By Jeffrey Gitomer
Contributing Writer

Dear Jeffrey,

Honestly, how long did it take you to become a ‘good’ salesman?

~ William

For all successful salespeople, there remains the age-old question: Are salesmen born or made?

The answer is “both.” Here are a few of the external elements that helped me develop into the salesman I am today.

Starting my own business. This was a pivotal point in the transformation process from a good salesman to a great one.

At age 23, I made the leap from working for my dad to working for myself. My pay immediately went down.

Seems as though I wasn’t paying myself enough because there wasn’t enough money.

I could only raise my pay by raising my sales.

The gift of gab. I was always a talker. My first baseball coach told me if my glove were as good as my mouth, I would make the hall of fame. (It wasn’t. Neither was my bat.)

But I could always engage others in conversation. In my early days, I talked my way past many sales simply because after the sale was made, I would not shut up and, in some cases, would end up buying it back.

I realized early on if I didn’t make sales, there were no sales. And the first ones I made were based on my gift of gab combined with the enthusiasm and passion for my business.

But there were never enough sales. And I could never understand why.

The science of selling. Once I learned the science of selling, my whole world of understanding changed forever.

Keep in mind that I learned the science of selling in 1972, when the superstars were J. Douglas Edwards, Bill Gove, Charles Roth, Willie Gayle, Elmer Leterman and other pioneer sales trainers of their day. All of them taught some form of manipulation.

Early in my sales training career, I referred to it as hoodwinking. In essence, it was high-pressure selling that forced people to make a decision they weren’t comfortable with. But it was new to me, and I loved it.

I realized that if I could combine the gift of gab with the science of selling, then I could get great.

All I needed was the right product—one that I believed in.

Achieving a positive attitude. In the middle of my early sales training, there was also positive attitude training.

I listened to records and watched movies from people like Glenn W. Turner, Zig Ziglar and Earl Nightingale.

In 1972, cassette tapes became available, and you could listen to recorded messages in your car. I listened to them over and over and over.

By 1973, I had achieved an “internal” positive attitude, which I still have today.

By 1974, I was a lethal selling weapon with the gift of gab and a positive attitude. Nothing could stop me except myself.

In 1974, I began to manufacture and sell imprinted sportswear (t-shirts). I loved t-shirts. And off I went to New York City to make big sales.

People caught my enthusiasm and bought my t-shirts, hundreds of thousands of them.

A hard sell. Selling in New York City is easily the toughest place in the country to sell.

The song should have said, “If you can sell it there, you can sell it anywhere.”

I learned more about real world selling in two years than most people do in a lifetime.

The cold shoulder. Cold calling in New York City must be done on the phone these days because of building security. But back in the ’70s you could get into anyplace you wanted by walking in.

I had a hundred doors slammed in my face, but I also made a ton of huge sales. All by walking in the door.

Doing business in New York City is triple hard. You have to get in, you have to make the sale and you have to collect your money.

There were several cases where I only did two out of three.

You now have some elements of sales growth mastery. How do they match with yours?

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling, is the president of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. E-mail him at salesman@gitomer.com.

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