What I am learning about Staffing

I have been working for a staffing firm for the last several months in a sales and business development role.  For a career finance ops guy like me, this has been a tremendous learning opportunity.  In my past work I was assailed by collection agency sales people (sometimes 20 calls a day).  This colored my opinion of sales people.  I had no shortage of adjectives to describe some of these people.  In what is a supreme irony to me, I am now the person I loathed in my former job.

What I have learned so far:

1. There is a lot of sales strategy information to choose from and some of it is practically helpful.  The most important lesson I have learned so far is to be myself.  
2. It is true that there are a lot of sales people who are narcissistic, selfish and manipulative, but there are equally as many of these type of people in other professions and job positions.  It is not the job that makes a person. 
3. I am most successful and happy in a role like this when I remember why I am doing it.  If it is only for the money then I look like the  narcissistic person I loathe.
4. Shut up and listen!  It has been easier for me to remember this from  my own experience as a target client than I thought it would be.  
5. Be patient.  Relationships are fundamental and essential to the sales process.