The number of people who worked in the sales department grew at an
increasingly rapid rate by the late 1800s, from only a thousand in 1861, to
approximately three hundred thousand by 1903.
In the 1860s, salespersons used to travel in order to sell their products.
These travelling salespeople were called peddlers, hawkers, canvassers, and
drummers. Some of the salespeople who had worked before as peddlers came
up with trade sales organizations.
These organizations gained large influence in the areas where they were
found, and due to their strong influence, the birth of some of the most popular
names in the field of business became widely known and respected.
In fact, these companies may not have even become legends if not for the
influence of the peddlers of the late nineteenth century.
These organizations began when a former peddler named Henry Heinz came
up with a grand idea of making an organization, which then comprised of
about four hundred working salespeople, which aimed at selling products
made with vegetables such as pickles and ketchup to consumers who do not
grow their own food.
In 1886, another former peddler, Asa Candler, made his own force in the
world of sales aimed at selling the syrup used to make the now popular Coca
Cola to restaurants in major cities, after he had managed to buy the still secret
formula from John Pemberton at the cost of two thousand three hundred
dollars.
Out of the organizations that these two men founded came the future
companies which would eventually allow people to be the boss of their own
businesses.
The first of these companies was the J.R. Watkins Medical Company,
founded in 1868.
This company, which was founded by its namesake, was one of the very first
companies which sold natural remedies to its consumers by way of directly
marketing the products to them by the company’s associates.
A few years after, in 1890, the California Perfume Company was founded by
David McConnel, and had its base in New York State.