You're scrolling through sales job postings again. Every single one wants "2+ years of proven sales experience." You've got drive, you've got potential, you know you could excel at this. But how do you break into an industry that seems to only want people who are already in it?
Here's what most job descriptions won't tell you: the trait that predicts sales success better than any previous role isn't experience. It's grit.
Angela Duckworth's research on grit (passion and perseverance toward long-term goals) revealed something that challenges everything traditional hiring believes. She studied West Point cadets, spelling bee champions, teachers in challenging schools. The pattern was clear: those who stuck with it, who kept going when it got hard, outperformed more naturally talented peers every single time.
In sales, this isn't theory. It's the difference between hitting quota and washing out in three months.
What Grit Actually Looks Like in Sales
Sales is the only profession where hearing "no" is literally your job. Prospects ignore your emails. Deals you thought were certain fall apart. Budgets freeze. Competitors swoop in at the last second. Your calendar goes from packed to empty overnight.
This is where grit separates those who make it from those who don't:
Persistence through rejection. The average SDR needs 8 to 12 touches to book a single meeting. Most people give up after three attempts. If you've ever stuck with something difficult (training for a marathon, learning a language, building a side project), you already have this muscle.
Bouncing back from failure. Lost deals happen to everyone. The question is what you do next. Do you analyse what went wrong, extract the lesson, and move forward? Or do you spiral into self-doubt? Grit means treating failure as data, not defeat.
Delayed gratification. Building a sales pipeline takes months. Nurturing relationships requires patience. If you've ever worked toward something with no immediate payoff (completing a degree, saving for something important, mastering a skill), you understand this principle.
Consistency over intensity. Anyone can have one great week. Grit is showing up and doing the work every single day, even when you don't feel motivated. It's the compound effect of small actions repeated over time.
Why Grit Beats Experience for Career Changers
Here's the secret that hiring managers are starting to understand: someone with grit from a non-sales background often outperforms someone with mediocre sales experience.
Why? Because sales skills can be taught. Call structures, objection handling, qualification frameworks, these are learnable. But grit? That's developed over years through life experience, challenges overcome, and goals pursued against the odds.
When you're breaking into sales, your advantage is proving you have grit in other contexts:
Did you work your way through university? That's grit. You juggled competing priorities, managed limited resources, and persevered when it would have been easier to quit.
Have you made a major career pivot before? That's grit. You left comfort and certainty to pursue growth, even though it meant starting over.
Did you stick with a difficult project or role when others left? That's grit. You saw something through when the easy path was walking away.
Have you built something from scratch? A side business, a community project, a blog that nobody read for the first year. That's grit. You created value before anyone else believed in it.
These experiences matter more than you think. They prove the trait that predicts sales success better than any job title.
How to Demonstrate Grit When You're Applying
Traditional application processes screen you out before a human ever sees your potential. You need to actively demonstrate grit in ways that can't be ignored:
1. Tell stories that show perseverance
When you're asked about challenges or failures, don't just describe the situation. Show the full arc: what went wrong, what you learned, what you did differently, and what the outcome was. Hiring managers want to see that you reflect, adapt, and keep going.
Example: "In my previous role in customer support, I had a client threatening to cancel a £50,000 contract. Instead of escalating immediately, I spent two weeks understanding their core issues, coordinating with product and engineering, and building a recovery plan. We not only saved the account, we expanded it by 30% the following quarter."
2. Prove you do the work others won't
Sales rewards consistency more than brilliance. Show that you're willing to do boring, repetitive work if it leads to results.
Example: "When I was building my freelance business, I sent 200 personalised outreach messages over three months. My response rate was 8%, but those 16 conversations led to 5 clients and £15,000 in revenue. I learned that persistence compounds."
3. Show how you handle rejection systematically
If you've faced rejection in job searching, university applications, project pitches, or anywhere else, explain your process. Do you track activity? Do you seek feedback? Do you iterate and try again?
Example: "After 40 job applications with no response, I realised my approach wasn't working. I started researching each company deeply, customising every application, and reaching out directly to hiring managers on LinkedIn. Within two weeks, I had three interviews. Rejection taught me to treat job searching like a sales process."
4. Connect your goals to something bigger than money
Duckworth's research shows that grit is fuelled by purpose. Why do you actually want to break into sales? If it's just "good money," that won't sustain you through hard months. But if it's proving you can build a career from scratch, or solving real problems for customers, or providing for your family, that purpose will carry you through rejection.
The Four Traits That Get You Hired (Even Without Sales Experience)
At meritt, we assess every candidate on four traits: curiosity, coachability, grit, and communication. We've helped career changers from teaching, customer support, project management, and hospitality land their first sales roles because they demonstrated these qualities.
Here's why grit sits at the centre:
You can be curious, but without grit, you won't push through when the answers aren't obvious.
You can be coachable, but without grit, you'll give up before the coaching pays off.
You can communicate brilliantly, but without grit, you'll crumble when prospects push back hard.
Grit is the multiplier that makes everything else work.
What Hiring Managers Actually Look For (When They're Smart)
The best hiring managers have learned that perfect CVs don't predict performance. What they're really assessing:
Do you own your failures? When something goes wrong, do you blame circumstances or do you identify what you could have done differently?
Have you committed to long-term goals? Did you stick with something for months or years, even when progress was slow?
How do you respond to setbacks? Do you have systems for staying motivated? Do you reframe challenges as learning opportunities?
What's your track record of finishing what you start? Job hopping every six months with no clear progression? Red flag. Staying in tough situations and growing through them? Green light.
They're not looking for polish. They're looking for resilience.
Can You Build Grit (Or Is It Too Late)?
Duckworth's research says yes, you can develop grit. But it requires:
Deliberate practice. Not just repetition, but focused work on your weaknesses with feedback loops. If you're preparing for sales interviews, don't just practice answers. Record yourself, get feedback, identify weak spots, and iterate.
Purpose. Connect your daily effort to something meaningful. Why does breaking into sales matter to you personally? Write it down. Revisit it when motivation fades.
Belief that effort leads to improvement. This is where community matters. Surround yourself with people who are also building careers from scratch. Their progress will remind you that persistence works.
Celebration of small wins. Grit isn't about suffering. It's about recognising progress. Booked a coffee chat with someone in sales? Win. Got feedback on your interview approach? Win. Each small step builds momentum.
But here's the truth: some people arrive with more grit than others, shaped by life circumstances and challenges overcome. If you've already demonstrated perseverance in other areas of your life, you have the raw material. Now you just need to show it in the context of sales.
Your Advantage as a Career Changer
Traditional candidates with sales experience have one advantage: they know the process. But you have something potentially more valuable: proof that you can succeed in challenging environments.
You've already demonstrated grit by deciding to change careers. You're reading articles like this, learning the industry, researching companies, reaching out to strangers for advice. That's grit in action.
The companies worth working for recognise this. They know that someone who's fought to break into sales will fight just as hard to hit quota.
How to Find Employers Who Hire for Grit
Not every company will see your value. Many are stuck in outdated hiring models that filter for keywords and pedigree. You need to find the ones who assess potential, not just past job titles.
Look for companies that:
Focus on traits over experience in their job descriptions. If they mention "growth mindset," "coachability," or "resilience," they're thinking beyond the CV.
Use structured assessments rather than just interviews. Companies that test for sales aptitude, personality traits, or problem-solving ability are looking for potential.
Offer clear development paths for new hires. Graduated quotas, training programmes, mentorship. These signal that they're willing to invest in someone who has the right attributes.
Celebrate internal success stories of people who started with no sales experience. Check their blog, LinkedIn, or careers page for examples.
At meritt, we built our entire recruitment process around this philosophy. We assess the traits that actually predict success (curiosity, coachability, grit, communication) rather than filtering for perfect CVs. We've helped dozens of career changers land sales roles because they proved they had what matters.
The Bottom Line
Angela Duckworth's research revealed what sales professionals have known intuitively: talent is overrated, and grit is undervalued. Effort counts twice. First, effort builds skill. Then, effort makes skill productive.
For you, trying to break into sales without experience, this is everything. You might not have the smoothest pitch yet. You might not know every sales framework. But if you've demonstrated perseverance in other areas of life, you already have the trait that predicts success better than anything else.
Your job now is to make that grit visible. Tell the stories. Show the evidence. Prove that when things get hard, you're the person who keeps going.
Because here's what hiring managers are starting to realise: they can teach you to qualify leads and handle objections. They can't teach you to show up every day when your pipeline is empty and your confidence is shaken.
That's grit. And if you have it, you belong in sales.
Need help showing employers your grit? At meritt, we help career changers break into sales by assessing what actually matters: curiosity, coachability, grit, and communication. We provide real feedback within 48 hours and connect you with companies who hire for potential, not just experience. Your background might not be traditional, but your grit could be exactly what they need.