Product Knowledge – The foundation of selling In preparation for this discussion, I asked a number of successful distributor salespeople to stop, step back and relive their first days in their territory.   For many of these folks, this was quite a task in and of itself.   Each had a number of things on their minds for the first days of selling.   But, as we pealed back the years; they all said the same thing.   Early on, I had a heck of time deciding exactly what I needed to know.   Even for those who launched their careers based on Engineering (or some other technical) Degrees, being conversant on a whole range of products was daunting. My next set of conversations took place with a group of highly motivated young sales people who were making great progress but could still be easily referred to as “newbies” in the selling game. One by one, they shared the overwhelming feeling of doubt faced around understanding the tens of thousands of products in th...