10 Benefits of a Career in Sales

Every year, millions of students worldwide work crappy jobs, live in debt, and study long and hard to chase their dream of a career in their chosen profession.

Meanwhile, many less educated people build healthy careers and gain valuable work experience in the sales profession while at the same time getting paid and supporting the economy.

Apart from a couple of part-time evening classes, I never pursued further education.

I never had a clear picture of what I wanted to be and thus had no idea what to study.

The fact I was already earning before I left school also impacted my decision.

I’d worked part-time on weekends as a post-room clerk for several months, and the lure of the full-time job and pay packet waiting for me was hard to resist.

When I was younger, I never quite understood the concept of further education.

I couldn’t figure out why people would put in so much extra time, work, and money into something that offered no guarantee of employment or financial benefits.

As a 16-year-old, I was living the dream.

I was earning money, living at home with my parents, had no commitments, and spent my weekends shopping in Manchester with friends, buying new clothes, DVDs, and computer games.

By the time I started working in sales, I was earning even more, had a car, and was out on the town three to four days per week enjoying the good life.

Aside from the rough learning curve that followed, I can honestly say that sales has been an amazingly rewarding career.

A career in sales has and still does open many doors for me and essentially acted as a catapult to get me to where I am today.

Many people underestimate the critical business experience you gain when working in business-to-business (B2B) sales.

Learning how to sell yourself and your ideas is arguably the most crucial skill in today’s business world, especially if you have ambitions to be an entrepreneur.

The Benefits of a Career in Sales

If you want to be good at what you do, one of the fundamental rules of success is that you have to love what you do. 

I love selling.

I am deeply passionate about my profession, which is why I love teaching people about it.

What you don’t know about me, though, is that I actually worked in sales for almost three years before I even realized it was a profession, and only then did the love affair begin.

Before this, I just looked at all of my jobs as a job. Something to put money in my pocket until I finally found a profession I wanted to do.

Nobody ever mentioned selling when the career counsellors came to my high school, so how was I supposed to know it was an option?

After a few years, I was lucky enough to receive valuable sales training from someone with a strong passion for sales.

This not only changed my career but, ultimately, my entire life. 

Through my career in sales, I have come to realize and appreciate many of the commonly untold benefits of working in the sales profession, and I would like to share my top 10 with you now.

Some you may know, some you may have forgotten, and others you may have never considered.

1. No Training or Experience Required

You can get a job in the selling profession without any prior training, experience, or education.

That’s amazing, isn’t it?

With no initial investment of time or money, you can get a job in a profession where you can earn more money than a Doctor.

I was once out of work for a week or so when I was younger, and my mother started giving me the 3rd degree.

I bet her £10 I could go out, get the paper, and get an interview for a sales job before she got home from work. Within an hour, I had three interviews booked for the following day.

2. You Can Earn As You Learn

With luck, the company you work for will provide some form of basic sales training. If not, you can always educate yourself with books, podcasts or free videos.

If you wanted to study to be a doctor, lawyer, or even a builder, you’d have to consider a part-time job doing something else on the side or an apprenticeship.

Either way, you will spend years working for peanuts before earning a decent salary.

In the sales profession, it does not work this way.

If you’re dedicated enough to learn sales skills and techniques in your spare time while working a sales job, within six months, you can earn serious money.

3. Unlimited Earning Potential

When you work in the profession of selling, you have unlimited earning potential.

Waaw!

Do you know of any other profession where that is possible?

Sure, people who work in hard labour jobs like plumbers or builders can do double the amount of work and make lots more money, but they’re still limited by time.

There are only so many hours in a day and days in the week, right?

When you master how to sell, you can and will multiply your earnings.

Not only will your company be throwing pay rises and other additional incentives to keep you on board, but your sales results will snowball too.

The more sales you make, the more happy clients you will serve, and the more happy clients you serve, the more referrals you will get.

And this is just the beginning of the snowball effect.

I used to pride myself in offering my clients the best service possible throughout the sale, and I would try to serve my employers the same way.

Today, I run a consultancy that runs almost solely on my past clients and contacts and on the referrals they give to others.

4. A Job for Life

If you’re good at selling, you will never be out of a job.

Think about it, when the economy is booming, who do companies want most?

And when the economy is dying, who do companies need most to survive?

Salespeople, right?

No economy could ever survive without salespeople, it’s just not possible. You just need to look in any job section in a newspaper or website to see the number of sales jobs available compared to the other professions.

Sales jobs are always available, and good salespeople are always in demand.

If you can master sales, you will essentially make yourself recession-proof and guarantee yourself work for life.

5. The Learning Never Stops

One of the things I’ve come to love about the selling profession is that you never stop learning.

Even after more than 25 years in the profession, I can honestly say I learn something new every day.

You’ll realize that there are a vast number of skills, tactics, and techniques to learn, and you won’t be able to take them all in at once.

I used to schedule a calendar reminder to read my favourite sales book at least once every year.

You’d be amazed at how many new things you discover from reading the same book ten years later.

6. Fresh Challenges Every Day

You should also love the profession of selling because you get to face new challenges every day.

If you don’t enjoy constant challenges, a career in sales is not for you.

If you do, imagine how easy it is to get out of bed every morning, excited about what new challenges await you in the day ahead.

It’s genuinely motivational.

7. That Competitive Buzz

You have to love selling for the competitive buzz you get every day.

Whether competing with your colleagues, other teams, or even yourself, you cannot beat the motivational feeling of a good competitive environment.

Many studies have been done about how working in a competitive environment can bring the best out of people.

Working in a competitive environment helps you stay on your toes, raise your game, and constantly work at improving yourself, which are all healthy for the mind.

8. Fast-Track Career Options

Selling is one of the only professions where you can really fast-track your career.

In my first sales job, I went from working as a cashier to being one of the key telesales reps within 12 weeks.

I can also remember my younger sister getting promoted to sales manager for a small company just a week after she started, with only six months prior sales experience.

I went from being a failed, bankrupt sales loser to becoming a highly respected sales leader in less than ten years.

Anything is possible in this profession, you just have to work hard and believe in yourself.

9. Freedom to Be Yourself

I’m sure you will agree that the freedom to be yourself is a fantastic job perk.

In most jobs, you can be yourself when you speak to colleagues, but when communicating with clients, you often have to pretend to be someone else.

In the profession of selling, you do, of course, have to match your client’s personas, but people will also buy from you because they like you, so being yourself and getting your personality across will ultimately increase your earnings.

10. The Freedom to Work from Anywhere

I am writing this article and deliver quite a lot of my sales and leadership coaching from my home office in a small suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark.

I moved here in 2006 from the UK, where I was born and raised.

Since then, I have conducted business in over 70 countries and have thousands of students in 128 countries.

Working in the profession of selling gives you the amazing opportunity and freedom to travel the world.

I could honestly pack up my suitcase right now and go and sit on a beach in the Maldives and work, provided the internet connection was good enough.

Whether you run your own company, work for a large enterprise, or maybe even a small start-up, you will come across some amazing career opportunities in sales that can take you anywhere.

The world is your oyster with modern technology and your amazing selling skills.