Monday 30 January 2023. – In the 18th century, the Spinning Jenny started the industrial revolution. Compared to manual work, one worker could produce eight times more cotton fabric with this remarkable invention.

At the beginning of the 20th century, plywood mills started to pop up like mushrooms in Europe and North America. The plywood machinery at the time could make one production worker to complete about 30 m3 of plywood annually. That equals a 40 ft container. Today, advanced softwood plywood mills reach dearly over 1000 m3 per worker. That is quite a productivity leap.

How about sales productivity? What has happened in 100 years?

For sure, much of the paperwork, payments, freight bookings, etc. have become much simpler via computerization. With established customer contacts, a small team of clerks can handle tens of thousands m3 of plywood trade. It doesn’t make a difference if the customers are on the other side of the world or in the next village.

How about the tools that we use? How have they developed? Good customer contact is the essence of plywood salespersons’ work. Before, now, and then.

In the early days, it all started with real letters (the ones that we put a stamp in the envelope corner, remember?). Then came the telephone, telex, fax, email, text messages, and as latest social media messaging & online calls. From that group, the telex is the only one that has totally extinct. The technology that we use is much the same as in the 1990s. Email is still king.

It is said that what is happening in B2C sales today will happen in B2B sales in 5 years. Let’s see. Along with social media, there’s no scarcity of different communication means as we get messages via several channels every day. The younger generation seldom picks up the phone to call when texting feels more convenient. A sure thing is that communication methods evolve. Also in plywood sales.