8 Careers In Sales For The Sales Enthusiast

If you’ve ever wondered what typical careers in sales look like, you have probably come across some stereotypical descriptions of the same. How many times have you thought a person in sales needs to go door-to-door, selling items and frequently having the door slammed in their face? The thing is, these depictions do a huge disservice to both the field of sales as well as the amazing talent that might enrich the profession in the future. In this article, we will see that careers in sales are incredibly rich and varied, and there are different sales job roles that you can assume within sales. Also, you might find that many roles in sales jobs have overlapping responsibilities, mostly because sales is an extremely dynamic field that benefits from people collaborating with and supporting each other at every step of the process. Let’s dive in.

Retail Sales Associate

One of the well known sales jobs is that of a retail sales associate. If you’ve ever been to a retail store, you might have seen people greeting you on the shop floor, guiding you through the entire buying process, and giving you information about the products and prices when needed. These people help us navigate the wide array of choices before us and help us make an informed decision during the moment of purchase. Also known as sales promoters, they not only have immense knowledge about the products, competition, and prices, but they are also adept at sensing the customer’s hesitation or need and making sure they successfully close the purchase. Careers in sales like those of retail sales associates are important because they not only support the sales organisation, but also the dealers who own the retail stores.

In most cases, these associates are on the company’s payroll (either directly or through a third-party), but sometimes the company shares responsibility and ownership with the dealers themselves. This encourages the dealer to be more involved in the selection as well as training of the associates. For many customers, these associates are the face of the brand and organisation.

Also Read | 8 Finance Certifications You Can Pursue Along With Graduation

Sales Development Representative

Sales representative jobs are a huge part of careers in sales. A large part of sales involves identifying prospective clients. After all, you can spend unnecessary time and effort chasing the wrong people for your products. This is what makes the sales development representative (SDR), also known as a business development representative (BDR), crucial to any sales organisation. Sales representative jobs make you spend most of your time developing and qualifying leads. What does this mean? For your career in sales, you can scout potential clients (also known as leads), email them or contact them through different cold calling methods, and try to gauge whether they are viable clients for your organisation. This last bit where you understand if it is worth putting in the time and effort to convert these leads is known as lead qualification. Only when you have qualified these leads do you hand over your list to sales representatives. In other words, you are responsible for developing the first part of the sales funnel.

A Sales Development Representative (SDR), Is Also Known As A Business Development Representative (BDR),

Inside Sales Representative

Once there is a list of leads to follow up on, the sales representative comes into the picture. These days, with most of our interactions moving online, and technology making it easier for us to connect with people remotely, inside sales representatives have started becoming more common in organisations. As a part of the sales representative jobs, your responsibilities are converting leads to clients, as well as maintaining existing relationships with clients, all within the office. As you might have guessed, sales representative jobs require you to be in constant touch with your clients through web conferencing, phone calls, emails, and other similar methods. Like almost every other sales role, you need to be keyed into your client’s needs, and you also need to be good at picking up facial and auditory cues through a video or a phone call.

Outside Sales Representative

This is one of the traditional careers in sales that is becoming less common these days. Here, you are expected to meet clients where they are—in their offices, in the retail stores, or in trade fairs. Also known as field sales, outside sales usually requires long periods of travel and staying away from the office. It can also be unstructured in the sense that you don’t have a typical desk job, or a boss keeping tabs on you in person. This means that you need to be self-motivated and enjoy working in the field where the action is. Even today, sales representatives jobs can be useful to you in developing long-term relationships with important clients. Usually, it takes time to fully convert a big client, and in such a scenario, spending time with the clients in their environment is extremely helpful.

Also Read | Careers In Finance To Look Forward To

Account Executive

Think of careers in sales like those of account executives as a natural progression from the sales representative jobs. Once you are comfortable communicating with clients and understanding their pain points (the sales representative jobs can be very valuable in obtaining real-time feedback from the field), you start to assume responsibilities that have a little bit of strategy in them. Think of it this way, you begin by understanding the aspects of sales that require on-field execution and gradually progress to those that require planning the execution elements. As an account executive, you can be involved in making presentations or giving demos when needed, understanding and addressing obstacles to conversion, helping craft targeted value propositions for different clients, and negotiating actual purchase terms with your clients. You will rely on the intel provided to you by the retail sales associates (if available) as well as your sales representatives. As expected, this can be a role with more official accountability than previous ones.

Account Manager

Before we go into this role, we should understand the difference between clients or dealers, and customers. In careers in sales or in sales jobs, anyone we sell our product to becomes our customer. However, there is a flow to this. When we as an organisation sell our products to dealers, retailers, and wholesalers, they are our clients or partners. Generally speaking, we refer to customers as people who buy the products from retail or other stores. Sometimes they are also known as end customers to make things clearer. Now, the role of an account manager starts where that of the account executive ends. Once a client has successfully been onboarded by the organisation, it is the role of the account manager to maintain these existing relationships. Most account executives can see their clients change from time to time, but account managers generally have a more stable portfolio. This is because their primary role is customer retention and growth. For partners, being an account manager when you want to have a career in sales- you are the face of the brand, making sure they have everything they need to run their business successfully.

Sales Manager

Sales managers are also known as sellout managers in certain organisations, where a distinction is made between sell-in (this is the process of selling our products to the clients or partners) and sellout (in which the clients sell to the end customers). In order for the sales funnel to be healthy, there needs to be a constant movement, right? For example, if the end customer buys products from the store shelves, there is a natural demand generated for those products, which in turn means that the organisation can sell these products to the partners without having to force these on them (as salespeople are notorious for doing). Therefore, it makes sense that someone should manage the retail sales associates, sales development representatives, and account executives if needed. Career in sales as a sales manager is even more important in places where most sales are still done through retail stores.

Sales Engineer

Taking up a career in sales as a sales engineer (also known as a trainer) will make you an important part of any organisation that sells technical products. If your products or its related processes are complex, it is your responsibility to simplify things for your clients and customers. This role is ideal for anyone who loves technology and stays updated with the advancements in their field. Your job would be to explain the product specifications to the client partners (in a bid to help them gain confidence in its salability) as well as to the retail sales associates and other frontline salespeople (so that they can convince the end customers to buy the products).

Sales Support

Career in sales as a sales support is designed to help support the frontline (client-facing) salespeople. People in these sales jobs use tools, techniques, and data to make sense of the strategy needed to execute field operations. This sales job includes giving the account and sales managers a sense of the material (or stock) available to them, the buying patterns of clients and customers alike, and the gaps in our process. Thus, career in sales as a sales support, you can provide the other sales people with much needed information and opportunities to increase sales and build more meaningful relationships with their clients.

Customer Support/Client Service

This sales job is also in a supporting capacity, but one that is essential to the success of an organisation’s sales strategy. In some organisations, it can be a separate function altogether, but even then, it is a role that is intricately linked to sales. After all, a sales job doesn’t end with the customer or client having purchased our products. Some might say that the post-sales part of the sales funnel is an underrated but extremely important part of the process. That is where we can show our partners and customers that we have their backs. The bigger (and more expensive) the purchase, the more support is required.

It is important to note that these careers in sales might have different names in different organisations, and in some cases, one or more roles might be integrated as per the requirements. The products you sell, the markets you cater to, and the size of the organisation all play a part in determining the relevant sales jobs in that company. Broadly speaking, however, these are the different roles you can look forward to, each exciting, challenging, and dynamic in its own right.

Also Read | How Can You Turn Your Passion Into Your Profession?

Aishwarya is a marketer and writer. As a marketer, she has a keen interest in creating meaningful conversations. As a writer, she loves pushing the boundaries of storytelling.