Are Sales People Born Or Made?

I posed this question on LinkedIn the other day. Here are what I consider to be some of the best responses:

From Joe Charles, President - HarborLight Consulting Services
A study attempted to answer a similarly worded question masked under the umbrella of the “80/20” rule of sales success. The study’s sample included over 25,000 working salespeople in 160 industries. It came to some interesting conclusions.

Conclusion 1: 55% of all working salespeople are not well-suited for sales at all. The process by which most working salespeople ended up in those positions seldom included very much training, and often couldn’t be explained in any rational fashion, even by the salesperson involved. The educational system has no well-established path for helping a young person identify sales as a desired career, choosing education to insure success, and graduating into a career in the field. While it’s agreed that sales is critical to any business success, and recognized that successful salespeople are among the economy’s best compensated and most flexible, it’s sort of assumed that success in sales “just happens.”

Conclusion 2: Of the remaining 45%, over half are selling the wrong thing in the wrong place for them.

Sales success is highly dependent on conditions that vary with product, structure, management, peer group, customer demographics, and other variables we just do not have a good way to measure.

One study concluded that 55% of all working salespeople are not well-suited for the job. 

From Rick Monihan, former Director of Ad Sales Operations at Fox News
I believe some people have a natural sales talent. However, I've seen some people become great salespeople. It really depends on, not only the person, but the type of salesperson.

Some personalities make for great Hard Sell salespeople, others are good at the Soft Sell, whole other personalities make great Consultative Salespeople, and still others are great at the Cold Call. Few are good at all types of sales, but some are good at multiple types.

The easiest to teach is the Consultative Sale. It requires asking questions and telling a story. The hardest to teach, I think, is the Cold Call. That requires a fearless personality.

Another sales type, that I am aware of but not fond of, is the Annoyance Factor. Somebody who just makes him/herself so apparent and ubiquitous that you give them business to make them go away. I think very few people are good at it, let alone want to be that way. Still...it can be taught.

"The hardest to teach is the Cold Call. That requires a fearless personality."

Brian Karas, Director, Customer Support and Technical Services at Tizor
Rainmakers have it in their DNA.  Sales people can be trained.

Josh Kitchen, IT Recruiter at Kforce
Find someone with ADD, they make great sales individuals for 6 weeks then they leave to go to the next great thing! :)

Ed Daniel, IT Executive, Entrepreneur, Consultant
Nature and nurture no doubt...

Nurture can teach the ability but nature will accelerate that.