPING
╰—┘ 。 ┅★`_、
│＼＿＿╭╭╭╭╭＿＿／│
│ │
│ │
│ ● ● │
│≡ ｏ ≡│
│ │
╰——┬Ｏ◤▽◥Ｏ┬——╯
｜ ｏ ｜
｜╭－－－╮｜ ┌┬┬┬┐
╞╧╧╧╧══╧╧╧╧╧╧