It’s remarkable how many truly extraordinary businesspeople of the past are completely unknown to today’s executives.
To wit, James Patterson founder of the National Cash Register Company (which has survived into our times as “NCR.”)
Patterson began as a merchant after Civil War service in the Union Army selling what should have been high margin goods to miners, only to find out that lax controls and employee dishonesty had destroyed his profits. He then heard about a new machine, the cash register, invented by a saloon owner. He acquired several which quickly eliminated his losses due to the control it provided over cash and recording sales. He promptly purchased the company that produced this wonder, renamed it the “National Cash Register Company” and from “that point forward,….Patterson devoted his life to dominating the cash register business and to getting registers into every saloon and retail store in the world.”
Some employees resented the implication about their honesty that the presence of the new devices seemed to imply. Others resented the passing of an opportunity to steal; but the cash register represented a huge step forward in loss control for merchants.
But Patterson was not only successful because he had the right product, he was also a genius in teaching his sales force how to sell it. The techniques he pioneered included sales scripts, exclusive territories and other innovations. In short, Patterson was the father not only of the cash register, but “the Father of Modern Sales”. The article also traces the remarkable influence Patterson’s protégés at NCR had on GM, IBM and other industrial giants. Patterson’s ethics were sometimes wanting, but his contributions are worth learning about.
