Sales is a skill, not a talent

[Philosophy Explorer]

There are those who believe it's a talent. I don't based on over ten years of study.

I became highly skilled at it which started with "Whoever speaks first, loses." There are those who believe it's a natural talent that can be developed. I don't see a basis for this belief. If a person did have such a talent, then it would be expressed at an early age with no other explanation for it (also how would one define what lies behind the so called natural talent besides the ability to sell a lot?)

What are your thoughts?

PhilX

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

Hah, when I worked my first job in retail, within just a couple months I was getting more hours than any other person there, despite being a minor, just because I was so good at selling credit cards to people. It definitely improved, but I think some people also have a natural disposition to be good at it. Of course they'll get better with practice, but I think these can be said about most things.

[Philosophy Explorer]

The idea behind a "natural talent" in selling is that some people sell well while most don't (which sales people know to be true). Besides myself, I've quickly taught a technique for which I've received credit for improving sales.

I've tried all the other notable ways of selling without success. The only one that did work was inspired by a head cold (whether you believe or not is your business). From that point forward, all my days in sales were spectacular (no slow days when I made contact).

Since I'm three for three for improving sales with my technique, I still don't recognize a natural sales talent. I believe if you can talk, you can sell well.

PhilX

[FlashDangerpants]

Don't you sell small things like newspaper subscriptions to consumers? Have you ever been a sales guy for Boeing or Microsoft, selling things that cost billions and earning millions as you go? That's where the truly talented sales guys probably are.

As your argument is inductive in nature, and you are philosophical by name, I assume you have made sure your inductive experiences represent at least a useful cross section of the entire sales industry. Otherwise, are you not perhaps just a big fish in a small pond where the truly talented sales guys wouldn't work?

[Philosophy Explorer]

Don't you sell small things like newspaper subscriptions to consumers? Have you ever been a sales guy for Boeing or Microsoft, selling things that cost billions and earning millions as you go? That's where the truly talented sales guys probably are.

As your argument is inductive in nature, and you are philosophical by name, I assume you have made sure your inductive experiences represent at least a useful cross section of the entire sales industry. Otherwise, are you not perhaps just a big fish in a small pond where the truly talented sales guys wouldn't work?

I've sold that and I've sold a TV that ranged from $2,500 to $3,000 (depending on the sale).

A useful cross-section? What would you consider to be a useful cross-section? I've worked a number of sales jobs including inbound and outbound telemarketing, retail (doing a TV demo), carpet cleaning, cable, etc. My point is before I started employing that technique, I was only fair at best at selling. After I adopted that technique, I had no further problems at selling.

I worked over ten years at selling and I'm very competitive at it. At a cable company's branch where they employed over 100 people, I won a sales trophy award (plus a customer-service trophy award). I'm very well read on the subject and have taught others to sell on an informal basis. It doesn't matter what you sell (so much for Boeing or Microsoft).

I can go into great detail. My point is there's no such thing as natural-born salespeople.

PhilX

[FlashDangerpants]

And mine is that you sound like you only know about selling small ticket uncomplicated items to consumers.

If a 3 grand TV is your big thing, you don't have the breadth of experience to say there's no difference in what you sell and other stuff. Nor do you know much about the people who do sell things like billion dollar currency hedging packages on the forex market. You may have seen Wolf of Wall Street, but you never been there so why are you making like you know all about everything?

But more pertinently, you keep describing this stuff you do where you speculate about nonsense as philosophy. So, as you have made an inductive claim based on a sliver of empirical experience - how do you think you could possibly have sufficient data to back up your words?

Look at what you are claiming there. Basically you reckon you are as good at sales as anybody there in any market right? Why aren't you earning big bucks selling big stuff if that is the case? Is it because you can't sell yourself in an interview the way somebody with the real talent can? Is that why you scrape a living selling TVs and they earn megabucks selling outsourced IT deals for tens of thousands of desks at a time?

FWIW I did sales for a couple of years back in the day before I found I would rather have a job doing stuff. I know perfectly well that it's easy and I too set records here and there, mostly by just agreeing to let people buy shit from me. But none of those records lasted long because there are people who are great at that shit. The handful who really stood out in that office now have titles like European Sales Director and they spunk in a random weekend at Vegas what I earn in a year. But they barely earn a fraction of what some of the traders I have subsequently installed computer systems for are pulling down - those guys have major sales mojo.

[Philosophy Explorer]

And mine is that you sound like you only know about selling small ticket uncomplicated items to consumers.

If a 3 grand TV is your big thing, you don't have the breadth of experience to say there's no difference in what you sell and other stuff. Nor do you know much about the people who do sell things like billion dollar currency hedging packages on the forex market. You may have seen Wolf of Wall Street, but you never been there so why are you making like you know all about everything?

But more pertinently, you keep describing this stuff you do where you speculate about nonsense as philosophy. So, as you have made an inductive claim based on a sliver of empirical experience - how do you think you could possibly have sufficient data to back up your words?

Look at what you are claiming there. Basically you reckon you are as good at sales as anybody there in any market right? Why aren't you earning big bucks selling big stuff if that is the case? Is it because you can't sell yourself in an interview the way somebody with the real talent can? Is that why you scrape a living selling TVs and they earn megabucks selling outsourced IT deals for tens of thousands of desks at a time?

FWIW I did sales for a couple of years back in the day before I found I would rather have a job doing stuff. I know perfectly well that it's easy and I too set records here and there, mostly by just agreeing to let people buy shit from me. But none of those records lasted long because there are people who are great at that shit. The handful who really stood out in that office now have titles like European Sales Director and they spunk in a random weekend at Vegas what I earn in a year. But they barely earn a fraction of what some of the traders I have subsequently installed computer systems for are pulling down - those guys have major sales mojo.

If you DON'T work for a major company with a reputation, then it should be harder to sell, but that wasn't a concern of mine.

In any sales environment, you have competition among the reps with about 10% who excel at it. I don't care if it's Microsoft or Boeing or your local mom and dad store - you'll have competition.

I'll put my experience up against anybody. My knowledge is substantial in this field - more than enough. If you think that reps who sell have natural talent, guess again. The important thing is I don't need to know everything to sell, just the important things. Do you know everything about the English language to be able to communicate well?

Have you googled whoever speaks first, loses? This is well known to the negotiating industry which I doubt you're familiar with.

PhilX

[FlashDangerpants]

In all honesty I don't give a rat's arse about your sales talents or lack thereof. Although if you claim to be so great, and also so competitive, you seem to be lurking at the bottom end of the market competing with a room full of losers, to sell crap to housewives. There's no point getting all boastful about that.

What astonishes me is that in this philosophy forum, and with that you have adopted, you are doing such an awful job of exploring the philosophy of anything. You are making a pisspoor argument, that is the thing that makes me have to be mean to you.

The fact is that you are puffing out your little pigeon chest to brag about hitting vacuum cleaner sales targets because the implication that you aren't special in that regard seems to provoke your honour. But the obvious truth that you have proffered a badly argued case with a huge universal claim supposedly being justified by the limited experiences of one not terribly impressive sales drone doesn't get a peep out of you. You don't care that the logic behind your claim is pure shit, you think you can sell it anyway just by posturing.

[Philosophy Explorer]

In all honesty I don't give a rat's arse about your sales talents or lack thereof. Although if you claim to be so great, and also so competitive, you seem to be lurking at the bottom end of the market competing with a room full of losers, to sell crap to housewives. There's no point getting all boastful about that.

What astonishes me is that in this philosophy forum, and with that you have adopted, you are doing such an awful job of exploring the philosophy of anything. You are making a pisspoor argument, that is the thing that makes me have to be mean to you.

The fact is that you are puffing out your little pigeon chest to brag about hitting vacuum cleaner sales targets because the implication that you aren't special in that regard seems to provoke your honour. But the obvious truth that you have proffered a badly argued case with a huge universal claim supposedly being justified by the limited experiences of one not terribly impressive sales drone doesn't get a peep out of you. You don't care that the logic behind your claim is pure shit, you think you can sell it anyway just by posturing.

And I don't give a rat's ass about your not giving a rat's arse. One thing you're overlooking is that prospects sell themselves, not that reps sell them. I haven't lurked at the bottom of the market selling "crap" to housewives (a popular myth you bought into). I'm boasting about understanding a technique which is legitimate for selling.

So far you're buying into the illusion that those who sell well must have a natural talent when you can't even define what you mean by natural. This is what you're hung up on.

As far as vacuum cleaning goes, I didn't claim doing that type of selling. Being with Kirby Distributors for two days doesn't justify saying that (although I did pick up a valuable sales tip from them). And Sears Cleaning Service and Macy's Home Cleaning weren't in the business of selling vacuum cleaners.

So keep your ad hominems to yourself as you're not winning any arguments here. So please put up some real arguments.

PhilX

[FlashDangerpants]

You are a minor sales drone at the cheap end of the market. But that isn't interesting, and it's not what I'm hung up on. I am just irritated that yet again you are being useless at philosophy.

So I will remind you again that this is a philosophy forum. You are a man who regularly claims to be discussing philosophy here. So address the problem with the structure of your argument and stop getting pissy about the fact you are a small time hustler.

You are making a bold universal claim that nobody has innate sales talent.

What is your evidence for this claim....? Is it a deductive argument? No it is not. It is a an inductive argument for which you cite evidence from experience... ok, so far are you keeping up with me Philosophy Explorer? I know there is philosophy jargon happening and that's not your thing.

So what is the quality of the evidence you cite. Have you been to all the sales floors in the world and observed all the sales techniques and all the people who deploy them? NOPE.
Have you been in one of every sort of sales office and seen one of every product sold to one of every type of customer? NOPE.
Have you even sold all the different types of stuff to all the different types of customers there are yourself? NOPE

Not even close. You have only spent time in the low end, low margin retail sales. Persuading one person at a time to buy one thing at a time .... and then only one time each. And from that you claim to have the evidence required to speak of all sales.

That, philosophically speaking, is weak piss.

But you don't care about that. I am expecting your response to be yet another burst of outrage because I think you are not impressive at selling shit if you only sell little shit.

Also you don't know how to recognise fallacious ad hominems. It's fucking simple, but somehow you don't even understand that.

[Philosophy Explorer]

You are a minor sales drone at the cheap end of the market. But that isn't interesting, and it's not what I'm hung up on. I am just irritated that yet again you are being useless at philosophy.

So I will remind you again that this is a philosophy forum. You are a man who regularly claims to be discussing philosophy here. So address the problem with the structure of your argument and stop getting pissy about the fact you are a small time hustler.

You are making a bold universal claim that nobody has innate sales talent.

What is your evidence for this claim....? Is it a deductive argument? No it is not. It is a an inductive argument for which you cite evidence from experience... ok, so far are you keeping up with me Philosophy Explorer? I know there is philosophy jargon happening and that's not your thing.

So what is the quality of the evidence you cite. Have you been to all the sales floors in the world and observed all the sales techniques and all the people who deploy them? NOPE.
Have you been in one of every sort of sales office and seen one of every product sold to one of every type of customer? NOPE.
Have you even sold all the different types of stuff to all the different types of customers there are yourself? NOPE

Not even close. You have only spent time in the low end, low margin retail sales. Persuading one person at a time to buy one thing at a time .... and then only one time each. And from that you claim to have the evidence required to speak of all sales.

That, philosophically speaking, is weak piss.

But you don't care about that. I am expecting your response to be yet another burst of outrage because I think you are not impressive at selling shit if you only sell little shit.

Also you don't know how to recognise fallacious ad hominems. It's fucking simple, but somehow you don't even understand that.

Selling a lot is no proof of natural talent. This is an area that hasn't been explored thoroughly, just assumed. But I do possess evidence contradicting the idea that people are naturally talented at sales as I have already taken some people (including myself) and improved their ability to sell for which I've received credit.Your argument is fallacious because you're saying these people have no talent and the evidence contradicts you. Can you tell before trying out someone in a sales position if that person will be successful? (psychologists have tried and failed). So where is your evidence?

PhilX

[FlashDangerpants]

If that is intended as a response to my post it is a straw man attack.
The fact that you can also teach a skill is not contradictory to anything I have written.

And this...

Your argument is fallacious because you're saying these people have no talent and the evidence contradicts you.

Well that's just sad Phil. Look at what I quoted there.
Now look at the title of the thread.
Then look again at the quote.
That's just self defeating stupidity.

Now. About this philosophy stuff. Address my concerns about the standard of your empirical data gathering please.
Don't try to deflect towards some imaginary data debt I am carrying, yours is the burden of proof here.

[Philosophy Explorer]

If that is intended as a response to my post it is a straw man attack.
The fact that you can also teach a skill is not contradictory to anything I have written.

And this...

Your argument is fallacious because you're saying these people have no talent and the evidence contradicts you.

Well that's just sad Phil. Look at what I quoted there.
Now look at the title of the thread.
Then look again at the quote.
That's just self defeating stupidity.

Now. About this philosophy stuff. Address my concerns about the standard of your empirical data gathering please.
Don't try to deflect towards some imaginary data debt I am carrying, yours is the burden of proof here.

Not a straw man fallacy. You contend that people have natural sales ability which I say doesn't exist because it can be explained (and I don't mean by voice nor personality which are the common assumptions with a natural talent). So if it can be explained as I have, then it can be taught as I have.

Now you want to know about my empirical data gathering. Since my system was developed over ten years, then where do I begin with you? (and keep in mind that a part of it is a trade secret and shall remain so). Furthermore you don't strike me as being open minded so you may have a mental block towards anything I may offer. For example do you want me to use quotas or compare with my coworkers (or both?) I didn't keep all the records you may be looking for. Do you know basic statistics? What do you consider to be a suitable-sized sample?

PhilX

[Walker]

I once heard that top salesmen sell dreams.
Is that true?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... zMChU1gVBI

[DPMartin]

There are those who believe it's a talent. I don't based on over ten years of study.

I became highly skilled at it which started with "Whoever speaks first, loses." There are those who believe it's a natural talent that can be developed. I don't see a basis for this belief. If a person did have such a talent, then it would be expressed at an early age with no other explanation for it (also how would one define what lies behind the so called natural talent besides the ability to sell a lot?)

What are your thoughts?

PhilX

na, na na na as one who has observed, talent is talent and skills are skills. its like sports you can bring a team to perform better than before or at its best, but it takes talent to be the best of the best. you know as well as anyone you can train and teach a group, but the talented are going to out perform the others at any level of training, training can improve the talented and the untalented performance results but training doesn't replace talent.