Are 'Top Sales Pros' Born or Made?                Absolutely,Emphatically, so!   Are Top Salespeople Born or Made? http://www.highprobsell.com/html/born_to_sell.html                                                           Are Top Salespeople Born or Made?                                                           By Jacques Werth, President                                                               High Probability® Selling ©All rights reserved. That's the question that was posed by a writer for a major trade publication. He also asked me if salespeople should adapt their sales approach to the personality types of their customers.  Here's how I answered him... A. Selling is a skill, comparable to accounting or engineering: Specific actions, properly applied in a proscribed order, produce the best results. Given enough motivation, almost any skill can be learnedwithout formal training. Two of General Motors's top engineers never took an engineering course. Michael Dell didn't major in computers and dropped out of college. B. Similar aptitude patterns are seen in highly successful salespeople, trial lawyers and teachers. Salespeople who lack the right aptitudes and attitudes can substantially improve their sales skills,if they are willing to change their behaviors. The changes they need to make are simple, yet it requires a lot of self-discipline to make those changes. C. The type of training that is most likely to produce dramatic improvement is based upon the latest understanding of how the human mind works. It eliminates persuasion in favor of committed agreements. D. The theory that salespeople can assess a customer's personality type, and then adapt their selling techniques accordingly, has been widely promoted.However, we have never seen a salespersonthat can demonstrate that skill. No one (or customer) has a static personality; we all change continuously, reacting to stimuli as wereceive them. It's hard enough to figure out anyone's personality type; it's extremely difficult to analyzeand react to it moment-to-moment. I believe that only trained, experienced psychologists are likely tobe able to make practical use of that theory.  So, Are Top Salespeople Born or Made? We studied the top 1% of salespeople across 23 different industries. Some are self-made, learning what works best through intuition and experience. Many were trained, learned several selling systems, andeventually settled on the selling system that produces outstanding results. The ironic thing is that most of the top salespeople are doing the same things, and what they are doing is radically different from theother 99% of salespeople. Our conclusion is that top salespeople are clearly made.

Top Sales Pro: The Art and Science of Dynamic  Sales Performance Top Sales Pro is dedicated to exploring all aspects of the  sales process, sharing  fundamental insight and analysis on what it takes to be the very best, what it   takes to be a Top Sales Pro, mastering the art and science of dynamic sales  performance. The underlying principle of Sales, some of the most basic of concepts provided below, is fundamentally about the maximization of human resources in the pursuit  of sales productivity, components, factors of which determine the level of sales success, productivity, based on the proficiency for every component category. *Skills *Abilities *Knowledge *Experience *Acumen *Insight *Drive intangibles, all of which are combined, implemented, orchestrated to yield maximum sales  productivity performance, synergistic collaboration of human resources (input), in a word, synergy. What differs in sales productivity performance (between individuals) is the degree of skill, expertise and proficiency in pursuit of maximum sales productivity, the  combination  of qualifications throughout the sales cycle that is ultimately  reflected in the overall sales production that either enhances or diminishes  maximum sales productivity, synergy. A deficiency in one aspect in a phase of the cycle can have an adverse affect  in striving for maximum sales productivity DSP, Dynamic Sales Performance. In order to achieve Dynamic Sales Performance (DSP) maximum productivity,  synergy of human input in every phase, sub-category of the sales cycle must be implemented, facilitated to its fullest potential. If an individual is deficient  in any aspect sub-component  of the sales cycle, it will diminish the overall  synergy/ sales productivity, performance. It is not just simply a matter of implementation but more so the knowledge, awareness of  any aspect of the sales cycle that engenders maximum sales  productivity and it is this awareness that is instrumental to achieving DSP. The methodologies, mechanisms that engender maximum sales productivity,  performance is as much science as it art and it is this profound realization  and insight that is most empowering in achieving maximum sales productivity,  Dynamic sales performance,DSP. Science is the systemitized knowledge derived through experimentation,  observation, and study the results of which are experimentally repeatable. Science attempts to unravel fundamental observations of life by presenting  methodologies that with identical conditions consistently and unfailingly  recreate identical results. Exact sciences refers to systematized knowledge so that predictions and  their verification are possible and in many respects have been established.  In exact sciences and from the humanities, theology, the arts on the other. social sciences the study of human society and  of individual relationships in and to society. A scholarly or scientific discipline that deals with such study, generally  regarded as including sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, political science, and history. The science of sales, of human psychology,  human interaction, reaction provides reliable methodology while inexact  due to the ambiguities unknown factors that drive human behavior provides  reliable methodology, the implementation of which produces, re-produces  the same effect to a high  degree of success.