We’re All Salesmen

Illustration by: Tom Ostrom

The Ostrom family tree didn’t spring from doctors and lawyers or crowned heads. No powdered wigs. No legacy admissions. It sprouted, modestly enough from a few small-town hardware stores. The nucleus was a place called Evansville, Minnesota. You’ve never heard of it.

My great-grandfather and his sons owned the Ostrom’s Hardware in the 1920s and ’30s. Back when hardware stores weren’t just places to buy things. They were vaulted institutions of knowledge, support, and trust. You didn’t Google your problem. You walked in and asked a guy who knew. They were pillars. My grandfather went on to own one. As did my dad. Three generations of bolts, brooms, paint and Sunbeam small appliances. 

To my dad, Jon, being a salesman wasn’t a job. It was an identity. A way of moving through the world. He used to say, “Anybody can give something away. Selling something takes skill and the ability to read the room.” And he meant it. In the early ’70s, he was working for Hallmark greeting cards. At the time, grocery stores didn’t sell cards. That wasn’t a thing. Jon looked around and said, “Why not?” By the end of the decade, greeting cards and L’eggs pantyhose displays were grocery store fixtures. That’s not marketing theory. That’s sales instinct. Little did I know, I was getting a master class.

Meanwhile, modern marketing, polished, caffeine-fueled, loves to dress itself up. We talk about brand narrative, omnichannel presence, and consumer journeys (blecht). We polish decks like they’re headed to the Smithsonian. We argue over fonts as if they’re moral positions. We obsess over snappy headlines, beautifully enhanced product photography, and nurturing cadences that whisper, this matters… you want this… no, no. You need this.

And all of it, every last pixel, is in service of one thing: Helping someone sell something. That doesn’t cheapen the work. It clarifies it.

Somewhere along the way, maybe in the 80’s, “sales” became a dirty word. I blame MTV. It’s unjustified… but I’m still pissed. They wrecked the whole music video thing with all that reality crap. Regardless, the word sales became too transactional. Too blunt. Too Willie Loman. But good salesmanship is anything but blunt. It’s perceptive.

It requires empathy. Curiosity. Listening. It requires knowing when to talk and when to shut up. The guy behind the hardware counter doesn’t just push hammers. He asks what you’re building. He can smell whether you’re confident or guessing. He knows if you need the professional-grade tool or the pretty-ok one that’ll get you through the weekend without humiliating yourself in front of the other suburban dads.

That’s understanding your audience. That’s proposing solutions. That’s marketing.

Our bag of tricks is more expensive now. Instead of pegboards and aisles, we have websites, social feeds, campaigns, retargeting ads, funnels, dashboards, content calendars, dashboards to make you feel productive without actually being productive. Instead of eye contact, we have heat maps and engagement metrics. We use a different toolbox, but it’s the same job.

Understand what the client actually does. Interpret why it matters. Translate that appeal into something another human being can feel, recognize, and say yes to…and sell, baby, sell.

The best marketing doesn’t trick people. It explains things clearly. It lubes away the friction. It says, “Here’s why this exists. Here’s why it might matter to you. Here’s what to do next.” That’s not manipulation. That’s filling a need…or maybe feeding a desire.

When marketing fails, and it does, frequently, it’s usually because we’ve forgotten this. It chases cleverness for its own sake. It hides behind jargon. It mistakes noise for persuasion. It wants credit for being interesting without doing the hard, unglamorous work of being effective. My dad never cared if someone thought he was clever. All he cared about was getting the customer what they needed… until the next time.

At Ostrom Creative, our business cards don’t say Salesman. They say strategist, designer, writer, creative director. Nice titles. Clean type. Respectable. But let’s not kid ourselves. We’re salesmen.

Because anybody can give something away.

Selling something? That takes skill. And the ability to read the room.

Listen to your dad, folks. The guy’s been quietly field-testing human nature for a few decades longer than you have. And while you’re at it…would it kill you to call him once in a while?

Talk soon?

— Tom
Free thinking for hire™