A HERITAGE IN SALES
The greatest salesperson contest is a nod to advertising legend David Ogilvy, who founded Ogilvy & Mather more than 60 years ago. Prior to entering the advertising world, Ogilvy sold stoves door-to-door in Scotland. He sold so many stoves that the company asked him to write a manual for other salesmen. That manual was dubbed “the finest sales instruction manual ever written” by the editors of Fortune magazine, who still used it as a resource guide thirty years after Ogilvy wrote it. Ogilvy once revealed the secret to his success as a stove salesman. “No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.” That notion forms the basis for Ogilvy’s credo, “We sell, or else.” David Ogilvy left sales, but sales never left him. He founded Ogilvy & Mather in 1949 based on two principles: (1) The function of advertising is to sell, and (2) successful advertising for any product is based on customer information. Ogilvy’s principles worked for Major Corporation after Major Corporation. In 1962, Time magazine called Ogilvy “the most sought-after wizard in today’s advertising industry.” He was so successful at expanding the bounds of creativity in advertising that he has often been called “the father of advertising.” The list of iconic advertising campaigns that he developed is as long as anyone’s in the business. Based on this heritage, Zucker came up with the idea for the greatest salesperson contest. “If we believe in selling, and our founder was a salesman, we have a special responsibility to reassert the importance of sales,” Zucker said.