The key to developing an effective sales force, if you had to pick one over the other, is most definitely selection. Selection is the key to developing an effective sales force over and above training.  The concepts involved with sales are mostly the same across different industries.  While the technical aspects of the particular industry will vary among different sales jobs, this can be taught easily.  This is especially true because most often times sales people will have technical sales support technicians to accompany them to customer meetings to help relay information that they are not 100% up to speed with.  An effective sales person involves life skills that cannot be taught to anyone in a reasonable amount of time and which also require the right positive attitude to adopt.  If a sales person that already has these skills is selected, the company simply has to teach the technical data specific to the sales cycle to the individual and then the sales person can begin attempting to close business.  However, if a sales person does not have the proper drive, positive attitude, lack of head trash, presence in the moment, and genuine interest in other people, no amount of technical prowess can replace these skills in terms of sales effectiveness and nor can these skills be taught in an entire lifetime (in some cases).  This is why sales people almost always make more money than their technical counterparts, as they possess life skills that are much more difficult to acquire and elusive in nature for those who do not possess them.  
The Canadian Professional Sales Association cites empathy, focus, responsibility, optimism, and ego-drive as the five most important qualities for success in sales people.  These qualities are not trained into staff, rather, they are selected for ahead of time by hiring managers.  (CPSA, 2016)



    The most critical factor to develop an effective sales force is training.  When a detailed job description is sent to Humane Relations for hiring new sales team members the description will state what type of sales representative the organization needs.  The type could be a manufacture representative, telemarketer or direct sales.  Each type requires a certain amount of customer interaction and requires varying levels of extroverted people and the job description will attract the most desirable candidates for each type of sales but they will all require some level of training to be highly effective.  While some people may possess an extroverted "sales personality" that makes them a natural fit for the career, effective selling is still a skill that must be developed (Joseph, 2016).  Sales positions tend to have a high turn-over of personnel for a wide range of reasons resulting in a serious need for marketing managers to develop pertinent training curriculum that details the administrative tasks that the company requires each representative to complete.  This may include maintaining call logs or tracking costs for travel and promotional materials provided to each potential customer.
    In the days when traveling salesmen went door to door selling directly to consumers many marketing managers concentrated on selecting their sales force based on prior experiences and provided minimal to no training.  This “trial by fire” method of hiring resulted in many sales force people being fired or quitting due to insufficient sales.  The lessons learned from these selection-based practices combined with the information overload potential customers receive from the advanced communication today has forced companies to invest heavily in sales team focused training programs. Today’s customers expect salespeople to have deep product knowledge, add ideas to improve operations, and be efficient and reliable (Kotler and Keller, 2012).  This is especially true for commercial sales of equipment.  Unless customers are searching for spacecraft components or deep sea exploration vehicles, they will have hundreds or thousands of similar products to view from simple keyword searches on the internet.  For a company’s products to standout and be the most desirable, sales representatives must know the detailed aspects of how the item works and all the benefits it has over their competitors’.  They must also be intimately knowledgeable of all the shortcomings compared to competitors’ products.  The sales representatives that have received high quality training and coaching will be able to use their deep product knowledge to identify new applications for their product that will fix or enhance the potential customer’s life at home or increase profits at work.