Why Sales is Right for You

?Coming out of college I had only taken a few sales classes that I found very interesting, and while I knew I wanted to get involved in the sales industry, I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t know what the job titles were, what the compensation would look like, and how sales cycles worked, but I knew I had the passion and drive and was hungry to learn it all. I quickly learned that Sales is a very rewarding profession. Whether you want to succeed financially or work your way up the ladder within an organization, it’s a great way to do both. Sales relies on your personal success and determination to hit your goals, so if you have a good work ethic, you’re sure to reap the benefits.

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After going through the interview process for my first job I landed a job as a Sales Development Representative at a high-tech sales outsourcing agency. So, what did this entail? It meant I was going to be doing a lot of cold outreach as well as list building prospects and getting them into our CRM. For entry level jobs many organizations take pride in the training and team building they provide for recent college grads. I didn’t know it at the time, but these trainings provide the core practices that sales professionals use at all stages of their career. It was overwhelming and a bit challenging coming right out of college, but I knew that this was the first step in a long sales career, and with any job I needed to put in the hard work to move up the ladder quickly and grow.

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Similarly, to college I knew I would have to go the extra mile to succeed and blow my numbers out of the water. I started doing a lot of practice on my own by constantly redoing my sheet music and role playing my script. I even sought to stay on the phone with prospects as long as I could to practice how to handle all kinds of objections. slowly the conversations started getting better and the meetings started stacking up. I had to learn how to adapt to the different prospects I was calling to truly understand why they specifically would care and how it could help their job. ?On top of that I was always crafting new messages on emails and LinkedIn to try and relate to the prospects as much as possible.

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After this starting becoming routine for a few months, I started to see the rewards and monetary benefits start coming in. This is another reason I love sales is because you get benefits and schedule flexibility based on your own success which is contingent on how hard you work. As I continued to succeed, I found opportunities for growth begin to open up and began to consider what the next step in my career could look like. Again, like in college I was left with a tough decision on what route I wanted to go. I could move into a Senior SDR role or ISR role, work my way up to Account Executive, and get involved in the deal closing process. But I could also go the management route within business development and run my own team and, eventually working my way up to the director level. Either way I knew both paths would be rewarding and prosperous.

After shadowing a few different roles, I noticed how the Account Executives still used a lot of the practices that I learned while training to be an SDR. They still do some cold calling, send LinkedIn messages out, and send cold emails specifically tailored to their prospects. They also all possess the same type of confident attitude as they talk about the product, and what’s happening in the industry. They understand the importance of follow ups, showing empathy in sales, and overall prioritizing treating others like a human rather than a robot. As I learned from my boss, “people don’t buy products and tools, they buy tools and products from people who they have a good relationship with”. With the Account Executive role, It really all came down to communication and deliverability similarly to the SDR role, which is why I knew it was the route I wanted to go down as I continued to grow within sales.

Overall while this has been my personal experience, I think anyone can benefit from choosing a career in this industry. I truly think sales is the best way to learn how to adapt and put your skills to the test. You constantly have to change based on what’s going on in the industry, have good communication skills, and learn how to work with all sorts of people. That work sometimes won’t always work, so you have to always change your style to best fit your customer and prospects. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting the outcome to change. This is especially relevant to sales. The last key takeaway I have is to never doubt yourself. If you are confident, can communicate, and have a good work ethic I have no doubt sales is the right path for you.?