WÜRTH, a German family firm, makes the most basic products imaginable: screws, nuts and bolts. No need for fancy salesmanship here, you might think. In fact, Würth has 30,000 sales reps. It calls them its “beating heart” and strokes them deftly: when one performs exceptionally, the firm writes to congratulate his wife.

Reports of the death of the salesman have circulated since the first dotcom boom. Consumers are doing their own research. Businesses are opting for automated purchasing and reverse auctions where all that matters is price. Online comparisons, ratings and other unbiased information have made the tough task of selling tougher still. Customers have become warier of being sold to. Drug firms used to hire ex-cheerleaders to sway doctors into prescribing their pills. But doctors (many of whom are female these days) have grown less swayable. About a third of them are now considered “hard to see” by the drugs industry.

These changes have prompted many firms to prune their peddlers. Drug firms cut their salesforces by a whopping 30% between 2006 and 2011, according to ZS Associates, a consultancy that specialises in sales. Many “field” or travelling salesmen have been replaced by cheaper telephone salespeople. American retailers have cut sales staff to the point where they are probably missing out on business.

Yet for all this, selling is as important as ever. The much-maligned car salesman is still shifting the vast majority of new cars, despite carmakers' efforts to sell online. In Asia the personal touch is essential. Amway, a direct-selling firm, counts China as its biggest market. Avon and Mary Kay, two direct-selling rivals, are also growing rapidly there. Selling in Korea, according to a saying among Korean salespeople, means drinking a lot of soju, a fiery local spirit, and “getting naked” when appropriate.

Young industries are embracing old sales techniques. For a forthcoming book called “The Art of the Sale”, its author, Philip Delves Broughton, visited Salesforce.com, a firm that sells online sales support. He found a boiler room full of athletic-looking graduates pounding the phones. Google, too, may be built around algorithms, but it also has thousands of flesh-and-blood ad salespeople. Apple has sold millions of iMac computers online, but its shops are as sophisticated as they are old-fashioned. Its rivals sell computers via soulless big-box stores. Apple makes it personal, down to the last psychological detail: for example, staff are forbidden to correct customers if they mispronounce the names of its gadgets. Immac, iMac, what's the difference?

The tragedy of the salesman in modern business is not that he is on the way out, but that he is disrespected. C-suites hardly ever contain a “chief sales officer”. Chief executives rarely come from sales. Recruiters must devise euphemisms such as “business consultant” for sales roles, or good graduates won't touch them. Only a few companies, such as Würth, give salesfolk their due. Others agree with Scott Adams, a cartoonist, whose character “Kenny the Sales Weasel” asks an engineer to explain a product's technical specifications. “Our product is beige. It uses electricity,” says the engineer. “Whoa! Brain overload!” wails the weasel.

Management theory mostly ignores selling. Peter Drucker, perhaps the most influential guru, wrote that “the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.” Most business schools do not teach sales as a separate subject in MBA programmes. Consultants have rethought strategy to the nth degree but seldom furrow their brows about sales.

It shows. According to a new book, “Sales Growth: Insights from Leading Sales Executives” by Thomas Baumgartner, Homayoun Hatami and Jon Vander Ark, three consultants at McKinsey, the performance of salespeople within a single company typically varies by a factor of three. And the difference between the best and worst companies when it comes to selling is far greater than the difference for functions such as supply-chain management, purchasing or finance.

He's liked, but he's not well liked

There are signs that companies are starting to pay attention to selling. Some are trying to turn it from an art into a science. At the very least, this means standardising practices taken from the most successful salespeople. Firms are starting to track reps much more closely, usually to their dismay. Salesforce.com sells tools which allow sales managers to track on a daily basis what their minions are up to. Companies are reorganising sales so that their most important customers are cosseted by huge, complex selling teams which include people from many departments.

Meanwhile, debates about selling rage on. The fiercest of all concerns pay. Should you pay reps a salary, or prod them daily with commissions? American firms used to pay a higher proportion of commissions, but are now opting for more salary, like European companies. Japanese salesmen are typically paid a salary only. Chinese and Indian reps often want to be paid commission only, because they see this as a way to make money quickly, says Nigel Piercy, a professor at the University of Warwick who has studied the way salespeople are paid.

Whether they are called “rainmakers” (an investment banking term) or “peddlers”, whether their feet are on the street or in the door, whether they are pushing metal (cars) or slamming boxes (photocopiers), salespeople are the unsung heroes of business. They battle daily and bravely against rival firms and consumers who foolishly prefer to save their hard-earned cash. They gather vital intelligence about customers' preferences and competitors' moves. Forget the marketing mavens, the strategy wizards, the bean counters and the designers. Spare a thought for the world's Willy Lomans, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.

Economist.com/blogs/schumpeter