Harvard Business Review

Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person—hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre—into an outstanding performer.

Philip Delves Broughton is the author of The Art of the Sale and writes regularly for the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Spectator.

No profession in business has a more complex reputation than sales.

When we think of salespeople—from Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman to Donald Trump to Steve Jobs—all kinds of contradictory ideas and images jangle in our minds. They can be persuaders and bullies, seducers and rogues, dream-makers and charlatans. But without them, no business exists.

Entrepreneurs must persuade others of the value of an idea or company which has yet to take concrete form.

Politicians, artists, and scientists all must sell themselves and their work in order to succeed.

Sales is the most human and richly nuanced aspect of business and yet, amazingly, is not even a required course at most business schools.

I began my journey in a Moroccan souk

Abdelmajid Rais El Fenni, one of the most successful carpet and rug traders in Tangiers, explained how he coped with the daily rejections and petty humiliations every salesman must face.

but they still couldn’t sell,” he said. “They don’t have what it takes.