Sales Person - As a career option

Each organization, unless it’s a not for profit, exists to sell a good or a service. Through this, it earns revenue, pays its employees, invests in future products, pays its taxes, and makes a profit for its management.

And no product, no matter, how good, sells itself. They need a dedicated team to sell it, as well an effective management to supervise it.

2 Types of Sales

• B2C - Where you’re selling to an individual customer.

• B2B - Where you’re selling to a business.

Most organizations have multiple sales channels: offline (door to door, through a telephone, through a stall, through a retail store), or online (social media, email, or online store). For a career in sales, you need great interpersonal skills. You will be interacting either face to face, or through a phone screen, and you need to convince the other person to buy your product.

For this, you need people skills, communication skills, time-management skills, as well as general business savoriness.

Unlike most other careers, a career in sales is closely related to a direct output. You are directly responsible for making things happen, and consequences of a job well done are obvious.

Unlike say, in accounting, where you know the job is done is satisfactory if the government is not after your life.

In sales, there’s a high sense of accomplishment, and quite an adrenaline rush when you close a sale. You also get the satisfaction of providing a solution to an existing problem of your customers, helping them meet their needs.

This is why a large part of the compensation for salespeople is performance related. Incentives, commissions, bonuses for exceeding targets are quite common, and you have a much higher level of control in your career, as compared to other options.

In contrast, it is also a bit stressful if you’re not meeting targets. Some salespeople complain that their job leaves an axe hanging over their head.

Since it’s directly performance related, if you’re not meeting targets because of the product not being perfect, the targets being unreasonable, or a deficiency at your part, your salary gets reduced, which can be depressing for some, and also affect motivation negatively.

Eligibility Criteria to Become a Sales Person

• +2: No restrictions. Students can be from either stream (Science, Commerce, Arts)
  
  
• Bachelor’s: A Bachelor’s degree touching subjects like Sales, Economics, Business are preferred.
  
  
• Master’s: MBA (optional)

There are no strict qualifications to be a sales manager. Ideally, you should be a graduate (Commerce, BBA courses are preferred), and have an MBA in Sales & Marketing. But these are not mandatory.

A Day in the Life of a Sales Person

I’m the VP of sales of a large FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Good, think packed foods, biscuits, toothpaste, shampoos) company.

6:00 AM: The words VP alone make sure my day starts at 6:00 AM with an hour at the gym. I freshen up, and sit down for breakfast, and check for urgent emails.

9:00 AM: I reach office and review the report at my desk. Quarter 1’s sales reports are in, and the numbers are depressing. A recent Ayurveda company is giving us tough competition, and our pan-India sales have taken a massive hit. I have a message from the CEO who wants a Board meeting to discuss this development next week.

I try not to sweat.

11:00 AM: I have gone through the report in detail, and identified our poorest performing zones, as well as the product lines from our 200+ strong inventory that have taken a hit.

I open Slack and send a message to the 7 sales manager who works underneath me for a meeting at 1 pm. They already have the reports, and I ask them to prepare regional corrective measures that we can discuss.

12:00 PM: I go through my emails and see a message from a journalist asking for a comment on our low performance. I hit delete.

1:00 PM: Our team of 8 sits down and discusses the numbers we have received. The low sales figures were expected, and we break it down geographically as well as demographically.

Our rural segments have disappointed us a lot more than we anticipated, and we discuss a price cut, as well as promotional offers for the upcoming festive season.

I open Evernote and remind myself to review the next quarter’s sales budget, and request extra funds in the upcoming Board meeting.

3:00 PM: We take a break for lunch and reconvene.

4:00 PM: The meeting ends, and I draft the Minutes of Meetings with the pending action points from everyone and send it to the team, marking the CEO.

I know I can ask a junior to do this, but this is the most important part of the meeting, and I’d rather do it myself!

5:00 PM: I sit with the Learning & Development Head of our company and discuss an upcoming training program for our sales team.

The L&D team is responsible for training our sales teams: how to handle customer grievances, how to use specific software, and how to behave in specific situations with customers.

We have a 2000+ member strong sales team spread over 5 cities, and they show me a schedule to train all of them over the next 4 weeks. I ask them up to finish it in 2 weeks.

7:00 PM: The meeting ends, and I take a breath to relax. My wife calls me up and asks me to bring dinner. I try not to groan.

7:30 PM: I meet the Product Development team of our poorest performing lines and discuss the situation. We have the R&D guys with us too, and I request them to help me find a solution.

9:00 PM: I end the meeting, send over the Minutes, and look over my schedule for tomorrow. I have a meeting with the CEO of a large hotel chain where they want to stock our products in the washrooms. This could be a big game-changer.

I pack up to leave and then remember dinner! I ask my secretary to call my favourite restaurant and have a to-go bag ready for me.

As I get in the cab, I switch off my phone and call it a day.

It’s a tough life, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! Are you smart enough to handle this lifestyle? Did you find our article helpful? Are you still confused? Have your say in the comment box below! Enjoy Reading!