I think people are confusing being an introvert and being a social butterfly or the stereotypical sales monkey. Many people do not have the need or desire to have large social networks, but are not introverts.
I think people are also confusing sales skills and personality traits to either being introverted or extroverted. Listening, solution selling, product/service knowledge, and communication skills are important qualities. I have seen both extroverts and introverts with these qualities and very bad qualities as well. I'm sure it would be easy to come up with the top ten bad qualities on both sides.
Question is, if you owned the company and you were selling copiers or phones, what type of person would you hire? Probably the extrovert because the product is a commodity and the people that get the sale are usually the people that are staying in touch without being a pest. There may be a product expert behind the sales person, but its the sales person that maintains the relationship and must maintain a large network of contacts to ensure their success. Now what if it were inside sales where the leads were pre-qualified or another relationship that was leveraged. This reduces the need to have an extrovert in the position because the impetus to develop new relationships doesn't solely rest on the sales rep. The sales skills are still required (not backslapping, gregarious, vociferous traits but professionalism, listening, etc.).
Introverts typically do not like meeting new people, making cold calls, rejection, presentations, socially akward situations, spending time to ensure e-mails/letters are written clearly to the recipient, etc. Introverts avoid these situations. That said, introverts can certainly be used as sales support. The big difference is that the customer relationship is maintained by the sales rep and the credibility or knowledge may lie with the introvert.
An introvert is a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings. How is this inline with any sales training?
If you're an introvert that likes cold calling, doesn't mind rejection, doesn't mind doing presentations and meeting new people, I suspect you're not an introvert, just an individual that feels time is better spent elsewhere than building people networks.
But that's my two cents. 
The archetype of sales professional is an outgoing, extroverted, “people-person.” Therefore, it’s not surprising that some people wonder whether that personality type is required in order to be successful in sales. A reader from Australia writes:
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