Making a Career of Sales

As many readers of this blog will surely agree, there is no doubt that sales can be an excellent and satisfying career, and I thought you might appreciate my recent article on the subject for the International Journal of Sales Transformation.

I am encouraged by the work being done by a growing number of schools, educational establishments and bodies like the UK’s Institute of Sales Professionals (ISP) to establish and promote selling as an attractive and respected profession.

Sales as a career offers the potential for immense upward mobility, diverse career transitions, and opportunities for personal reinvention. And yet this very flexibility means that salespeople who think of what they are doing as merely a current job rather than a long term professional career will probably never fulfil their potential.

I want to make the case for thinking of sales as a professional career that benefits from conscious planning and intentional decisions about what the next step could and should be without being locked into a linear development path.

This became very obvious to me in the early stages of my sales career. I had spent a couple of years selling computers for a relatively small organisation that had no real strategy for developing their salespeople other than training us about the product. Despite this, I was successful and was quickly promoted to team leader, but something was missing.

I realised that if I was to make a long-term success of selling, I needed to join a company that not only had good products but also believed in developing its people, and so I started to research my next move. I was clear that I needed to join a company that saw sales as a profession. That company was HP, and the values I developed whist working for them laid the foundations for the rest of my future career.

In addition to excellent, comprehensive and ongoing training, I found myself in a culture that believed in the importance of personal development. My first sales manager - in addition to coaching me in the here-and-now - encouraged me to think about where I wanted to take my career and how I might prepare myself for my next role.

Entering the profession

One of the great things about a career in sales is the number of different ways in which you can enter the profession. Supported and encouraged by organisations like the ISP, a  number of companies offer apprenticeships to school leavers or graduates who are thinking of getting into sales for the first time, often as potential SDRs or BDRs.

But it’s also very possible for people to join the sales profession after success in other roles. Many successful new salespeople bring invaluable real-world industry experience from roles in engineering, finance, consulting, operations, customer service or product management. The key thing here is to equip them with the sales skills that will complement their business experience.

Choosing the right company culture

If sales is to be more than just a job, if we are to give ourselves the chance to fulfil our potential, then I believe we need to do so within an organisation that has a culture and values that are consistent with our own. This, for me, is a critical consideration when considering any career move and something that we ignore at our peril.

The importance of self-awareness and continuing development

If we are to realise our full potential, then we need to start with an honest appraisal of our current strengths and weaknesses. What are we good at? What are we bad at? What do we need to be better at? This isn’t just about our current experience or our existing sales skills and competencies (although these obviously play a significant role) - it’s also about an awareness of our attitudes, our behaviours, our self-limiting beliefs and the effect these can have on our performance.

There is a wide spectrum of roles within sales - and each one benefits from a different combination of experience, skill, attitude and behaviour. This can both shape our perception of the roles we might want to aspire to and help us to identify how we need to develop if we are to successfully apply for and succeed in our next role.

But this self-awareness also needs to apply if we are perfectly happy in the job we are currently doing. I cannot think of a single sales role that is going to be unaffected by the continuing changes in customer buying behaviour and the rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence. If we allow ourselves to stand still, we may no longer have a current job, let alone a future career.

Moving into management

It is not uncommon for top sales performers to be promoted to sales management. But this may not be the best move for either the new manager or the organisation. The qualities that made a salesperson successful are not necessarily the ones that will make the same person a good manager. They may have succeeded through their own efforts previously, but they will fail as a manager unless they succeed through others.

Managers must be able to resist the temptation to take over deals and have instead to help their salespeople to think clearly, to make the right decisions and to implement the appropriate actions. Managers who lack the confidence to let their salespeople take responsibility will inevitably fail to develop the necessary confidence in their salespeople.

Moving into management is not going to be the right next step for a number of successful salespeople. It requires a different form of responsibility and a different set of skills - and it would not be unusual for the manager to earn less money than they did as a salesperson. Both successful salespeople and their sales leadership need to consider carefully whether such a move is in the best interests of everyone concerned.

Last, but by no means least, sales managers have a particular responsibility to help every member of their team to reach their potential, both in the immediate and the longer term. One of the most satisfying aspects of sales management is seeing the people you are responsible for not just achieve their numbers but also develop as individuals and team players.

Alternative career paths

There are many alternatives to climbing the sales management ladder. These include lateral moves between different roles such as new business, account management or channel management. A move into Key Account Management - taking responsibility for an organisation’s most valuable customers - can be a particularly rewarding promotion. And, of course, these lateral experience-building moves can help prepare for a future career in sales management for the right person.

From sales management to sales leadership

Successful sales leadership - the responsibility of running an entire sales organisation and all the sales managers and salespeople - requires yet another set of competencies. In addition to the obvious ability to achieve through others, sales leaders need to establish, communicate and implement effective strategies and ensure that the sales managers whom they depend on reflect the required attitudes, behaviours and competencies.

Of course, overall leadership of the sales function also requires the political ability to work effectively with the executives responsible for all the other business departments and functions as well as with the CEO and board. Leaders also need to ensure that managers at every level play their full part in developing the long-term potential of every member of the sales organisation as well as delivering the expected sort-term results.

Sales as a springboard to other roles

Of course, success in sales (particularly when associated with the development of broader business acumen) can also act as a springboard for career moves outside the sales function, most obviously to the CEO of the organisation, but also into entrepreneurship or advisory roles.

My advice

If you’re not yet in sales, but are thinking of taking a first job in sales, I’d urge you to take up the opportunity - and to think carefully which role and which organisation you want to start your career in. Your initial choice can have a huge impact on your subsequent success.

And if you are currently in sales - at whatever level - I’d encourage you to think carefully about both what you need to do to be successful in your current role, as well as what options and career choices you might want to pursue in the future, and who can help you to get there.

And if you are involved in any sort of sales management or leadership position, please do all that you can to help your team members to both understand and achieve their potential. This - and not just the results you deliver - will become your legacy.

I urge you to sign up for the always excellent International Journal of Sales Transformation - the latest edition includes a range of articles on the theme of "career progression in sales". 

Bonus content - Tips for Salespeople and Sales Managers

Here a few of my "top tips" for both salespeople and sales managers - salespeople first: 

Sales Tips 101: Making a Career of Sales

1: Take responsibility for your own self-development

You may be fortunate enough to work for a company that has an affective sales training program – but not matter how good that is, you still need to take responsibility for your own personal development by following leading experts on social media and keeping up to date with the latest books and articles.

2: Prepare for your next career move

Think about where your career in sales might take you. What sort of roles best suit your talents and your temperament? How might you need to develop as an individual to prepare yourself for those roles? What skills or experiences might you need to acquire?

3: Work for people and organisations you can respect

A  salesperson’s life is challenging enough without compounding that by having to work for a manager or an organisation who you cannot respect, or in an environment that supresses you rather than supports you. If you find yourself in that situation, move on before it corrupts you.

4: Seek out role models you can learn from

In any sales organisation, there will always be salespeople who seem to have mastered the art better than their colleagues. Seek them out, develop friendly relations with them, and learn what you can from their success.

5: Be prepared to give back

As you advance in your sales career, never forget what it felt like to be a newcomer to the profession. Be prepared to help out and to share your experience and wisdom – but also be ready to learn from the fresh perspectives that newcomers can often bring.

Sales Management Tips 101: Making a Career of Sales

1: Are you really sure you want to be a manager?

Moving into sales management is the most obvious career path for successful salespeople, but not always the best one. Before accepting a management role, be sure that you are ready to accept the responsibilities that go with it.

2: Invest time in coaching

Coaching your salespeople is one of the most effective ways of driving performance improvement over both the short- and the long-term. Make sure that you devote enough time to this critical responsibility, and make sure you are teaching them how to think rather than telling them what to do.

3: Respect is more important than friendship

One of the mistakes that newly promoted managers sometimes make is to behave as if former colleagues are still their “mates”. Friendly relations are, of course, important, but the most important thing you need to earn is their respect - and sometimes this means having tough and honest conversations.

4: Be prepared to constructively confront negative behaviours

Respect is earned through a willingness to constructively confront negative attitudes or behaviours, even if the individual concerned is “delivering the numbers”. Ignoring such behaviours simply stores up trouble for the future. You need to confront it now and not put it off.

5: Leave a legacy

One of the most satisfying aspects of sales management is the feeling that you have helped others to succeed, and to become better salespeople themselves. That is perhaps the greatest legacy you can leave when you move on.