Sales POP - Purveyors of Propserity
Keeping the Peace? Look to Trade
Blog / Leadership / Aug 7, 2018 / Posted by Nikolaus Kimla / 5448

Keeping the Peace? Look to Trade

0 comments

Trade has many benefits—to economies, to families, to individuals. It provides jobs, it provides incomes, it provides life to a culture and society.

I think we can all agree that trade is a highly beneficial activity. But it has a far more significant role than you might at first think.

Keeping Peace

It’s not just because our product Pipeliner CRM empowers sales that we feel that trade is vitally important—it goes far beyond that. As has been pointed out by several leaders in the Austrian School of Economic Thought over the last 150 years, trade has a peacekeeping element.

Two parties engaged in trade cannot engage in war. If they do, the trade, which is benefiting both sides, ceases. Hence you can see that trade, in addition to many other benefits, greatly assists in keeping the peace.

I’m sure you’ve already noticed how important peace is to our planet, especially in these times. We live on a tiny island in this universe. At least currently, we have nowhere else to go. So it well behooves all of us to engage in peace. Fortunately, we as a race are finally learning that war never leads to peace, as proven by the two titanic and devastating conflicts of the 20th century. World War I and World War II were both touted as “the war that would end war forever,” which they very obviously did not.

Finally, we are seeing the truth—that the most practical route to peace is through trade.

Fair Trade

You might notice that today there is a great amount of attention not just on trade, but on fair trade. Fairtrade is the primary fuel of debate and discussion—for example, the European Union and Japan have formally agreed on a free trade agreement. Why has fairness in trade become such a focus?

Let’s make an example of something familiar to any big fan of Italian food: parmesan cheese. It was recently discovered that some of the grated parmesan cheese being sold in US stores contained more wood pulp than actual cheese—and it retailed for considerably less than the pure grated parmesan cheese which people thought they were actually buying.

This is a capital example of unfair trade, in which some company selling an inferior product comes into a market and undercuts the real product. On a larger scale, it has happened throughout the world—mega-corporations have come into countries and vastly undercut local products with inferior substitutes, wrecking local economies. A prime example is GMO corn planted in Mexico by American companies, practically forcing local corn farmers out of business.

Fair trade, by its intrinsic definition, would mean honesty—fairness to people purchasing the product or service, and fairness within the marketplace. But by today’s definition, it goes beyond these. It also includes fair wages to the employees of producers and benefit to the environment in which products are produced. Using this standard, you can see how vitally important fair trade is in today’s world, in which not only war is a threat, but also environmental ruin and depletion of resources.

Economic and Social Stability

Fair trade is capable of bringing economic stability to a city, country or region. Economic stability can also bring civil stability, as can be readily observed in places throughout the world where economic stability has prevailed over time.

What is the first thing that happens when conflict arises between one or more nations? The borders close. Trade ceases. When free trade is prevented, that sweet stability disappears. If it disappears too drastically or for too long, a percentage of the population will end up leaving. Where do they go? Places where they can find economic stability and fair trade. Just look to Sweden, Germany, and Austria where refugees have been coming for years from eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and other volatile economic environments.

When enough people decide they can no longer tolerate living in a particular place because fair trade has vanished, it becomes a crisis that must be borne by many others in the world, as we’ve seen with the Syrian refugee situation. I have personally observed this crisis in action in Vienna. When the Syrian refugees were first arriving there in September of 2015, there were banners welcoming them, and people were meeting them in Vienna’s central railway station and providing them food, clothing and other necessities. When I returned to Vienna 4 months later (I currently reside in the US), all of those banners were gone, replaced by much smaller ones demanding that the refugees leave.

When large segments of a population move from one place to another, it taxes the resources of the new place in which they arrive. This type of scenario was discussed by philosopher Hans Jonas all the way back in 1984, in his work The Principle of Responsibility. In that work, Jonas predicted a mass movement of peoples from Africa to Europe—which, incidentally, has come to pass.

Jonas stated that the population explosion—and Earth’s population has more than doubled just since I was born—is actually a problem of “global metabolism.” When an entire population has used up all the resources in their area, their only solution becomes moving someplace else and doing the same. It’s a solution that, in that movement, becomes a problem. Jonas stated that unless there is a shift in consciousness, people will proceed the same way they always have until our resources are totally depleted.

As discussed above, fair trade includes fairness to the environment and proper use and replenishment of resources. And it is this method of operation and thinking which must occur and, fortunately, is starting to occur on a large-scale basis.

When fair trade is denied people long enough, revolutions are also ignited—something else we’ve seen far too much of in recent history. Unfortunately, most revolutions end up being the subject, in the future, of more revolutions. So which is more effective: revolution or trade?

Desire for Fair Trade and Peace

The fact that entire segments of a population will up and move away shows that the desire for trade and peace is practically wired into our DNA. People will search until they find it. Or, they will take up arms against a government based on the promise of it.

You can see this desire practically everywhere if you look for it. Just as an example let us take travel. In 2017, 1.3 billion people traveled abroad. If you do the math, that’s roughly 1 in 7 people throughout the world. When people travel, they engage in trade: both buying and selling.

Extremely Sustainable

As previously discussed, we have arrived today in a digital world, in which many things are transparent that weren’t before. One of these is trade. Unfair trade—in which substandard products, price gouging or one of an endless variety of unfair practices are engaged in—comes to light very quickly, and word travels throughout the world instantaneously. The sales of a product or service can be shut down almost instantly.

This same transparency is what makes fair trade extremely sustainable. When a reputation is good, everyone knows it. When buyers research products or services, they find out who they should trust. A great product, service, company, and sales team all have reputations that spread out like ripples in a pond, only infinitely more vast and with far more impact.

Because of this transparency, the company, the product and the seller appear as a single entity to the buyer. For that reason, they should be considered as a unit by the company—and should always be created, united and branded with fairness as a goal.

This type of completely transparent operation is exemplified by online clothing retailer Everlane who, on their website, proclaim, “Radical Transparency—know your factories. Know your costs. Always ask why.” This type of data is available, through the company’s website, to all who seek it. That is the transparency of the digital world, and of today and the future.

Salespeople: Agents of Peace

Now, how does sales fit into all of this? Simple: Trade is conducted by salespeople. As you might see, salespeople are, in fact, a major force in keeping peace throughout the world.

For this and for many other reasons (including their extremely unique talents) we have always maintained that salespeople should be respected and supported in their efforts. That is why we have worked so hard to provide a CRM solution that truly empowers salespeople to sell.

Sales is, in fact, our best chance for peace, and for a real difference in the future.

About Author

CEO and partner of pipelinersales.com and the uptime ITechnologies, which I founded in 1994 and has since played a significant role in the development of the IT-environment. pipeliner is the most innovative sales CRM management solution on the market. Pipeliner was designed by sales professionals for sales professionals and helps close the gap between the requirements of C-level executives for transparency and the day-to-day operational needs of field and inside sales. I am also the founder and Initiator of the independent economic platform GO-AHEAD!, which orientates itself on the principles of a free marketplace in terms of liberal and social responsibility. Connecting people, the trust of business leadership in terms of values such as freedom, self-responsibility, and entrepreneurial spirit, and strengthening their awareness in order to create a dynamic boost within the economy triggered through spontaneity, all stand for the initial ideas surrounding GO-AHEAD! I studied in Los Angeles and Vienna and received my Masters's Degree in 1994. I am married and have 3 children My Specialties are in: Sales Management, Sales CRM Software, CRM Cloud Solutions, SAAS, Business Strategy, Software Development, "Pipeline Management", Social responsibility, outbound sales, b2b sales, inside sales, sales strategy, lead generation, sales process, entrepreneurship, coaching, mentoring, speaker, opportunity management, lead management, Austrian School of Economics

Author's Publications on Amazon

This is a practical manual covering the vital subject of Sales Management. I firmly believe that sales are the most important profession for dealing with today’s turbulent world and Econo my, for salespeople create wealth and produce peace. But salespeople need a competent, stable leader—and…
Buy on Amazon
Inside this eBook, you’ll discover a series of chapters dedicated to some of the most important areas facing sales today. From the sales process definition to measurement, lead generation, and proven sales techniques, this comprehensive eBook will provide you with the information you need to…
Buy on Amazon
A common term in sales today is EQ, which stands for “emotional I.Q.” It means the skill a salesperson has in reading emotions and utilizing them in sales. It means empathy and a number of other abilities. The short version is, it’s an I.Q. when…
Buy on Amazon
People are smart to question the future of automation, for it has become part of everything we do. With the quantity of applications and technology around us, we yet still crave more. We become convinced of its power when our package is delivered from Amazon…
Buy on Amazon
Sales management isn’t a simple subject by any means. But at the same time, it does have some basic and somewhat simple fundamentals—and that is what we are bringing to you with this book. First come pain points of sales management, and how to overcome…
Buy on Amazon
Today the Internet has transformed a seller's market into a buyer's market and author Nikolaus Kimla states that the role of sales has never been more crucial. It is now time to give salespeople the role they factually can play: entrepreneurs within the enterprise. They…
Buy on Amazon
This is our public declaration of the intentions behind Pipeliner, and our objectives and motives for the product and for our company. Behind the development of that CRM application and, in fact, behind everything we do, we have a real cause. The story begins with…
Buy on Amazon
For the future, there must be a perfect balance of humans and technology. You have to have the perfect technology, andthen the perfect human being in application, performance and presentation. Today and into the future, it’s a 50-50 balance. In the past it was perhaps…
Buy on Amazon
The salespreneur is based on the concept of the entrepreneur. Before we can explain the salespreneur, you have to have some understanding of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur plays a crucial role in any economic system. The entrepreneur seeks out information that can be utilized for…
Buy on Amazon
A seasoned captain would never leave port without a competent navigator. In a similar way, a sales manager might be a total ace at "commanding the ship" – at inspiring and coaching sales reps, pointing out and getting agreement on making quotas, and keeping everyone's…
Buy on Amazon
Comments

..
..
.
Sales Process Automation
.
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. For information on cookies and how you can disable them, visit our privacy and cookie policy.