Who invented phone prospecting?

History took place on a hill overlooking the banks of the Grand River in Southwestern Ontario in 1876, just outside of Brantford, at what is now known as The Bell Homestead. And much has happened since Alexander Graham Bell placed that first long distance telephone call via telegraph lines.

What was the selling profession like before Bell’s invention became commonplace? Clearly, there is no way for us today to know exactly as book publishing as we know it was not part of the industrial revolution yet either. And, ancient scribes recording for posterity information about sales, if there were any, have not survived.

With little survives prior to the World War II in written word about sales, partly because Hitler ordered all but approved books burnt and because printing as we know it had just emerged as an industry, we cannot write knowledgeably about it today, but we certainly know what has happened since through reference library research and memory.

Even old sales organizations have changed dramatically. Such as APECO, which all but disappeared, and Watkins, which was changed in the 90's from its struggling century old direct selling model to network marketing. Thus there is little left available from these organizations for us to research either.

The only way to know much about what happened in the past is memory - to have the good fortune to ask an old sales dog what they remember. Unfortunately there are not many of those around but I have a surprise for you. One such, who was also a “sales inventor” is, as of November 22, 2007, both still alive and still generating new business, if you can believe it!

Bell invented the technology that made long distance conversation possible. Do you know who invented the sales technique that made best use of Bell’s new fangled contraption? I doubt it, as his name is not well known, not even amongst his peers. But that will no doubt change.

Though our knowledge of sales skills and technique before the industrial and information ages are sketchy at best, we know that sales people called on buyers without announcement in most cases. Before Bell and even decades after his invention having a telephone was not yet common, even in business. Only one generation or one lifetime separates the use of the telegraph, which was relatively expensive and slow, and Western Union to use of today's telephone.

There simply were no was to make appointments in those days, even after the 2nd world war, hence the expression “wearing out shoe leather”. But it was not long after that war that phones were prevalent enough to start using them to get an appointment. And early in the 50's, without any training or any outside suggestions, one such man started just that.

Since this practice of telephone prospecting and telephone appointment setting was not known there were no skills and techniques to be learned. And, sadly, more than 50 years gone from the time when telephones were first used by sales people, there are still sketchy skills taught. And, in fact, there is a whole fraction of the sales training field today that feels the use of the telephone should not be taught for prospecting, that business people hate being interrupted.

No one knew how to use it back then. Just a few pioneers broke the mold of “wearing out shoe leather”, which is all that the old timers did, and picked up the phone to get through the door, rather than just “making the rounds” and ‘door knocking’.

This man is now in his 79^th year of stomping on the planet. And, above all others, he has built a reputation of mastering this skill. His name is Peter Burke and just 4 years ago he made that call to Toyota that I have written about in my previous blogs (at other sites and this one) that generated a 12.1 million sale!

It the sixties he hated the term “cold calling”, feeling it conjured negativity by it’s very name. It was he who invented the term Gold Calling® by changing just one letter, in order to make it a more positive expression. It was me, his son, that registered that mark nearly 40 years later.

Since that time he was the top sales person in several organizations. Trained them internally and even ran a sales training company of his own on the side for more than a decade while in his late 50's and early 60's . But he came out of an era that did not have the Internet. As a result his name was not known and, though his prospecting seminar is incredible, he never recorded it, as he preferred to achieve and only trained to stay sharp, as a hobby, if you can beleive that.

Luckilly, I have seen the value of his trained and experience as well as added to it. It is my pleasure to share with you both his ideas and the ideas that put me, his son, on the cover of a North American wide magazine 42 years after the phrase Gold Calling® was first used!

A blend of old school and new, taking the best of both schools is the beginning of what is know mysalestrainer.com and goldcalling.com.