Why Consider a Career in Sales & Marketing?
Earn more money Influence the level of your earnings Control your own time Preparation for senior level positions Personal improvement Continual sense of personal achievement and self-worth Make friends and influence people! Less likely to lose your job Become more saleable/employable Travel opportunities What are the downsides?| Starting salaries (basic) for trainees: | |
| Graduate | �15,000 - 20,000 |
| PhD | �18,000 - 24,000 |
| With 1 - 3 years experience: | |
| �22,000 - 28,000 | |
| Commission adds 25 - 100% of salary: | |
| Consumables | �18,000 - 28,000 OTE (on target earnings) |
| Capital equipment | �25,000 - 60,000 OTE |
| Software/Services | �30,000 - 100,000 + |
External sales jobs (Representative etc) include cars, computers, mobile telephones as well as normal company benefits such as pension, life insurance, healthcare, discount on company products, meal/entertaining expenses
Average increase in basic salary within one year from hire: 30%
Sales people are in a unique position to increase (or decrease!) the levels of their earnings.
A Representative who can expect to make his/her OTE by conducting four customer visits per day, will increase annual income by 10% by making two extra visits per week.
Extra income can be earned by:
- Working longer hours
- Working weekends
- Making an extra call per day
- Working smarter
- Keeping better records
- Asking for referrals and recommendations
- Keeping in touch with customers
Whereas in science (or indeed most other jobs) people of very different abilities will be paid the same, usually according to a scale, a sales person will earn a lot more than his/her colleague if he/she works harder/longer/quicker/smarter.
Sales people earn what they're worth!
External sales people are allowed (expected) to control their own time. A certain number of customer visits will be expected. But it is the job of the sales person to organise sensible time-efficient route plans.
Typically, one day per week is spent at home (or in the office) making telephone calls to customers to arrange the visits. Sometimes these meetings are arranged by a secretary.
Thereafter, as long as the sales person makes these visits, his/her time is their own.
| Typically, the number of visits might be: | |
| Consumables | 4 - 10 calls per day |
| Instruments | 2 - 4 calls per day |
| High value | 2 - 4 calls per week |
| Contract | 1 - 2 calls per week |
Apart from the time spent in the visit, time will need to be spent in:
- Strategic planning
- Preparation
- Travelling
- Administration
- Reporting
- Entertaining
Spending every day on the golf course is not an option!
Spending every other day on the golf course is!!
60% of all CEOs started their commercial life in sales & marketing (Of the remaining 40%, most were accountants).
Commercial business does not function without sales - there have to be customers for the business to survive!
Most senior managers agree it is crucial to spend a period (however short) in direct sales to develop an understanding of the customers' needs.
It is impossible to formulate corporate strategy without understanding customer needs.
Selling skills are not just used to win orders from customers. Anyone who interacts with other people in order to influence their thinking, needs to be able to sell ideas.
As well as dealing with customers, selling skills help you to:
- Deal with colleagues effectively
- Deal with superiors effectively
- Deal with subordinates effectively
- Deal with external groups (press/media/government bodies etc) effectively
Whilst it's perfectly possible to learn these skills in any other walk of life, specific training is usually provided to sales people to improve:
- Time management
- Presentation
- Questioning
- Listening
- Empathy
- Energy
- Do-it-now attitude
- Positive Mental Attitude (PMA)
Additional skills and benefits that usually accrue from time spent in sales include:
- Goal setting
- Problem solving ability
- Confidence with other people
- Ability to speak to groups
- Resilience
- Ability to bounce back from adversity
- Persistence
- 'Never say die' attitude
Working in sales won't turn you into a saint necessarily, but you will emerge a tougher and more focused individual, more capable of surviving in a fast-moving competitive environment.
Working in sales is a double-edged sword. On the one hand you need to be able to cope with continual failure. As a rule of thumb, you'll only win one sale for every ten attempts.
This means that 90% of your time, you'll be experiencing failure. Of course, it's not as bad as all that. Every time you fail i.e. fail to secure a sale, you'll still learn about your customers' needs, and become better equipped to succeed next time.
The trick is to get a greater feeling of elation on the 10% of occasions you do succeed, than the feeling of despondency you get when you don't!
The good news is that the cycle is repeated with great regularity, so that in consumable sales for example, you'll almost certainly be experiencing some successes every day.
Even in capital equipment sales, you'll still experience the joy of success every few days, every few weeks or every few months - depending on the scale of the sale.
The point is, there's always something good to look forward to in sales, and if you work for a good employer, you'll get plenty of approbation from your boss, not to mention eternal gratitude from your customers!
The other thing is, sales is all about solving customers' problems. When you've made a sale, your company's products and services have been able to really help someone in their life and work, and you'll experience a great feeling of having been a worthwhile human being.almost every day!
This slogan is borrowed from the excellent book by Dale Carnegie, the famous American guru of personal development.
Inevitably sales will bring you into contact with hundreds if not thousands of other people. They will be very similar to yourself - bright intelligent people working hard to make a success of their lives.
Conducted properly, the sales process will enable you to demonstrate to every one of these people, that you sincerely want to understand them and their needs, and that alone will endear them to you.
As mentioned above, in 10% of these cases, you will have succeeded in providing something useful to your contacts, and in doing so made their lives a little better. These people will like you even more!
Furthermore, the nature of business and particularly sales people is to be outward going, enthusiastic and of a 'joiner' mentality. You want to be part of things, and have a go at anything. Sales is an excellent environment for encountering like-minded people, many of whom will become personal friends.
Sales people get made redundant, the same as every other type of worker, when the economic climate gets worse. Typically, sales people are paid a lot more than everyone else, so if a company needs to cut costs quickly, it can be the sales people that are the first to go.
However, this is generally only done in dire emergency. It's a bit like killing the goose that laid the golden egg!
Sales people - particularly the good ones - are the people that bring business to the company, which keeps everyone else (including the managers!) in employment. You'll be the last people to be made redundant.
It's commonly said that a successful sales person need never fear to lose their job.
In the unfortunate event that you do lose your job (nothing to do with your sales ability, obviously!), you have less to fear than most other types of worker.
As a successful sales person you can offer:
- Trained sales skills
- Knowledge of products
- Knowledge of a market
- Knowledge of specific customers
In effect you are ready to get up and running immediately, able to bring in sales revenue more or less from day one.
If you go to work for a company in the same industry, with your knowledge of your previous company's business you can offer them the double benefit of winning sales whilst their competitor's sales are declining. The combination of your new employer's business knowledge and your own market knowledge - should make you twice as successful!
By definition, an external sales job will take you to faraway places. The amount of travel will be directly proportional to the value of the sale. In science, someone selling consumables such as chemicals will be selling to just about every laboratory in the district, and the territory may be just one or two counties. For someone selling high value capital equipment such as scientific instruments, the number of potential customers will be much fewer and further between, and you'll find yourself travelling all over the country, and in some cases, overseas as well. In higher level jobs you may be superintending the distribution of products through subsidiaries in foreign countries all over the world.
Travel is an inevitable, but interesting and enjoyable by-product of the sales r�le.
Nota bene! When you attend interview for a sales job, never cite travel as a reason for wanting to get into sales - even if it's true. Recruiting managers will misinterpret your motivation, and think you want to take a perpetual holiday. Far better to say that you want to earn what you're worth, and see sales as a good proving-ground for higher level business management positions.
Not many!
There's always a place for a keen and enthusiastic sales person, and given the correct training and support, most bright people who are willing to work hard, and learn, will succeed in sales, and make a better than average living.
However, as in all things, every silver lining has a cloud or two.
There's always a place for a keen and enthusiastic sales person, and given the correct training and support, most bright people who are willing to work hard, and learn, will succeed in sales, and make a better than average living.
However, as in all things, every silver lining has a cloud or two.
Hard work
No one would pretend that sales is easy. If it were, more people would be doing it. It's commonly said that for every one person who says 'Yes!', there are nine who say 'No!'. If you need to find five people a day to say 'Yes!', you will have to talk to fifty people a day.
No one would pretend that sales is easy. If it were, more people would be doing it. It's commonly said that for every one person who says 'Yes!', there are nine who say 'No!'. If you need to find five people a day to say 'Yes!', you will have to talk to fifty people a day.
You need energy and stamina, and you need to be able to be as bright and cheerful at six o' clock at night, as you are at eight o' clock the following morning. If you can't rise above the trials and tribulations that afflict us all, both in private and in work life, don't consider a career in sales.
Stand accountable
Sales is a profession where you are judged almost exclusively by your results. Being a 'nice guy' doesn't cut it, on its own. You'll be expected to achieve certain levels of performance, and if you don't do this, you'll be as visible as a sore thumb. And you'll probably lose your job. Being an unsuccessful sales person isn't much fun.
Sales is a profession where you are judged almost exclusively by your results. Being a 'nice guy' doesn't cut it, on its own. You'll be expected to achieve certain levels of performance, and if you don't do this, you'll be as visible as a sore thumb. And you'll probably lose your job. Being an unsuccessful sales person isn't much fun.
Disappointment
As mentioned above, a lot of people will say 'No!' and unaccountably will not be interested in the wonderful products/services you are offering them. If you are the sort of person who will take these disappointments to heart, then don't consider a career in sales.
As mentioned above, a lot of people will say 'No!' and unaccountably will not be interested in the wonderful products/services you are offering them. If you are the sort of person who will take these disappointments to heart, then don't consider a career in sales.
On call
In many cases, as The Sales Person, you'll be the smiling face of the company you represent. In fact, apart from the driver who delivers the products you've sold, you may be the only person from your company the customer knows in person. So when things go wrong (as they inevitably do), it'll be you the customer calls, demanding satisfaction. And it can be at eleven o' clock at night!
In many cases, as The Sales Person, you'll be the smiling face of the company you represent. In fact, apart from the driver who delivers the products you've sold, you may be the only person from your company the customer knows in person. So when things go wrong (as they inevitably do), it'll be you the customer calls, demanding satisfaction. And it can be at eleven o' clock at night!
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