Arthur Miller, American playwright (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last week, I published a blog commenting on a New York Times article entitled “Life of salesman“.

My blog is linked to Facebook and my nephew commented

“I don’t get it!”.

So I thought that I’d re-read the NYT article and a pen a few words.

The NYT article is called “life of a salesman” and it leads a quasi artistic discussion around the contemporary views of the “salesman” following the new production of Arthur Miller‘s classic 1949 play “Death of a salesmen”. Interestingly, the discussion is not about the current play but more about the examination of the salesman from an artistic perspective.

In essence, the “life of the salesman” is a kind of re-examination of the American Dream.

I have long been fascinated by the “salesman” and have often questioned his/her role in a World now dominated by marketing, and in more recent years internet intermediation. Traditional sales skills seem to have given way to technical selling, in my view. What ever happened to the old-fashioned “pedlar”?

Historically, sales was the fast fast track to the top of the corporate ladder but “salesmen” need to evolve with the wider market-place. The UK, for example, is probably weak on professional “salesmen” with expert linguistic skills to help conquer the BRIC markets.

How do you see the future of the “salesman”?

Related articles

• The Overfamiliar Salesman (switchedondevelopment.co.uk)
• “Death of a Salesman”: We are all salesmen now (economist.com)
• What is the American Dream? (tiffyun.com)
• Life of a ‘Salesman’ (nytimes.com)
• John Lahr: “Death of a Salesman” and “Camino Real,” in revival. (newyorker.com)
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller – review (guardian.co.uk)
• Afternoon Bites: “Death of a Salesman,” Nick Harkaway, Literary Maps, And More (vol1brooklyn.com)
• Andrew Garfield Does Broadway of the Day (geeks.thedailywh.at)
• What do you want: qualified or early leads ? (leadsexplorer.com)
• Social media and the traveling salesman (foodwinetraveltips.wordpress.com)