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Sir, Filled with hope, I eagerly read ‘The death of a salesman?’ piece, waiting for the dastardly deed. We all dislike salesmen or being sold to, or at least we hate knowing we are being sold to… 

The article was everything a weekly piece should be - thought-provoking and analytical. A picture is painted where ‘buyer logic’ and ‘intuition’ is replaced with datasets in a kind of perfect robotic decision-making process, devoid of relationship or empathy with salesmen and based on factual numbers. Sometimes it’s right that any decision made using these numbers in good faith can be forgiven in a way that poor advice from the ‘salesman’ in the past couldn’t be. But market data can also be used like a type of ‘comfort blanket’.

And does this comfort blanket sometimes suffocate the shopper, whose needs are not always met by this approach? Can this belief in data streams lead us all down paths we know are wrong, but feel unable to challenge?

Sometimes the data can lie or be misinterpreted. Data analysis is a bit like reading history. It can be down to the interpretation of the person compiling and documenting.

Maybe the old salesman hasn’t died; he just changed his suit and pitch into a more modern, sophisticated proposition. When he hides behind it, we become less guarded and more accepting of his ‘science-based’ approach. He’s no longer selling to us after all. He is my category friend, guiding me through the decision-making process in an unbiased, scientific way.

Rich Clothier, MD, Wyke Farms