by “If you love your work, if you enjoy it, you’re already a success” – How true?! But how many of us love our work is a big question! Before picking any career path, right from choosing your higher education, you need to have a clear vision of what you’re going to be. Don’t blindly follow others, instead pick the one you like.
If you are going to choose sales as your career, first find the answer to these questions: What do you like about sales? What do you enjoy most about sales? Once you have answers, start working on them. Learn sales from various sources like books, the internet, and interviews. Understand the concepts, strategies, and current trends. If you are ready to take up challenges and upskill consistently, sales is the best career option for you.
Skills Needed For A Sales Career
Sales is a challenging and at the same time fruitful career. The analytical and strategic skills you gain through the sales career results in both personal as well as professional growth. There are plenty of opportunities in sales today as every business requires skilled sales professionals to sell their products and services. The top 5 skills you need for pursuing a career in sales are:
- Confidence in communication, body language, and other work aspects.
- Good listening skills to understand customers.
- Relationship skills to build long-lasting customer relationships.
- Emotional intelligence & resilience to handle objections.
- Time management skills for prioritizing and completing tasks on time.
There are many other skills like problem-solving, negotiation, product knowledge, critical thinking, etc. that help your sales career.
6 Reasons To Enjoy Working In Sales
Reports from Lystloc (A Sales Tracking App) show that a sales professional spends 36% of his time selling and 64% of the time in non-selling activities like traveling, training, and other administrative activities at the office. Depending on the company culture, nature, and difficulty of tasks, you may like some of it and not be fond of some. But on the whole, if you choose sales as a career, you need to ace all the sales tasks right from prospecting to closing deals.
Here are six good reasons to tell someone who asks you, “Why do you like sales?”
- Sales paves way for continuous learning
Continuous learning opportunities are prevalent in sales. Wondering how? Upskilling with the latest tools and techniques is important. Also, you are not going to sell the same product/service for a lifetime. Different product/service knowledge will broaden your skill set. Not only that, it will prepare you for working in various industries. A transferable skill set is a great asset that the sales profession makes you earn. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it? What more do you need to enjoy your sales career?
- Sales help in networking & building relationships
Secondly, the best part of being in sales is building relationships with customers. This will help in broadening your professional network which has numerous benefits. You can discover and explore new opportunities through the contacts you build over the years. You may sell your products to some and others may reject them. But, with consistent follow-ups and interaction, they may end up as your customers too. Remember, anything is possible with your determination and persistence.
- Good earning potential
Today there is a wide horizon of sales job roles and titles such as sales representatives, sales ops managers, account executives, collection agents, sales associates, regional sales managers, etc. Companies are giving all these jobs a really good package. Apart from fixed pay, there are many attractive bonuses and incentive schemes based on performance. If you love hitting targets, then a sales job gives you great earning potential, no doubts!
- Sales jobs are in high demand
The research found that sales roles have shot up by a whopping 65% in 2021 which is equal to nearly 700,000 positions in the US alone. That’s huge. Then, think of the opportunities around the world. Hope you can now understand the high demand for sales professionals. Especially if you are an entry-level or mid-level sales professional, you can find ample opportunities that suit your skills and interests in the market.
- Sales jobs are challenging
If you love challenges in life, you can choose sales as your career too. You will be dealing with different types of processes and customers daily based on your job responsibilities. Deal with them with confidence and optimism. Sales jobs give you a sense of satisfaction if you are able to overcome these challenges successfully. Job satisfaction is what everyone looks for in their career, which you can achieve in a sales job.
- Sales jobs improve your confidence
There is a common notion that sales jobs are for extroverts. No, introverts can also shine in a sales job. Beyond your communication skills, critical thinking skills help you in situations where you need to guide your customers through your expertise. Dealing with people with different mindsets is a challenge. You may go wrong sometimes, but you will gain back confidence over time.
Final Thoughts
Many great business people have started their careers in sales. They understand how a business works from the scratch practically before they build a business. So, if you really like sales, without a second thought, start with it. We’re sure the above reasons are good enough to support your decision. Next time when someone asks you, “What do you enjoy most about sales?”, you can answer instantly.
