One of the best ways to invest is in education. Learning new skills constantly makes one more worldly and also enhances our ability to leverage ourselves in the job market. I think sales is a great skill to acquire seeing that it is applicable to every industry and job. As a business owner/ freelancer especially, having sales skills will help increase your revenue no matter what you do.
Sales is really a science that involves studying buyer behavior. Once you approach it as a science and study it you will be successful. There is a fine line between a sales rep and a sales professional.
A sales rep is someone who answers the phone takes and order and fulfills it whereas a sales professional is one who identifies opportunity that others haven’t. They understand the needs of a customer, purchasing power, buyer behavior well before making the sale. They upsell and cross sell the customer. Always sniffing out new opportunities or creating them
For example, If the customer appears to be an early adopter that is a good sign for a salesperson who can offer a product or service that recently launched on the market. They are more likely to buy it and it is also a good way for a sales professional to test the waters. Their feedback can help tailor their sales strategy going forward.
A sales professional gets to know their customer well by practicing active listening. They get the customer to talk rather than talk themselves. This is a mistake I’ve made, and I’ve seen even my director of sales do it. Talk, talk, talk and cut off the client while they are speaking. When you get a customer to talk and open up they will tell you their needs without you having to ask them.
Types of sales roles
There are two types of sales jobs that exist broadly. One involves proactive selling and the other reactive selling.
Proactive selling
In this type of sales role you hunt for sales rather than sit and wait for customers to land on your lap. This can be broken down further into two types again:
New business development
This type of sales role involves you having to find new customers every month. You don’t have the benefit of depending solely on your old customers who have annual contracts with monthly billing. This involves a lot more prospecting because you need to sow your seeds while you harvest your crop otherwise, you’ll be hungry after the harvest!
Account management
I wouldn’t say this is easier. This sales role involves maintaining a portfolio of clients. An account manager may have a lot of administrative tasks for the service they’ve offered their client. In this type of sales role an account manager must strategize how to grow the billing for their pipeline of customers. This may be done by adding more units of the product the customers already have or upselling and cross selling other product lines that can benefit the customer.
Sales jobs may have a mix of both these roles. So before applying for a sales job understand where your strengths lie and find out what the mix is.
Reactive Selling
This is a type of sales role where leads and prospects are fed to you and you by virtue of walk in customers or your company’s marketing/ inbound efforts. You must pre-qualify them and either close them yourself or in some cases forward them to a sales executive.
A typical job position in this category is a sales coordinator which is an entry level position. One usually starts here and moves up the ladder to become a sales rep> executive > manager > director and so on.
As an employer you need to clearly understand what your company or business requires. Similarly, when interviewing persons for the role you must understand their skillset and potential. This was you don’t end up with a non-performing team.
Getting into sales for first timers
Ever thought of getting into sales? Fresh out of school? Well here’s some advice on the prerequisites and how to enter the sales profession.
To get into sales you need 2 things only – product knowledge and people skills. The former comes with experience and you can learn it on the job. It’s that latter that is something you either have a personality for or you don’t. I guess you can work on yourself if you’re an introvert, shy or socially awkward. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.
Sales is a highly competitive field. It’s a lot of pressure and can be extremely stressful when you’re not performing. Bear this in mind. However, any job is stressful especially the more senior you are and when more responsibilities are assigned to you.
However, in sales you perform the routine day-in and day-out like any other profession. But you get to meet new people every day and get to relate to and form friendships with them. You also have a lot more flexibility in most companies that are result oriented and not task oriented. You may be able to work form home a lot especially when you’re not on the road meeting clients.
People might tell you that sales is all about your negotiation skills and objection handling. Sure, these are something that you need in every interaction as a sales professional, but they are secondary. If you have good product knowledge and people skills that’s more important. Negotiation and objection handling comes with experience and there are a few tactics and scripts that don’t take much time to master with a good trainer.
A starting position in sales might vary from a sales coordinator in some companies or a sales executive. It depends on the company structure, industry, etc.
What you want is a sales role with mix of new business development and account management, where you can make recurring commission on old customers that you sold to once as well as new clients. That way you have a bank roll every month and you don’t have to start from scratch depending solely on new customers.
Commission
That’s the best part of working in sales. The sky’s the limit for your earning potential. Most jobs have a base salary with a commission structure that is supposed to incentivize a salesperson.
There are many types of commission structures; flat commission, progressive (the more you sell the higher the percentage you earn) and some structures may have a minimum quota for the commissions to kick in.
More importantly you should be given commission for recurring business/ monthly billing and not only the first-time sale. Otherwise what’s the point of managing clients who have monthly billing contracts? Unless you want to do that for fun, sure go ahead.
Salesman's Agreement- Put Everything on Paper
After you and your employer settle on the terms of your employment MAKE SURE your contract has the commission structure, the name your line manager, your perks like phone, laptop and vehicle/vehicle allowance. None of that bullshit “Oh that our standard contract” … Believe me when you don’t have this in writing you could get robbed by your employers and you won’t have a leg to stand on.
Final Thoughts
Working in sales my entire life I was able to change industries I've worked in hotels, digital media, telecommunications, insurance, fire & security. When I migrated to the Caribbean from India my only experience was in hospitality sales. However the island I live on Trinidad and Tobago there weren't any jobs available in Hotels. Recruitment was centralized on top of that. I was able to get a decent paying job at a top Telecommunications company in corporate sales.
Sales skills are easily transferrable. At the end of the day the selling part is the same while the product varies.
I would say this is a good industry to get into for those who want to invest and need the extra cash. Those of you reading this who are a part of Hive and and maybe into Crypto/ DeFi this could be a good way to fund your investment. Because you determine how much you make, if you work hard you can double or triple your income giving you extra cash to invest. After all we fund our investments with our income.