Check out our curated list of best sales books for various roles, skills, or needs, and get a sneak peek into what you’ll learn from each book.
Read our guide for information on how to choose and maximize your sales career path, including the skills and training needed to excel.
Check out all you need to know about the sales career path, including how to determine it's for you and the best jobs with the right compensation. Then take a look at our full list of related sales career articles at the bottom:
Will you love sales or will it make you miserable? A sales career can yield significant earning potential, and the flexibility to translate skills across different industries. But there are other factors to consider. Below are key questions to decide if sales is the career for you. While aversion to any of these scenarios may not be a deal-breaker, weigh the pros and cons.
A big part of sales is customers repeatedly saying “No” to buying your product or service. Do you have the creativity to counter objections? Do you have the resiliency to learn from and push through rejections?
Meeting and exceeding revenue quotas is usually central to sales. Failing to do so, particularly on a consistent basis, could cost you your job. To some, that’s healthy motivation. To others, it’s a cause for sleeplessness. Consider where you fit on this spectrum.
Sales often requires selling to complete strangers, in which you’re expected to build trust and relationships. Does that fit your personality? Are you an extrovert or an introvert?
Sales jobs often offer a lot of autonomy. Are you self-motivated, without need of hand-holding and constant instruction from your boss?
Many sales roles have long sales cycles. The time between first contact with a prospective customer and the time that customer agrees to purchase your product could be months, sometimes years. Is that something you can handle?
You might find a sales career appealing, but could use training to sharpen your sales acumen and technique. Are you willing to put in that time, work and possibly money? To answer that question, be on the lookout for sales tips and trainings to determine whether or not a sales career is right for you.
Once you’ve determined a sales is the career for you, the next step is considering a sales career path. The career path represents the type of sales career to pursue, depending on your personality, goals, and personal life. Here are the most common career paths you can take:
Inside salespeople typically conduct all their selling activities remotely or from an office. They correspond with prospective customers via phone, email and/or Zoom. Inside sales usually allows you to reach more customers, but might limit your ability to form personal connections and relationships that you would in outside sales.
Unlike inside sellers, outside salespeople primarily meet with prospective customers in person, at the customer’s location of business, or a neutral spot like a restaurant. Outside sales may limit how many customers you can reach, but allows you to formulate deeper personal connections and relationships you might not be able to with inside sales.
Hybrid sales is a combination of inside and outside sales. You’d typically meet your most lucrative prospective customers in person, and correspond with all other customers via phone, email and/or Zoom.
Sales operations focuses less on actual selling, and more on sales processes, analysis and strategy. You likely wouldn’t communicate with customers, but rather internally with the sales team, to assist with customer or product trends, sales data analysis, and forecasting. These tasks would primarily be done through a customer relationship management program (CRM).
If both sales and marketing are interesting to you, there are hybrid marketing roles that support the sellers within a business. For example, there are marketing roles that generate marketing-qualified leads which are then distributed to salespeople. Marketing also often involves creating tools for sales reps, as well as helping reps close larger and more challenging pieces of business.
The following is a list of career levels you’ll encounter as you climb the career ladder, in order from Entry-Level to Executive, including common job roles and their responsibilities. Also included are average experience required and average salary ranges, which takes into account any performance-based commissions.
A position usually requiring less than one year related experience, with an average annual salary of $35,000.
Sales development representatives’ primary responsibility is generating qualified leads for higher-level salespeople. Initiating the sales process entails researching and reaching out to potential customers who might be interested in the products or services the company sells.
Specific responsibilities include:
Sales support staff are responsible for supporting sales reps. This would include a variety of tasks that allow sales reps to focus on actually selling and closing deals, such as administrative and clerical tasks, or more time-consuming projects.
Specific responsibilities include:
A position usually requiring 2-5 years related experience, with an average annual base salary of $50,000.
Sales reps are responsible for representing and selling their company’s products to prospective and/or existing consumers, and actually closing deals. At times, you’ll be tasked with generating your own leads. Other times, the SDR (above) will do this for you. The products you’re selling are typically consumer goods (e.g. pharmaceuticals, cell phones, etc.).
Specific responsibilities typically include one or more of the following:
Account executives are largely responsible for the same functions as sales reps (directly above), but specifically selling marketing and advertising services (rather than consumer goods).
Account managers focus on post-sales activity. They solidify business relationships with existing customers, ensuring continued usage of products or services as well as possible expansion of business. This is often a function of inside and outside sales, but is sometimes an entirely separate, independent role.
Specific responsibilities include:
A position usually requiring 5-7 years related experience, with an average annual base salary of $65,000.
A step up from a sales rep or account manager, a specialist will have a deep understanding of the company’s products and services, and how to close higher-level deals with greater authority. For example, a sales engineer is a specialist at a tech company who understands the product deeply and can deal with the more technical questions and objections throughout the sales process.
Specific responsibilities include:
A marketing manager is responsible for promoting their company’s product or service to their respective market of potential customers. They’re also often responsible for disseminating key information to the sales team, to better equip the reps to close business.
Specific responsibilities include:
A position usually requiring 7-10 years related experience, with an average annual base salary of $80,000.
A sales manager oversees, leads and coaches a team of sales reps. They are responsible for ensuring their sales reps are meeting key qualitative and quantitative individual performance goals as well as overall team goals.
Specific responsibilities include:
A position usually requiring 10+ years related experience, with an average annual salary exceeding $100,000.
The VP of Sales or National Sales Director focuses on broader, company-wide initiatives, designed to maximize sales growth, market-share and relevance. From a pure net perspective, they also manage budgets to ensure healthy profit margins as well as returns on investments.
Specific responsibilities include:
A CRO is responsible for all the company’s revenue streams, and all activities that generate revenue. CROs are the leading drivers of the company’s revenue growth. They are accountable for ensuring all departments integrate and work well together in driving overall revenue.
Specific responsibilities typically include:
Once you’ve considered the pros and cons of a sales career, it’s time to start pursuing job openings. How you look at job descriptions can be the difference between immediate job misery and the start of a rewarding, long-lasting, fruitful adventure.
There are typically three key buckets of the job description to consider, to make sure it’s the right job for you. Then, within each bucket are specific factors, which we illustrate as follows:
For almost any sales role, there are common skills to master or at least be super mindful of. Focusing on these skills will increase your chances of meeting and exceeding revenue quotas, and setting yourself up for a successful sales career. Specific skills can usually be lumped into three overarching buckets, as follows:
Sales Training programs help you become more effective at selling. Most types of training include overlapping sales principles, from prospecting, to building customer rapport, and closing deals. The following are different types of Sales Training Options you can pursue to hone your craft, depending on your particular circumstances:
This training is typically paid for and endorsed by your employer. It’s usually centered around the industry in which you’re selling, but often will include overarching selling principles that apply across industries. For example, you’re selling for a manufacturing company, and the training goes over the specifics of manufacturing, but also the general principles of customer rapport.
Sales Classes are usually paid out of pocket, as something you attend on your own for personal growth of sales acumen. There are different styles and approaches for each class, but often overlapping in the most critical sales principles. Classes are conducted online or in-person, though with the pandemic, online courses are more available now than ever.
You can get a wealth of options by doing a Google search for “Top 10 Best Sales Training Courses for 2021”, or by checking out this article from Sales Hacker on the top 40 sales training programs.
If your budget is tight, there are still great free courses, videos and articles to dig into, to sharpen your craft. HubSpot.com’s program is a good option, as is Lessonly.com.
Sales conferences are usually company-paid and sponsored. They’re a way to bring the entire organization’s sales team together or in segmented teams. This kind of environment promotes team-building and camaraderie. It also gets everyone on the same page about specific products or services, company or division-wide initiatives, sales skills and strategies.
Webinars are live, online educational presentations during which participating viewers can submit questions to the presenter and also leave comments. Some are free, some come with a fee. Like many of the other types of training programs above, these will vary in style and approach but usually cover many of the same overarching fundamentals of sales.
There are a wealth of options to buy online. The key is finding one that’s not only well-reviewed but most suited to your industry and personality. For a list of some of the best, check out Hubspot’s article on the top 44 sales books of all time.
These are live presentations done by experts in various aspects of selling. There’s usually a fee, so do your research on the presenter’s background and credentials, reviews of previous lectures as well as what will be covered.
If you have the budget or are funded by your employer, I highly recommend pursuing courses for sales training certification. These are programs statistically proven to increase the sales efficacy. Below is a list of some of the most highly rated sales certification programs of 2021, along with prices, forums and approaches.
Negotiation Experts offers two options: Either three days in-classroom training (12 students max) for $2,700; Or six 4.5-hour online remote delivery sessions online for $2,410. This program is unique in that it combines sales and procurement negotiators together, using real-life commercial buyer-seller simulations.
Action Selling offers online sales training beginning at $895 that includes two days of in-classroom training. Aims to train sales professionals to improve revenue, grow margins, and become effective sales coaches.
Dale Carnegie offers in-person training for $1,995, or live online sales training for $1,795. The program includes three consecutive days (9am to 5pm) for in-person and 2-hour weekly sessions lasting eight weeks for online sales training. The training has a customer-first approach.
J Barrows offers onsite training for $10,000, or asynchronous online sales training seminars for $420 per year per person. Onsite training is for a full day. Online training consists of three 2-hour sessions over two weeks. Self-paced online learners have one year’s access to the online portal. This program is designed more for training an entire team, aimed at engaging your sales force and maximizing sales skill sets.
The Brooks Group offers six 2-hour sessions of online synchronous instructor-led training, for $1,990. This program focuses on building customer relationships.
CPSP offers a six-week online course for $695. This program covers how you communicate in different settings, including one-to-one, in a group, in a meeting, during presentations, online, and on the phone. It’s suited for almost any level of experience or circumstance (e.g. Sales Rep, Executive, CEO, Business Owner, etc.).
CPSL offers a six-week online course for $795. This program is specifically geared for C-level professionals (e.g. VPs of Sales, Sales Directors, etc.), covering sales leadership and how to influence the behavior of your sales professionals to increase performance and revenue.
There are plenty of pros and cons of a sales career. First consider the numerous factors to determine if it’s the right career for you. Next, consider what type of career path you want to embark on, exploring common career trajectories and job roles. Once you’re ready to look for sales jobs, you’ll want to consider the kinds of industries and companies to pursue, as well as best sales skills and training options to maximize your chances of a successful sales career.
Check out our recent and related articles on the topic:
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