For the love of sales! Why… you should launch your career in a sales role What… top employers...
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For the love of sales! Why… you should launch your career in a sales role What… top employers are looking for from you How… to build and manage a professional sales career
Transcript of For the love of sales! Why… you should launch your career in a sales role What… top employers...
For the love of sales!
Why… you should launch your career in a sales roleWhat… top employers are looking for from you
How… to build and manage a professional sales career
Why listen to me?
• I built and own Sales Talent Agency, Canada’s #1 sales recruitment company
• I had a pretty good sales career that set me up for entrepreneurship
• My company interacts with thousands of sales professionals at all career levels each year
• We hire sales people for more than 170 companies across Canada in every industry (from SAP and salesforce.com, to Monster, Groupon and Castrol)
Get into sales!
• Highly measured: effort and expertise are always rewarded
• Highly paid: best sales people will often earn more than 99% of the company
• Incredibly empowering skill-set to develop: opens your career path to both executive and entrepreneurialism
• Lower than average lay-off rate
Don’t get into sales!
• Highly measured: no place to hide• Paid for performance: if you don’t make it, you
don’t earn it• Higher than average firing rate: no matter how
much they like you, you better bring an ROI
So, do you have what it takes?
Drive[The engine]
Empathy[The rudder]
What are top employers looking for?
Talent [how you get in the door today]
Experience [how you earn more money tomorrow]
A sampling of the market (for top performers)
Industry Year 1 Year 10
Technologye.g. Software, Cloud, Data Storage, Infrastructure Outsourcing, etc.
•$40-60k base with an $80-120k total income•90% inside sales roles/10% outside sales roles
Enterprise-level outside sales rep (or Manager/Exec) earning $200k+ consistently
MediaDeal-of-the-Day Advertising, SEO/SEM, Job Boards, TV/Radio, etc
•$30-50k base with an $60-100k total income•50% inside sales roles/50% outside sales roles
Key/National Account Manager (or Manager/Exec) earning $120k-$160k
Consumer Goods (B2B)Pharmaceuticals, Beer/Wine, Gift Cards, Electronic Appliances, etc
•$50-80k base with an $55-100k total income•99% outside sales roles
Key/National Account Manager (or Manager/Exec) earning $70k-$150k
How to navigate from here
• Pick an industry and stay in it (so pick carefully)• Choose based on where you want to be 5 years
from now (not where you want to be today)• Embrace hunting – this is a life skill you will never
regret developing (and it pays more!)• Don’t be put off by inside sales if it is in the
industry you are interested in• Keep track of every win, accolade and metric
What you should be looking for• A compelling and unique value proposition• Good sales technique/strategy training (as well as product/service
training)• Access to “subject matter experts” who can attend meetings to help you
work through complex deals• Good competitive analysis• A strong understanding of what is “low hanging fruit”• Case studies, reference letters and/or testimonials from happy customers• Well developed and constructed marketing materials (including a strong
company website)• A good boss to help you plan meetings, analyze your sales pipeline, set
realistic quotas AND strategize accounts• An easily understood commission plan
SALES TALENT AGENCY
For the love of sales!
