Why look for a non-sales marketing/advertising job? If you’re studying marketing, you already know sales is integral to the marketing disciplines. In the event you’re not, you need a full and comprehensive understanding of sales is one of the most important skills anyone can have in business—and life!
Nearly everything we do to achieve success at work, at home, and in social settings is based on selling.
Sales has a bad reputation. And few comprehend, especially students and recent grads, that sales is the single most important function in any organization. Without great sales people, there could be no bi-weekly salary checks, no rent for offices, money couldn’t be paid to the office supplies store, or to the outside computer engineer who keeps the company’s machines operating, sales make photocopiers (and the paper to feed ’em) possible,—it’s even responsible for the paper clips to keep desks & files tidy!
When we were children and saw a toy we wanted, how did we get it? We sold our parents! (“Mommy, buy me that toy and I’ll be good.” “Good” is the currency of pre-adolescents.)
We’ve all be selling since childhood. But somehow, as we grew up, sales became a dirty word.
At the start of my career, the country was in a deep a recession. Sales offers were coming at me from every direction. But I was a recent college grad, selling seemed to be for lesser people. My eyes were set on something better!
A few months of unemployment forced me to re-examine those sales “opportunities.” I felt embarrassed, but I accepted one. After all, I had to buy meals, pay my rent, and wear proper clothing! I was embarrassed to ask my parents for help.
Looking back, there’s nothing wrong with asking for help but refusing a “lesser first job” than one feels s/he deserves—is arrogant.
So, I became a salesman at a retail carpet store. For nearly two years after college graduation I sold carpet and tile!
I learned more in that store than I could ever have imagined. Perhaps more than I learned in 4 years of college!
I also developed an understanding of why Procter & Gamble, the undisputed worldwide marketing powerhouse, requires new brand managers, fresh out of the top 10 university MBA programs, to spend a year in the “field,” in sales!
Everything we do relating to our careers has something to do with selling, Including selling ourselves to prospective employers.
Trash the attitude, get out & learn how to sell! You don’t have to sell forever. But you’ll be better—and more valuable to your employer—at whatever you elect do for the rest of your career.
Sales will make you better at everything else you hope to do in life, professional and personal.
Because “nothing happens until somebody sells something.”