[wakana]

In retrospect, I also feel that lack of experience in sales was a major issue wrt my skillset. How would you recommend someone like me (with a mostly technical and academia-oriented background) to approach learning sales from scratch?

[Juliate]

Partner with someone who already has a leg or very obvious affinity in it. Don’t do everything by yourself.

That’s rule number 1 in life, in general, for everything: invite guests to bring something they like/manage to the table.