Americans are known as some of the best salespeople in the world. The country has been the home of some of the most influential business communicators of all time, like Steve Jobs of Apple or filmmaker Walt Disney. America is also the birthplace of people who became legends for their ability to excite people with their incredible, audacious promotional skills, such as P.T. Barnum or Muhammad Ali.
There’s also a dark side to the uniquely American gift of gab. Americans have the reputation of being masters of BS. Hunter S. Thompson, a writer with a fondness for exaggeration, once referred to America as a “nation of 220 million used car salesmen.”
An X user named Alz, born in Hong Kong, was curious about why Americans are so great at sales, presenting ideas, and (less favorably) BS-ing than people in other countries. The tweet went viral, receiving over 1.4 million views. Nearly everyone agreed that Americans are the world’s best salespeople, but there were many different answers to why.
“Why are Americans, on average, so incredibly good at presenting/selling/ (you could uncharitably call it) BS-ing? Is it something about early/middle/high school education? Culture? Parents teaching their kids?” Alz asked.
“I troll, but this is an incredibly important skill, and for some reason observationally, America, which has an early education system few are generally jealous of, seems to systematically produce ppl with a much higher distribution of presentation ability than anywhere else,” Alz continued.
I troll but this is an incredibly important skill, and for some reason observationally, America, which has a early education system few are generally jealous of, seems to systematically produce ppl with a much higher distribution of presentation ability than anywhere else
— alz (@alz_zyd_) May 30, 2024
Some respondents believe Americans are great at sales because so many work in the service sector. Over the past 50 years, globalization has altered the labor landscape, with many jobs moving from manufacturing to the service sector. Thus, Americans have learned to place a significant value on those who can communicate one-on-one, such as people who work in hospitality, retail, or personal training.
Honestly I think it’s because we were the first major economy to really transition from an industrial to service based economy. The vast majorities of our jobs are all about providing a service, and many of those are about selling said service as well
— Alex (@nycwebs90) May 30, 2024
The service sector in the U.S. reached 70% of GDP when millennials were born (circa 1990). My theory is that kids raised in a service-sector family have these traits. pic.twitter.com/1cN9kn3s9D
— Jiageng Liu (@jiageng_liu) May 30, 2024
Others believe Americans have the gift of gab because its education system highly values communication skills, which are favorable in the business world. However, some believe this emphasis comes at the expense of STEM skills, which are seen as more important in other countries.
Probably the fact that *every* class in primary school had multiple presentations a year.
Its probably the easiest way to pass time in a classroom, split the 30 students into 10 groups of 3, have each present for 15 minutes, boom that’s like 3 days of no work.
— John Ruf (@JohnRuf6) May 30, 2024
It is the education system My daughter was taught to write, critique, present, argue, structure and edit from kindergarten. Woven through her school experience. It is pretty amazing.
— Neela Saldanha (@NeelaSaldanha) May 30, 2024
American education emphasizes synthesis, argument, and persuasion over rote memorization and rule-following.
Identifying patterns + convincing others
Which is maybe surprising b/c we also infantilize our youth, giving them very little personal freedom outside the classroom.
— Joey Katzen (@joeykatzen) May 30, 2024
Many people think Americans are great communicators because it’s crucial to be able to sell and persuade in a competitive, free-market capitalist system. If you aren’t able to sell the goods and services you provide and produce, then it doesn’t matter if you’re in business at all. Further, American business culture is also seen as more relationship-based than in other countries, where buying and selling is merely transactional.
This is a great question and having lived in the US for a few years here’s what I think:
America is a capitalist society and this capitalism is rooted in a Protestant ethos (Max Weber has a book on it).
In this Protestant worldview, creating a business means serving the…
— Mushtaq Bilal, PhD (@MushtaqBilalPhD) May 30, 2024
The free market rewards it
— Triple Bankshot (@triplebankshot) May 30, 2024
I’ve wondered the same thing. It’s definitely cultural, and I think it’s connected to how Americans tend to do business relationally rather than transactionally. Europeans often take a more formal, regulated approach while American business is more trust-based.
— Gil Gildner (@gilgildner) May 30, 2024
Social mobility and the myth of the “self-made man” basically inculcates the idea that anyone can talk themselves into wealth and status. Plenty of these types are lionized in American history.
— David Kiferbaum (@DavidKiferbaum) May 30, 2024
It could be that it’s all part of a culture that values openness and confidence which bleeds over into other aspects of American life. Persuasion and sales come a lot more naturally to people who’ve been raised with zero fear of calling attention to themselves. Outside the business world, Americans are also seen as friendly in social situations and have no problem engaging in small talk with strangers. Americans’ extroverted nature can sometimes shock people who travel to the U.S. on vacation.
Founding principles of the country. You can do anything here.
It’s highly ingrained within society
— Ashish “Logmaster” (@ashishlogmaster) May 31, 2024
Egalitarianism. Americans learn naturally to speak to everyone as if they were friends. This is good for sales although not everywhere in the world.
— Alex Tabarrok 🛡️ (@ATabarrok) May 31, 2024
I’m going to throw it out there: Because Americans are also REALLY good at buying things – they’re great consumers of products and ideas. Old world places – like Europe tend to be suspicious of new ideas (but not ideologies it seems) which makes selling them much harder.
— James Clark 📈📉¯_(ツ)_/¯ (@mr_james_c) May 31, 2024
High openness. People are not afraid of talking with others.
The fact that one might call it “BS-ing” might indicate the root cause issue of why others are not good at it.
— Peter Kazanjy (@Kazanjy) May 30, 2024
Or, it could be that Americans just have a ‘rizz that’s the envy of the world.
Yeah I don’t know how else to describe it except calling it a culture of rizz, it’s a huge difference I noticed coming here from Europe as a kid
— dog that lays eggs (@l_wzbr) May 30, 2024
It’s called CHARISMA, and we invented it
— Rhett Ullmann (@rhettullmann) May 30, 2024