What is Legal Tender

This chapter traces the roots of selling as a professional activity. Starting with ancient roots of how early mankind exchanged one value for another, it traces the exchange of values to include the use of a legal tender, money. The chapter illustrates how selling changed over time, and continued to change to make the salespersons more successful. The question this chapter raises is why were these changes necessary and were they permanent, or were more changes to come in a continuous process of change? Beginning with the need to sell something, sales is seen as a process that needs to find its way. As commercial sellers, business to business, differentiated from sellers of consumer goods, they developed unique professional skills. Were these skills and requirements permanent or just a bump in the road to an ever-evolving profession? Using critical thinking to evaluate the history of selling we conclude that selling is never satisfied with the current process and continues to change as technology, methods of transportation and commerce change.