b'SELECTION STRAIGHT FROM THE expertsCan Sales Ability Really Be Taught?By Beth SunshineA sk any top seller who hasbusiness development by 10% this beenaroundforawhile,year.)and theyll tell you that mostTalent isnt everything, of course. people are not born and built forYou need both training and practice sales. Its a tough field, and it requiresto refine your raw talent and turn it a very specific set of talents. into a strength, but as undeniably Think of your talents as your hard- important as training is to sales suc-Beth Sunshine wiring. cess, it cant replace talent.SVP - Talent Services, The Center for SalesYour innate thoughts, feelings, andMany years ago, Malcolm Gladwell Strategy and Up Yourbehaviors are set at a very youngwroteabouttheimportanceof Culture age, and once they are hard-wired,deliberate practice, and he main-your knee-jerk responses remaintained that with 10,000 hours of pretty consistent over time. If yourepetitive training, an individual were highly competitive as a kid,could become world-class in any youre probably still highly compet- field. That created a lot of buzz until itive. a Princeton study proved that, while Inotherwords,ifyoucouldntpractice certainly leads to improve-resist rising to a challenge on thement, that improvement is often playground (I bet you cant jumpmarginal at best. It showed that in high enough to touch the top ofcareers such as sales, the bump was the fence), you are probably justonly a paltry 1%.as likely to do the same today (ISo, can you teach natural sales abil-bet you cant increase your newity? No.64 Can Sales Ability Really Be Taught?'