From Barter to the Age of AI and the Enduring Human Need to Be Sold

By Lief Larson

Introduction: The Unbroken Lineage of Selling

Selling is as old as humanity itself. Before there was currency, before there was commerce as we know it, there was persuasion: the simple act of convincing someone that what you had was worth exchanging for what they had. I’ve always found that fascinating: long before we had nations, we had trade routes. Long before we had stock markets, we had trust. And trust, in many ways, has always been the real currency of sales.

To understand where sales is heading, and why the world is quietly entering one of the most important and complex sales eras in history, you first have to understand where it came from. The story of sales is, at its core, the story of human progress. Every major leap in civilization has had a salesperson behind it: someone willing to explain the new, to de-risk the unknown, and to inspire belief in something that didn’t yet exist.

Origins: How Trade Gave Birth to Persuasion

The earliest human salespeople were traders, moving obsidian, salt, spices, and tools across thousands of miles. They weren’t just exchanging goods; they were exchanging value. To sell, they needed to communicate across language barriers, negotiate across cultures, and persuade others that what they carried was worth parting with something else of value. Sales had the power to transverse and transcend tremendous cultural and geographic divides. 

In early barter economies, the value of an item wasn’t fixed, it was subjective. That meant every transaction was an act of storytelling. “This flint is sharper, this salt will help your meat last longer, this dye is colorfast and rarer.” From these roots, persuasion evolved from survival skill to economic engine.

Over time, marketplaces and merchant guilds standardized trade. But the essence of sales, the human interaction, stayed the same. A good salesperson wasn’t just someone who had something to sell; it was someone who could make you see its value.

Industrialization: From Peddlers to Professionals

By the 18th and 19th centuries, industrialization transformed production, and sales had to evolve to match. Goods could now be mass-produced, which meant distribution and persuasion had to scale.

This gave rise to the door-to-door salesman, the traveling peddler, and eventually the professional sales representative. In the U.S., this era defined the image of the “road warrior” toting around suitcases full of samples, loading railcars full of product, and using a handshake to secure transactions.

Sales became less about barter and more about systems: quotas, territories, commissions, and incentives. By the late 1800s, companies like NCR (now NCR Voyix) and Fuller Brush were training their sales forces systematically. The idea of sales as a profession was born.

In the early 20th century, pioneers like Dale Carnegie and Elmer Wheeler codified persuasion into science: “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” “Don’t sell the steak — sell the sizzle.” The concept of salesmanship emerged: the recognition that selling wasn’t trickery, but psychology , and psychology could be taught, refined, and measured.

The Postwar Era: When Things Were Bought, Not Sold

After World War II, the developed world entered a period of unprecedented economic expansion. The U.S. in particular became the global epicenter of consumer demand. Manufacturing scaled, wages rose, credit expanded, and optimism ran high.

During this period, roughly from the 1950s through the late 1990s, much of the economy operated under a unique condition: relative geopolitical and economic stability. That stability created a world in which, in many cases, things were bought, not sold.  It was in the 1990s that I entered the sales realm, even getting to sell to and work with NCR and become a better student of the sales game.  [NOTE: Thank you NCR for being one of the first paying customers of my life.]

If you had a quality product, a strong brand, and a fair price, demand often came to you. The salesperson’s job wasn’t to create desire, it was to capture it. Think of the postwar appliance boom, the automotive revolution, or the rise of consumer packaged goods. Supply chains and advertising created pull-through; sales teams simply had to catch what was falling off the tree.

Of course, there were exceptions. Enterprise and industrial sales still required skilled persuasion. But, for decades, macro prosperity itself acted as the world’s greatest salesperson.

The Modern Age: When “Value” Became the Product

Then the world changed again. Globalization intensified competition. Technology multiplied choice. And buyers, both consumers and businesses, became vastly more informed.  The scarcity and information asymmetry were replaced with immediate and comprehensive access to pre-purchase intelligence in the form of web pages, spec sheets, PDF brochures, PowerPoint decks and more.

The internet democratized knowledge. By the 2010s, buyers could research features, pricing, and competitors with a few clicks. Many pundits declared the “death of sales,” arguing that digital self-service would replace human persuasion.

But that prediction turned out to be profoundly wrong.

What actually happened was more complex: as information became abundant, confidence became scarce. Buyers didn’t need more data, they needed interpretation. They didn’t want more features or to get caught up in a never ending doom loop of analysis paralysis, they wanted context.

This ushered in what I call the Age of Considered Value. I first heard the concept of "considered value purchases" from my friend/colleague Karlin Lindhardt who had recently been an SVP at Subway and then went on to be the Global CMO for Papa John’s. As he explained it to me, considered value products and services require a thoughtful decision, including anything with complexity, customization, or long-term consequences. This Age of Considered Value began demanding a new kind of selling: proactive, consultative and, insight-driven.  Today we refer to these sales professionals as Solution Sellers.

Sales once again became not about pushing product, but guiding clarity. The best sales professionals evolved into trusted advisors, helping prospects cut through noise, validate their choices, make high-quality decisions with confidence, and often commit to a share of responsibility for post-purchase outcomes.

The Future: Why Sales Will Become More Human AND More Technological at the Same Time (and How Both Can be True at the Same Time)

The world we’re entering now is paradoxical. On one hand, AI and automation are streamlining every stage of the buyer’s journey, from lead generation to qualification to post-sale engagement. On the other hand, the very abundance of automation is making authentic human interaction more valuable than ever.

In a future of infinite data and AI-generated noise, trust becomes the ultimate differentiator. Buyers will seek out and appreciate human connection, not because they can’t find information, but because they can’t be sure what to believe.

That’s why I anticipate the next decade will mark a renaissance in professional sales. Companies will need to grow their sales force capabilities in two parallel dimensions:

1. Technology Adoption: Integrating tools like AI-driven prospecting, predictive analytics, and dynamic sales enablement platforms. Salespeople who learn to harness these tools will multiply their effectiveness, focusing their human time where it matters most: high-value conversations.
2. Headcount and Human Leverage: Despite automation, the need for human sales capacity will grow. As products become more complex and buyers more cautious, organizations will increasingly need to rely on skilled sellers to derisk purchases, navigate consensus buying, and build trust in uncertain times.

Yes, buyers are more educated than ever, but they’re also more overwhelmed, more skeptical, and more risk-aware. The salesperson’s job in the coming decade will be not to inform, but to simplify, de-risk, and reassure.

In many ways, we’re heading back to the fundamentals of ancient trade, where the greatest value a salesperson could offer wasn’t information, but confidence.

Conclusion: The Salesperson as the Bridge Between Risk and Reward

Sales is the connective tissue of the global economy. It always has been. It’s the bridge between production and consumption, between innovation and adoption, between risk and reward.

Every breakthrough in human history, from the first wheel to the next great AI platform, required someone to sell it, to explain it, to make it real in another person’s mind.

The methods change. The tools evolve. But the heart of selling, the human conversation between “I have” and “I need," remains timeless.

If the 20th century was the age of products, the 21st century will be the Age of Persuasion at Scale. Companies that recognize this, that invest in their salespeople, that blend technology with empathy, and that train their teams to be educators and advisors, will not only survive the next wave of economic transformation, they’ll lead it.

Because at the end of the day, no matter how intelligent the systems become, people will always want one thing before they buy:

To be sold — not tricked, not manipulated, but guided with conviction.

And that’s what makes sales not just a profession, but a calling.