What is Drummer

The history of selling arrives at a major milestone when two different objectives or targets of selling are clearly defined. This chapter recounts how the single selling function migrated to two different approaches: business to consumer (B2C) and business to business (B2B). In this chapter, the special characteristics, methodologies, and approaches of B2B selling are identified and their origins are made clear. History shows that the difference in selling to consumers or to businesses was not clear at first. Peddlers and traveling salesmen sold to both as selling became a profession. The industrial revolution, growth of commerce, and the founding of the USA all contributed to a strong commercial world that required sales to approach and deliver differently to businesses, from a consumer market. Scientific management played a major role in this change, as organizations attempted to apply this scientific method to the sales function.