Why Is Sales The Best First Job?
Looking for your first job? Your best bet is in sales. You will be surprised the skills you learn will help you to sell anything — even yourself for future career moves.
A lot of people are afraid of selling or think sales jobs are embarrassing. It’s true that selling can be scary, difficult, and even humiliating if your sales skills are terrible. If you think deeper, the thing that scares you the most about being a salesperson is being rejected by others. We all remember how bad it feels when someone turns us down. But it’s a challenge that will always happen in our life no matter where we work.
As Harvey Mackay said, “Everyone is in sales.” A waitress convincing you to order a dessert after dinner? Sales. A mom trading 10 minutes of playtime to her kids for finishing their homework? Sales. An employee negotiating their annual raise? Sales. The selling skills you learn from a sales job will not only teach you how to hit your targets but will also give you strength and strategies to be a better communicator and negotiator, in every aspect of your life — career and personal.
Take myself as an example, my sales journey started in high school. I worked for a cram school to promote their classes to the parents of new students. My job was to call them and introduce the courses and share information about trial classes. Although this wasn’t a real sales job, it still taught me two important things:
- How to get a person’s attention.
- How to align their interests with the value of my product.
These two principles became handy in my later sales career and they still work well now in my transition phase to marketing.
More reasons why Sales is the best first job
Ready to sell anything
Selling is hard, and one of the most challenging things is that it feels really bad when you fail and then you want to quit. But there is no shortcut to excel at selling. It takes a lot of practice and reflection. So if you work in a real sales job you are more likely to be serious about improving yourself after tons of failures. Also, since you are always involved in an intense selling environment. You are more careful about listening to details in a conversation. Eventually, you will be ready to sell anything when you seize a potential opportunity. Being able to sell is the foundation of any successful career. If you’re a manager, you need to sell vision and leadership to the team members. Even as an employee, you need to sell your ideas to the boss.
Excellent communication skills
Being able to articulate your ideas is vital to any profession. I’m a true believer that when it comes to speaking — practice makes perfect. Being a salesperson is the best opportunity to continually practice your pitch, relationship-building, and rejection-handling skills. Every day, you build on your ability to persuade, influence, and inspire. These skills will follow you down any career path or life situation you encounter.
Increase your confidence
Your first couple of months in sales will be brutal, especially if you have to make cold calls. But we all started there. The best thing you can do is dust yourself off and keep trying. You’re going to close a deal, eventually. And when you do, you’ll see what makes sales so rewarding and addictive. Closing deals will also make you more confident since that represents the impact you caused and the trust you built.
After a few more successful deals, you will be able to talk to strangers and turn them into your customers. This boost in confidence benefits you in all areas of your life, inside and outside the office.
Become a networking pro
One of the key benefits of a sales job is just how many people you can meet. You are building up your own network from your daily job. Every call you make and every meeting you schedule expands your personal brand and professional reputation. Your sales skills and experience in the field will help you craft the perfect resume and cover letter, and the connections you’ve made over the years will help you get your foot in the door at the right company, or even the right position.
