Until only recently, sales and merchandising were very much about “the tricks of the trade.” To put a cynical face on this (one of my specialties), you had to trick people into doing things they would not ordinarily do, whether it was good for them or not.

In my brief and appallingly unsuccessful sales career, I attempted to sell advertising. It was the early ‘80s, and I took my mis-chosen avocation seriously, reading all the books about technique that I could find. They were full of ways to trick people into buying something they didn’t really want or need. Hey, it was the go-go ‘80s. Remember?

One of my employers actually ran us through absurd little role-playing exercises such as getting prospects (“victims” would have been a better word) to agree to a series of statements so that they’d be in a positive frame of mind when we “popped the question.” It was supposed to go something like this: “Nice day today, isn’t it?” (“Yes.”) “You’d like to see your business grow, wouldn’t you?” (Yes.”) “Wouldn’t it be grand to win the lottery?” (“Yes.”) “This $50,000 advertising campaign would be a great investment, wouldn’t it?” In our role-playing games, things went like they tend to go in do-it-yourself karate manuals — our “victims” were hypnotized by our tactics and we won rapid, glorious victories every time. Our sales manager would smile, and send us eager puppies out to the four winds. Sadly, I was dumb enough to go out and actually try these techniques, which is one of the reasons I needed a career change in 1988.

Sales today, as we know, has become “partnering.” Oh, the knife is still there, but its blade is a little shorter, a little duller, and it’s hidden better. But I like to think that sales techniques today are less about back-slapping, knifing and hypnosis and more about helping your prospect succeed and prosper.

Which brings me to merchandising. To take just one example, remember how clever it once seemed to put milk at the back wall of the store so people had to walk all the way past half your SKUs? By gum, you had a gazillion more opportunities to sell them something. Brilliant!

Until some C-stores and really smart supermarkets put the most commonly bought items up front for the grab-and-go customer. Now, that was convenient! Less irritating! Shoppers liked it, and they voted with their wallets.

Now, more retailers are getting with the program and revisiting whether their various merchandising techniques help shoppers or are designed to trick them into buying what they don’t want or need. The winners in this game will be the retailers who become customer advocates, and who treat their shoppers like friends that they care about. Yet, many attempts at merchandising today are still mere tricks. We may have more channel blur than ever before, but truly good merchandising is crystal clear to shoppers.