Why some sales professionals don’t succeed

This Harvard story is an apocryphal one. However, my own research over the last 20 years (leading 10 sales teams and training more than 10 000 selling professionals and being invited as a motivational speaker to local and international sales conference) points in the direction that validates the story in terms of its underlying concept.

➥ A Harvard graduating class was asked how many of them would choose sales as a career. The answer came to around 4% of the class. How many of them do you think actually went into a sales career? An astounding 67%. ☚

This means that engineers, accountants, lawyers and whatnot are not in careers of their choosing. They’re not working in their passion, they don’t want to really be selling, and the fit is not right.

Is it any wonder that the Chally came up with this figure: 80% of the sales team is only hitting 42% of target. Chally has interviewed more than 21000 sales teams

I suspect that those who aren’t cutting it didn’t want to be in career involving selling in the first place. Once again, it’s a wrong fit.

Circumstances being what they are, I’m assuming that they couldn’t get a job in their own field. Many selling positions have a low barrier to entry and to get a graduate in must be a feather in the sales managers cap. It is sometimes just the wrong fit.

How does one overcome this disconnect with sales professionals not being passionate about their field? Any suggestions?