The Art of Selling or How to Be a Good Salesman

The image of the salesman in the first half of the 20th century

Abstract

The profession of the tradesman is not regulated in Slovenia – the idea being to remove administrative barriers and increase mobility and flexibility in finding work and employment -and requires no training. Given that consumers are demanding and conscientious, the key decisionmaking protagonists believed that a competitive market would ensure continual growth in the quality of trading. However, this was not the case in the past. Older Slovenian tradesmen prospered and gained respect through self-education and diligence. In modern times, in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, during the gradual development of the consumer society, working in a shop required theoretical and practical training that the candidates acquired through a diversified system of training institutions for tradesmen, while life-long training took place through specialized magazines. (In the pre-internet era) tradesmen had to know the goods they were selling, and they needed a good general education as well as certain intellectual abilities.