Do people ever tell you that you are a people person? If so, you may be a perfect candidate for a job in sales. Sales is all about personality. You must be charming and persuasive. The quality of the product or service that you’re selling is less important than your salesman skills.
Selling thing is a skill as well as a talent. Whether you’re selling cars at a dealership, insurance over the phone, advertising in a magazine or property in some exotic location, you’ll need the same set of skills. A salesperson must establish rapport with the buyer. Even if you’re selling a service to a large company, you’re still dealing with a human being. If you want to sell him the service, you’ll need to convince him that it’ll make his (not the company’s) job easier. Can you do that? If you can, you can make a great living working in sales.
Lots of companies hire sales staff. You can find career opportunities listed in newspapers and online. There are specialist employment agencies that specialize in business sales jobs. Better yet, if you’re good at selling things, why not sell yourself? Find a company you want to work for and send them a letter telling them why they should hire you. If you can sell that, you can sell anything.
Depending on the job, some employers will want a specific set of qualifications. It helps to be able to understand the thing you’re selling. If you want to be a drug rep for a pharmaceutical company, you need to have at least a basic understanding of medicine so you can talk to the doctors on their level. If you’re selling cars, it helps to know how one works.
In addition to good verbal communication skills, you may be required to demonstrate strong written communication skills. Lots of business is done over e-mail. If you can’t convince someone in an e-mail to meet you for a business lunch, how are you going to make the sale?