Mark H. McCormack on sales

My bro has this book, "What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School". Read a passage in chapter 5, "The Problem of Selling" which somehow struck a chord. It says that most people are born sellers - in young age, they pitch themselves so that their dad gives them more pocket money, their teacher gives them more marks, how to stay out till late night and so on. So by the time we walk into the outside world, we know how to position ourselves and get things done the way we want them to happen.

"Then something happens - we forget how to sell. We question our own sales aptitude. Suddenly, the techniques we have used all our lives become foreign and mysterious, as though we now have to go out and learn them the first time."

Ever felt this way? Well, he gives the answer too.

He says that for the first time in our lives, when we enter the real world, our sales capabilities are judged. This results in us thinking that we have a very bad sales aptitude - we can't sell; we don't know how to sell; we won't sell.