Written by Tom on February 17, 2010 – 11:12 am
“Success has more to do with learning the rights skills than with God-given talent”.
So said Peter Cullum, one of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs and the billionaire founder of the Towergate Partnership, in a recent interview. “If you need triple bypass heart surgery, you don’t want to lie on a table with a guy who’s got loads of energy, commitment and the will to win if he can’t do the job”, he says.
I couldn’t agree more. But whilst I absolutely believe that anyone can learn the skills to be brilliant at selling, the true gain is in having both the awareness of your strengths and weaknesses and the flexibility to do something about it.
In my training experience there are many different types of sales person and all can be successful by finding the buyers that relate best to their way of selling. If you are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of your selling style and can add to this flexibility, then you can adapt to appeal to a wider variety of buyers and this can often make up for a specific skills limitation.
There are a couple of things I know I have as ‘weaknesses’ and these include a couple of sales skills. I can work at improving them and probably will make some headway, but I can improve more if I focus on some existing strengths and look for opportunities to make more of them. If I can at least use behaviours that will lead to success I don’t have to have them as a skill to be effective.
So whilst having passion and skill is ideal, I would take passion, awareness and flexibility every time. Would you?
I agree 100%. Passion creates interest in learning the right skills and going the extra mile. The best creativity comes from being ” in love” with that thing you do. skill without passion is just doing a job. While passion for what you do makes it an experience, a career a dream come true..and for some their life.
Ask any sales professional how easily you get burned out from sticking to a mundane routine that you have no drive,even with the best skills. Yes, I have been there, so now I am doing what is guaranteed to get me out of bed every morning, rain or shine.
Its funny, but after making my profound decision my friends and family said “go for it, what took you so long?..we knew all along you will do well at this ..because that is so you.
Thank you for another great post. I look forward to many more entries with high quality info. I’m a marketer myself and your information always seems to get my business brain going!!