9 CEO’S WHO STARTED IN SALES
Salespeople acquire skills for life. Whether you’re dreaming of being a CEO, a business owner, or a manager in an industry you love, sales is a skill that will benefit you through your entire career.
And it’s not even just the skill of sales, it’s all the other skills that come from it such as:
These are all skills that won’t just benefit your sales career, but any career path you go down.
Take from these 9 CEO’s that started in entry-level sales roles and used those skills to succeed.
STEVEN BARTLETT
From Sales Advisor to business owner, investor, podcast host and Dragon’s Den host.
“I worked in call centres for about 3 years of my life… maybe the best work I ever did. If any one job is responsible for my later success in business, I think it was probably those call centres.”
ROBERT HERJAVEC
From Sales Representative to owning Canada’s largest IT security provider.
“You don’t have to be a shark, but if you want to learn to swim with them you need to know sales. Sales is everything. If you can’t sell yourself, you’re going to have a hard time getting ahead.”
HOWARD SCHULTZ
From Sales Representative to author and CEO of Starbucks.
“In anything we do, any endeavour, it’s not what you do; it’s why you do it.”
SARA BLAKELY
From door-to-door fax machine sales to founder and owner of Spanx
“Differentiate yourself! Why are you different? What’s most important about you? Why does the customer need you?”
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WARREN BUFFETT
From selling securities to being the world’s richest man in 2008 through investing.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
MARK CUBAN
From selling bin bags to software sales to businessman, film producer, investor, writer, and television personality.
“It’s not about money or connections – it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone when it comes to your business. And if it fails, you learn from what happened and do a better job next time.”
ANNE MULCAHY
From Sales Representative at XEROX to Vice President at XEROX to CEO at XEROX.
“I worked in sales. It was definable, it had a quantifiable approach to accomplishment that had a great deal of importance to me. It had a degree of clarity that I loved. And of course, it was core.”
GARY VAYNERCHUK
From selling baseball cards to building his family’s wine business to owning two companies.
“The number one advice I have is communicate, learn how to communicate.”
NICK WOODMAN
From selling necklaces to founding the GoPro.
“I feel like in a world where we all try to figure out our place and our purpose here, your passions are one of your most obvious guides.”
- Written by Shannon Matthews