He’s a pickup artist.
If we want to know where our profession is going, we have to understand where we come from. Here’s a short essay on John H. Patterson of National Cash Register, the father of modern selling.
John was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1844. He spent his childhood working on the family farm and his father’s sawmills. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1867 and went to work as a canal toll collector until 1870. That year, he began managing the Southern Ohio Coal and Iron Company. This is where our story begins.
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By 1879, John had turned the Southern Ohio Coal and Iron Company into the largest reseller of coal in Dayton, Ohio. He had one big problem though - he couldn’t make his Coalton Ohio store profitable.
Coincidentally, a fellow Dayton gentleman by the name of James Ritty had just patented and manufactured a new invention called “Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier”. Ritty's machine was the OG “Cash Register” - It simply recorded the number of sales and also the amount of each one.
John decided to give Ritty’s invention a shot… and after a few months, he was finally able to turn a profit in his Coalton store. This not only triggered him to buy “Incorruptible Cashiers” for the rest of his stores, but it also convinced him of the benefits of the technology.
Even though John had tremendous success implementing cash registers, Ritty’s invention did not draw much enthusiasm from other business owners. The machine was expensive ($1,000 in 1880) and it also turned off employees - to them it was a signal that their boss thought they were untrustworthy.
Ritty eventually sold his patent to a group of Ohia investors. And in 1884, Patterson founded the “National Cash Register Company.” During his tenure leading NCR from 1884 - 1922, John pioneered a lot of the commonplace sales strategies that companies still use to this day.
Selling the “need” and direct ads
Prior to 1884, advertising was non-existent in most industries. Ads consisted of announcements that goods were on hand ready to be bought.
Pattersons ads were the first to give reasons why the purchase of his product would make money for the purchaser. His ads were simple, attention-grabbing, and most importantly, sold the need.
He believed that advertisements paved the way for his salespeople to sell effectively as prospects had the ability to learn about his product before ever dealing with a seller.
Invented the modern Sales Process
In 1887, Patterson and his brother-in-law published a 450-word
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