Are Salespeople Born or Made?

Just like learning to ride a bike, you have to learn how to do something before you get good at it. With riding a bike, the more you practice you have on a bike, the better you get, and the same applies to sales. The more experience and practice you have selling, the better you will be at it. Watching my dad ride a bike and seeing his success, I was able to observe what he did and mimic his actions so I was able to be successful myself. The same applies to sales in this situation as well. Observing successful salespeople helps you to see what works and then you are able to apply those techniques for yourself. 

I think you can apply rejection and failure to this same analogy. What does your parent say when you fall down? “Get back up and try again.” And I am almost certain that is very similar to what your boss would say if you aren’t able to make a sale: “Just move on and try again.” I highly doubt there is a salesperson out there that has made a sale every single time they have tried. Therefore, they can learn about their past failure and better themselves from it. I don’t know of too many people who were born able to ride a bike, not even Lance Armstrong. From the moment we are born, we are constantly learning. Learning how to read, how to write, how to ride a bike, and in some cases how to sell. I think some people may have personal qualities that enable them to be more successful salespeople, but I believe that they all, at one point, had to be taught how to sell.