So you think a career in sales could be for you but you are not sure where to begin? Whether you are embarking on the very first step of your career or you are in the process of navigating a career change, the first step is always to review your options, understand what is required and do your research to ensure this is something you are interested in. In this post we will review what you will need and provide a step by step guide on what you should do to start your career in sales.
Sales is incredibly broad so there are lots of avenues you can take to become a sales professional. With so many options, it can be overwhelming and all too often overwhelm leads to inaction. To avoid that. the rest of this article will focus on starting your sales career within a software company in the tech industry, as this is one of the best ways you can start your career in sales today, in my humble opinion. Of course, this is not the only route so if you read on and discover this doesn’t appeal to you, fear not, there are many other options out there. If you do decide to take this route you will be researching Sales Development or Business Development roles. If you are not sure what those terms mean, check out this post; What is Sales Development? Let’s take a look at what you’ll need.
Overview:
- Educational Requirements
- Work Experience
- Ability to demonstrate key characteristics
- Research & Application
Education
Firstly, becoming a sales professional is not like becoming a doctor or a lawyer. There are no special requirements in terms of education or exams that you have to complete in order to enter the sales world. Many of the senior sales people in top companies today probably do not have a college education and yet they are wildly successful. More recently however it has become a more standard practice that most people who work in these companies have graduated from University and many people have also completed their Masters. Whilst not specifically a requirement, it definitely helps. Many people complete business related degrees before joining the sales world. That is what I did. However you may be surprised to know that a lot of my colleagues studied everything and anything but business. I know people who have degrees in science, in psychology and in sociology who are now top salespeople. So if you have a business degree, great but if you don’t, you can certainly still secure a job in the sales world. You just may need to be prepared explain the reason for your change in direction. In a nutshell, in order to join the sales world generally nowadays you simply need to be a college/university graduate.
Work Experience
Whilst not specifically required, you will have an advantage over your peers if you can demonstrate some prior work experience. Of course, for many people this is their first ‘real’ job and as such they don’t feel they have much relevant work experience. At this stage though, your potential future employer is not expecting you to be an expert in sales, they are simply looking for signs that you have experienced and learned some of the basics of business and of the working world. If you have experience with a part time job whilst studying or if you had the opportunity to take part in an internship, this will be relevant. For example, I had prior experience working in the retail environment part time whilst studying. I thought this was completely irrelevant however even then I was working with customers, problem solving, developing relationships internally with my co-workers and working towards business targets. All of this experience was very relevant in laying my foundational understanding of sales. The key thing is, if your prior experience doesn’t feel like an exact fit, think about the key skills and learnings and how they could apply to a role in sales development and later in sales.
Ability to Demonstrate Key Characteristics
There are a number of Key Characteristics that will help you to become a successful sales person which include but are not limited to you having:
- Ambition
- Resilience
- Growth mindset
- Coach-ability
- Confidence
- Emotional Intelligence
How Can I Be A Successful SDR delves more into this, however as we are now talking about How to Start your Career in Sales, I want to focus on something that so many people seem to miss when starting their career in sales. Yes, you will need to possess all of those characteristics (and many more) however you will also need to demonstrate them to your potential future employers during the application process. This means finding a good way to show that you possess these characteristics firstly through your Resumé/CV and then later during the interview process. The easiest and most effective way to do this is to share examples of things that suggest you may possess these characteristics through your CV and then follow it up with concrete and well prepared examples during the interview. For example, let’s think about how you could demonstrate that you are ambitious through your CV. Well, usually people who are ambitious take on more than is required. This may be in the form of extra curricular activities, perhaps you took the lead with a sports club or any other kind of club during your time in University. Perhaps you exceeded targets well above expectation in a previous job. Highlighting these things and then having a follow up example will differentiate you from many of your peers who are of course ambitious too, but who were not well versed in strategically demonstrating that ambition during the application process. Make sure to do this with the key skills and characteristics you want to highlight.
Research & Application
If you have gotten this far and you are still interested in starting your career in sales as a sales development rep, you are now ready to start researching possible roles and employers. I recommend searching for “Sales development Representative” or “Business Development Representative” roles. There are many names for these roles however this is a good starting point. Very quickly this will help you to understand what roles are out there, and what kind of companies are offering these roles. I encourage you to study the job descriptions in detail to uncover more of the typical things they are looking for so that you can incorporate these things into your CV and preparation. It is also beneficial to research the companies in the space, even if you are not applying for a job there, you will be better prepared for an interview if you have a general all round knowledge of the players in the industry. During your research phase, don’t be afraid to reach out to people who have the job you want in various companies and ask them what it is like and for any advice they may have. LinkedIn is your best friend here. On that note, if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, create one. It is a really important tool for this role so having one before you start shows that you already have some key skills. Create your LinkedIn, connect with people in companies you’d like to work in and reach out. People are usually very open to helping. It is one of the many reasons I highly recommend a career in this industry.
There you have it, four simple steps to start what will hopefully be a long and successful career in sales for you. When I started this process, I spent a lot of time on something that actually added no value, I tried to learn how to use the tech for the companies I was applying to. For example, if I was applying for a role in Salesforce, I wanted to use Salesforce so I could talk about it in my interview. Don’t worry about that, instead focus on understanding the value that the company you are applying to can add to their prospective customers. E.g. Salesforce makes it easy and efficient to manage customer data. If you think I have missed anything important or you have anything to add, please do so in the comments. I wish you good luck in starting your career in sales!
Until next time! d