While personal selling positions have been categorized into taxonomies, a longitudinal view of how selling jobs change or evolve has not yet been provided. This article presents such a view, based on an inductive analysis from available literature on sellingjobs, selling's history, and characteristics of competitive and market environments. Five stages in this evolution of selling are presented and discussed: provider, persuader, prospector, problem-solver, and procreator. Relationships to management practice and implications for future research efforts are also noted.
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Thomas R. Wotruba (1991) studied this question.
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