Quote:
Originally Posted by brentr03
So following the path you described, which area of sales would you consider to be the best to look into? Obviously selling vacuums door to door wouldn't cut it.
I would look for:
#1 a quality product that has good margins for both you and management to profit on paying you a commission.
#2 Good management, just because they offer you a great cut doesn't mean it will last, look for management that understand how sales fits into the picture. You don't want to build a great book of a business and have the legs taken out from under you because management doesn't like that you're making more than the CEO or various ways to fail at business affecting you.
#3 The most technical product you can handle, being able to sell something with critically important details ups your value significantly.
You may have to compromise on one or more of these and that's fine, your key goal is to get in the door of a company that sets you off in the right direction and will let you gain experience/access to actively using the sales/pitching skills even if you aren't directly in sales.
Good areas that I know of right now:
-IT and big data solutions
-Commercial lighting (huge government grants over the next few years)
-B2B software businesses
-General technology consulting businesses (development, management consulting, online marketing, app/creative development, creative/ad agencies)
You fake and learn your way into most of these businesses, a friend/coworker of mine started his career in tech with no technical experience showed up every day at an IT consulting business until they hired him on for $27k/year in a junior position. He then took every **** client and hacked Microsoft IT support into giving him unlimited free advice on how to actually fix his clients problems while taking meticulous notes.
After 3 months he was making them a lot of money and was given a raise to $110k/year. I believe at a somewhat near point after that he was making north of $150k/year. No degree, no applicable experience.
Sales ability and hustle.