The only way to get to the top in consulting appears to be if you are a top rate sales person.Given that you spend most of your lower grades not selling, how do you know if you will be good enough at selling to make it to the top?

Every time you prepare a presentation, you are a sales person. Every piece of work that goes in front of a client is a sales pitch for your next piece of work. Every bit of client relationship building that you do is practice for sales. Every time you have an insight and share it with a client, you are working on selling. Typically, consultancy moves you up through 'grades' bit by bit, so you have more client exposure and a gradual increase in responsibility at each level (apart from smaller firms, which are great as they throw you in the deep end very early on). If you cannot do the level above, then typically you won't get there (in theory).

quite agree. this is not door to door selling, you will only be successful if you (ie you personally and not just the company you work for) has credibility. The transition can be quite natural. As your client exposure increases, so does your reputation and gradually you migrate into project selling.

Sorry, but to continue from my first post and better answer your question - you don't know.However, good indicators are that you are good at the factors I listed - you can build credibility and confidence with clients, who will then trust you with their work. I know people that this never came naturally to, but who worked on it and are now great at it - a real revelation as one example I can think of turned over the space of 12 months from a shy (but still very good) consultant into someone handling clients and selling big projects consistently with ease. Hope this helps.

When you say "who worked on it" - do you mean he simply made efforts to "put him self out there" - e.g. confront his fear and plough through it.. Or did he take coaching or get some external help?Up to which rung was he shy e.g. - a/c/sc/manager?

I was shy when I started my career. But you need to take initiatives and any opportunties you can grab to deal with clients face to face. This will help you to improve your communication and dealins with clients and build your reputation and credibility/trust with clients. At the same time, you'll learn the skills of listening by dealing more with clients and to strategically positioning yourself and your services or even referring services which you may not be an expert in but your other team members are (x-sell). Overtime, you'll learn and build yourself in this area. I mean, really, I am of accounting & finance background and like many other majors (eg engineering etc) these subjects don't teach you how to sell...you'll have to get out there, find opportunities to make yoruself known in a positive manner, which often than not, supports your selling skills.