For as long as there has been commerce, there has been some selling activity. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying history, the evolution of sales can be grouped into four eras: The pre-industrial revolution period, production oriented period, sales oriented period, and customer oriented period. As the slide shows, we think we are now into a new era, the 24-7 era. The first era is the Pre-industrial Revolution period. Prior to the industrial revolution, business was small-scale more craft oriented. The owner or craftsman turned entrepreneur, looked after all areas and functions of management. In general, sales and marketing were non issue since demand far exceeded supply. As such, selling was only a part-time job for these entrepreneurs, and the job entailed demonstrating or displaying their craftmanship. The next era was a production oriented period. Around 760 was the birth of the Industrial Revolution, and this lasted until the 1930's. In this era, mass production techniques were invented, the focus was on manufacturing and sales was all about selling what you made. The market environment was more of a seller's market. Following this, was the sales oriented period. The great depression of the 1930's, mark the decline in demand and because of that, the focus was on sales, and the environment was highly competitive, where supply was an excess of demand. Marketing meant pushing products often through manipulating customers. Around 1960, was the start of the customer oriented period. In this era, emphasis was on identifying customer needs and maintaining or improving customer satisfaction. The environment was now that of a buyer's market with severe competition, and now, we're in the 24/7 era. Due to technology, businesses and customers can communicate 24/7 and they expect to do so. Businesses must focus on being social and connecting with clients in real-time. The customer is in the driver's seat now, not businesses, and the salesperson's job has changed in line of this.