I don't mean it as condescending. Sales takes a lot of creativity and skill - but still, if you're hired by, say, Fogcreek software, to sell the Fogbugz product to enterprises, the product is known, the customer base is more or less clear, and the process to get them sold has probably been practiced hundreds of times before you're hired. There will always be unique quirks to every client, but compared to the levels of uncertainty of entrepreneurial sales, you could say that every sale is pretty much the same.

Making a sale still takes a lot of skill and effort - and, even more, it takes tenacity, and drive, and a very strong desire to actually close rather than spend months and months waiting for the client to make up their mind. Sure, you might lose some clients by pushing for the close (though with experience, you know which ones will respond to it), but at least it then frees up your time to pursue other prospects who can be sold more easily.

I don't think that makes salespeople inferior to programmers. These are two different kinds of jobs with two different sets of parameters. Programming is project-based work, where you aim somewhere and you go there and then you're done. Sales is process-based work, where you have an infinite pile of leads to go through (and if the leads run out, you go and generate more), and selling more today doesn't mean you sell have less to do tomorrow. I find the latter much more difficult to do.

To put a final nail in the idea that I look down on sales - both my girlfriend and my ex-girlfriend are salespeople. Not that that's why I dated them, or anything, but it'd be hard to be with them if I looked down on their profession ;-)