Could a sales representative easily translate his or her skills into being a buyer? What would be challenging about this shift? Which skills would translate seamlessly from one position to the other?

Yes, a sales representative can translate his or her skills into being a buyer but its not that much easy to put yourself into someone else's shoes and thinking exactly like him, acting and making buying decisions exactly like that person, but it is do-able, if sales representative successfully does it, he or she can easily increase the sales and turn every customer into a new sale.

The most challenging part of this transfer will be to think exactly like that person because that person will be having different lifestyle, income, family and circumstances which that sales man has to copy to think exactly like him or her.

Sales man can think what kind of purchases that person is going to make most probably, what price range he or she will prefer, what kind of quality that person will like to buy, will he or she be more concerned about the style of the product or the price range and quality etc.