Pursue A Sales Job

Why Sales?

Owing a sales and marketing recruiting agency, our phones are constantly ringing off the hook with demands for sales professionals of all levels. The reason being is that a company will always make budget for a good sales representative, however will look the other way at an all-star accountant.

Among the young and the more mature, there is a stigma about sales. People feel as if it were almost a form of begging. Actually, it is quite the opposite. If you are good at sales, you can make a small fortune. This is especially true for sales professionals who are in very niche areas and have a very niche, but necessary expertise.

For instance, sales professionals in the oil and gas industry or in certain facets of technology make base salaries well over 6 figures. This is not including commission. My firm has worked with a lot of these professionals, and they love what they do. This is for a few reasons. First, sales professionals get into the field because they enjoy other people.

Second, because sales professionals have so much leeway as to what field they can go into, good business development professionals (acronym for sales professionals - described later) have the opportunity to choose where they want to go while others' fates are chosen for them. Also, upon getting to where they want to be, sales professionals are typically surrounded by others who enjoy people and others who enjoy the company.

Third, great sales representatives have the best employment stability. Sales can never be outsourced. Ever get a sales call from a foreign country? Almost sees not human and the other person on the phone sounds unnatural and fatigued from constant rejection.

The term "never say never" does not seemingly apply to this rule. Accounting software has nearly killed the need for costly accountants, better technology combined with cheaper programming has left many technology professionals job less and there are about a dozen other pertinent examples. With minimal thought, you can line up a horde of industries where the American incumbents are currently worried about their jobs going overseas, but you never see this stress in the sales department.

Moreover, being in sales, albeit for a short while, is a great learning experience. This is especially true if you are early on in your career. If there is one thing I am good at, it is search engine optimization. Not to get off the beaten path, but part of the way that Google determines rankings is by the number and quality of links back to your website. Well, because not all links can be obtained via the web, I used my cold-calling skills from earlier on in my career to help boost my Google rankings and the incoming calls to my business.

Developing people skills is one of life's best accomplishments, though one of life's hardest accomplishments. People don't go by numbers. There are no direct calculations as to why human beings do what we do in certain situations.

Despite the complications and mysteries of human nature, to attain much of our needs throughout life, we have to learn to overcome these hurdles. For even a short period, being in sales is a great way to learn what makes people tick. To further the thought, rejection is one of our biggest fears and the rejection that inevitably comes to every sales professional, can simply be used as a life learning tool.