How Important is Natural Aptitude in Sales?

Some professions require a significant amount of natural aptitude to predict success. For example, you must be born with a certain amount of physical attributes to succeed as a professional athlete. Things like strength, agility, coordination are all necessary “born” factors that predict success. Now, these born physical attributes alone will not guarantee success on the field. Certainly coaching, training, practice and overall study of the game are fundamental ingredients in the recipe for success. But most coaches agree that it begins with the players’ natural attributes and aptitude for the game that is the main factor for success.

Sales executives and managers everywhere discuss the “Born or Made” question when it comes to salespeople. Many believe, like athletes, elite salespeople must have certain “born” attributes to be successful. Things like social confidence, internal drive, and resilience are all personality traits that help make salespeople successful. Of course there are vital “made” factors that can’t be overlooked; product knowledge, sales process and training.

So are the “born” factors just as important as the “made” factors? Studies show, yes. Over 60 correlation studies done under the Craft Personality Questionnaire (CPQ) assessment prove natural aptitude accounts for a range of 38%-62% of success in sales. That’s a thumb rule of roughly 50% of a salesperson’s success depends on his/her natural aptitude for sales.

Start testing your new sales candidates for their natural aptitude for sales, at $95 an assessment, it’s cheap insurance.