5 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started in Sales

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As many of you know, my corporate sales career is encroaching 9-years now which has led me to reflect on the things I wish I knew and appreciated before I started.

1: You NEED to be an effective self-starter

In sales, opportunities are rarely handed to you and if they are, you should treat each one like a piece of gold-dust. The majority of the results I have delivered have been earned off the back of hard work, early starts and often late nights. 

Being motivated with a drive to want to deliver impactful results, day in, day out needs to be inherent and isn’t something that can be taught. There is a requirement to be an effective self-starter who is able to wake each day feeling excited for the day ahead.

2: Things aren’t always fair

When I started my sales career, one part of my motivation was the concept of being able to work in an industry driven by meritocracy. I believed that the harder I worked, the better results I would drive and the more acknowledgment I would receive. 

This isn’t always the case and often enough, you may be the hardest worker in the room yet results simply aren’t coming or your leader doesn’t appear to appreciate your work rate. Beyond this, you may feel you’re entitled to more leads, better opportunities or special treatment based on record-breaking performance.

The reality is that things don’t always pan out the way you want, plan, hope or expect, irrespective of how strongly you perform. You have to be willing to express gratitude when fortune favours you but equally remain composed when decisions don’t go your way either.

3: Salespeople are COMPETITIVE

You will struggle to come across an effective salesperson who doesn’t have an extremely strong will to win. In some cases, a will to win at all costs leading an individual to truly do whatever it takes in order to get a transaction over the line.

I quickly learned that I needed to be resilient in driving my own agenda while maintaining an effective balance of being a team-player. Some people view a sales environment as the lion's den, full of strong personalities all of whom are ambitious and extremely driven. You need to be prepared to enroll in a predatorial environment with an ability to adapt and navigate a wide range of personality types.

4: Sales can be physically and mentally draining

I love being in sales and I couldn’t see myself operating within any other environment. Day to day, I am motivated and enthused about the impact I can have and the difference I can make to my customers.

With that being said, I have equally had moments of feeling broken by the logistical and mental demands of being an effective salesperson. The need to be in many locations geographically on top of balancing many different sales cycles simultaneously can take a toll.

Beyond this, there is an ongoing pressure to deliver results every single day in pursuit of a monthly or annual number. 

I have learned it’s of crucial importance for me to find a way to balance the demands of this industry while prioritising physical and mental wellbeing to prevent burnout. Sales is an extremely demanding career choice in every sense of the word and anyone who enters needs to ensure they have means by which to detox themselves.

5: Being motivated by money only takes you so far

Earning potential was a lure early in my career and sales certainly gives you a platform from which to maximise the variable component of your income.

With that being said, allowing money to be your only source of motivation is only doing yourself a disservice. When you have a bad month and earnings are flat, what is going to keep you going during this time?

I learned that it is important to have a deeper sense of purpose and drive when pursuing a sales career. There needs to be something more in you that is going to motivate you to make that extra phone call or rise out of bed on that cold, winter morning. 

If it’s money alone, you’re leaving yourself exposed to being privy to an inevitable rollercoaster ride as your results peak and dip based on your month to month performance.

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Disclaimer: All views expressed in this article are my own and do not represent the opinions or views of my current employer or any entity whatsoever with which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated. This post is for informational purposes only and any advice should be followed at the reader's own discretion.

?2019 by Alex Alleyne