Sales Jobs

“Oh, you’d make a an excellent sales person.”

“Goodness you’re so convincing you could sell ice to an Eskimo.”

Have people ever made these comments to you? If your friends and colleagues often admire your persuasion skills, then you may want to consider focusing your career towards sales. The world will never run out of sales jobs. This is one area of the economy where there will always be demand, because good and effective salesmen are short in supply.

Finding Sales Jobs

You can find sales jobs everywhere. For as long as there are individuals and companies who want to sell a product or service – or just an idea – they will call on you to see if you can meet their expectations.

The most common place to find a sales job is through your university placement centre because they get requests from companies for good sales and marketing graduates. The sales jobs can either be part time or full time. The most challenging sales jobs are in companies that sell consumer goods and hence cater specifically to consumers in a special niche segment.

Another source of sales jobs is your local paper. Look under the “sales and marketing” section. Yet another excellent source is a headhunter who has inside information about the sales job in question. And of course, you can rely on word-of-mouth referrals from friends and family.

Sales Jobs: Skills

Be sure you hone the following skills so that companies will know you’re the right person for the task:

Communications skills – someone who cannot deliver the essence of the message will not be able to sell anything. Your talent for using the rights words is crucial;

People skills – you have to genuinely like people if you wish to take your sales career to a higher level;

Perseverance – sales people do not take no for an answer. They are persistent and will make every effort to clinch a sale because their incomes depend on it;

Flexibility – there will be times when the company will require you to travel so you need to get accustomed to living in your suitcase at certain times of the year.

Sales jobs can be rewarding. Not everyone makes it. If you’re a survivor and a star, people will grab you. Then…you can name your price!