B2B sales can be one of the most rewarding career paths you can choose.

There are very few careers where you can enter without a specific degree, develop highly valuable commercial skills, earn good money and potentially progress from an entry-level position into senior roles within a relatively short period of time.

Picture of b2b sales trainer, David Craig White, smiling — B2B sales can be one of the most rewarding career paths you can choose.

But B2B sales is also very different from traditional consumer sales.

Deals are usually more complex. Sales cycles are longer. More people are involved in making decisions. And succeeding requires much more than simply being confident or good at talking to people.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the fundamentals of how B2B sales works, the different roles you’ll find within a typical sales organisation, the career paths available and the characteristics I believe you need if you want to succeed.

Whether you’re considering your first sales job, moving from B2C into B2B sales or simply trying to understand how modern sales organisations work, this guide should give you a solid foundation.

Watch the Introduction to B2B Sales Workshop

The workshop above gives you a complete introduction to B2B sales and covers the same core topics as this guide.

If you prefer reading, or simply want to refer back to a particular topic, I’ve broken everything down in more detail below.

What is B2B Sales?

B2B stands for business-to-business.

In simple terms, B2B sales happens when one business sells its products or services to another business.

A software company selling accounting software to other companies is operating in B2B sales. A recruitment company selling recruitment services to employers is B2B. A manufacturer supplying components to another manufacturer is also B2B.

This is different from B2C sales, which stands for business-to-consumer.

In B2C, the business sells directly to an individual consumer. Retailers, supermarkets and many ecommerce companies are obvious examples.

Some companies operate in both markets.

A telecommunications provider, for example, might sell personal mobile phone contracts to consumers while also having an entire division dedicated to providing telecommunications services to businesses.

The basic distinction is simple, but the sales environments themselves can be very different.

B2B Sales vs B2C Sales

The biggest difference between B2B and B2C isn’t simply who you are selling to. It is the complexity of the buying decision.

A consumer can walk into a shop, look at two products and make a purchasing decision within minutes.

In B2B sales, that same decision can take weeks or months and involve several people across the organisation.

There are three differences you will notice particularly quickly.

Longer sales cycles

B2B sales cycles tend to be longer because companies usually need more information before committing to a purchase.

The buyer may need to understand the product, evaluate alternatives, speak with colleagues, build an internal business case, secure a budget and receive approval before anything can move forward.

The larger and more expensive the purchase, the more complex that process can become.

Higher deal values

B2B purchases also tend to involve larger order values.

You might be selling something worth a few thousand pounds, tens of thousands or considerably more.

As the financial commitment increases, so does the amount of scrutiny applied to the decision.

That has a direct impact on how you sell.

A buyer making a significant investment will normally need more than an impressive presentation or a persuasive sales pitch.

They need to understand why the investment makes commercial sense.

Multiple stakeholders

Perhaps the biggest difference is the number of people involved.

In B2C sales, you might only need to convince one person.

In B2B sales, you could be dealing with the person who will use the product, their manager, a department head, finance, procurement, IT, legal and ultimately the executive responsible for approving the purchase.

Different stakeholders will also care about different things.

The user might care about whether the product makes their job easier. Their manager might care about productivity.

Finance will care about cost. IT may care about security or implementation. The senior executive might simply want to understand the business impact.

Learning how to manage those different interests is a major part of becoming good at B2B sales.

Inbound vs Outbound Sales

Another important concept to understand is the difference between inbound and outbound sales.

The easiest way to remember it is this:

Outbound sales means you contact the buyer. Inbound sales means the buyer contacts you.

Most modern B2B companies use a combination of both.

What is inbound sales?

Inbound sales normally starts with marketing activity designed to attract potential customers to the business.

That could include search engine optimisation, content marketing, email campaigns, social media, paid advertising, webinars or other forms of demand generation.

A potential customer might search Google for a problem they are trying to solve, discover an article on your company’s website and eventually request a product demonstration.

They have effectively raised their hand and shown some level of interest.

That opportunity can then be passed to sales.

Typical sources of inbound opportunities include:

Organic search and SEO
Content marketing
Email marketing campaigns
Paid advertising
Social media
Webinars and events
Website enquiries and demo requests

Inbound sales is therefore generally more marketing-driven because marketing is responsible for creating the awareness or demand that causes the potential customer to approach the business.

What is outbound sales?

Outbound sales works in the opposite direction.

Instead of waiting for potential customers to discover the company, the sales team proactively identifies the businesses and people they want to speak with.

The salesperson might research a particular company, identify the right decision-maker and contact that person directly.

Outbound sales activities commonly include cold calling, cold email, social selling, LinkedIn prospecting, networking, events and customer referrals.

It is normally much more sales-driven than inbound.

In reality, the distinction isn’t always completely clean. A salesperson might contact somebody who has previously visited the website, attended a webinar or interacted with the company on LinkedIn.

The important thing is understanding the basic principle.

With inbound, demand comes towards you. With outbound, you go out and try to create the opportunity yourself.

Most B2B organisations ultimately blend the two.

B2B Sales Team Roles and Structures

One of the first things that confuses people entering B2B sales is the number of different job titles.

Unfortunately, there is no universal system.

A Business Development Representative in one company might be doing almost exactly the same job as a Sales Development Representative in another.

An Account Executive might only manage qualified opportunities in one business while being responsible for the entire sales process somewhere else.

Job titles also vary between industries, countries and individual companies.

Rather than becoming too concerned about the terminology, focus on understanding what each person is actually responsible for.

There are, however, several roles you will see repeatedly.

Business Development Representative (BDR)

A Business Development Representative, usually shortened to BDR, is typically responsible for helping generate new sales opportunities.

In some organisations, the role is heavily operational.

The BDR might research target companies, identify potential buyers, source contact information and build prospect lists that are then passed to other members of the sales team.

In other companies, the BDR will also contact those prospects directly.

They may therefore be responsible for researching prospects, sending cold emails, making cold calls and booking meetings.

This is where some of the confusion begins, because many businesses would call that second version of the role an SDR instead.

When applying for a BDR position, don’t rely on the title alone. Look carefully at the responsibilities in the job description.

Sales Development Representative (SDR)

A Sales Development Representative, or SDR, is normally focused much more heavily on actively engaging potential customers.

Their job is typically to create conversations with prospects and book qualified meetings for Account Executives.

An SDR might spend their day researching companies, writing emails, making cold calls, connecting with prospects on LinkedIn and following up with people who have shown some level of interest.

For many people, this is their first job in B2B sales.

It can be a tough role because you are dealing with rejection every day, but it is also one of the fastest ways to develop strong sales fundamentals.

You learn how to start conversations, deal with objections, communicate value and get comfortable speaking with people you don’t know.

The important thing to remember is that BDR and SDR titles are often interchangeable.

One company might employ SDRs to perform outbound prospecting while another calls exactly the same people BDRs.

Again, focus on the job rather than the title.

Account Executive (AE)

The Account Executive, usually shortened to AE, is one of the main closing roles in B2B sales.

In a traditional sales organisation, the SDR books the meeting and the Account Executive takes responsibility for managing the opportunity from that point onwards.

An AE might therefore be responsible for discovery meetings, qualification, demonstrations, presentations, stakeholder management, proposals, negotiation and ultimately closing the deal.

The role becomes more complex as deal sizes increase.

If you are selling a relatively straightforward product with a short sales cycle, you might only have one or two conversations before reaching a decision.

If you are selling a complex solution worth tens or hundreds of thousands, you could be managing an opportunity for several months and speaking with multiple stakeholders throughout the process.

What is a full-cycle Account Executive?

Not every company employs SDRs.

In some businesses, the Account Executive is responsible for everything from finding the prospect to closing the customer.

This is normally described as a full-cycle Account Executive role.

A full-cycle AE might therefore have to:

Identify target companies
Research prospects
Make cold calls
Send outbound emails
Book meetings
Run discovery calls
Present or demonstrate the solution
Manage the sales process
Negotiate
Close the deal

Whether a company uses specialised SDRs or full-cycle Account Executives often depends on deal value and sales complexity.

When deal values are relatively low, having separate people responsible for prospecting and closing may not make financial sense.

As deal sizes and complexity increase, splitting those responsibilities can become much more efficient.

Customer Success Manager (CSM)

A Customer Success Manager, usually shortened to CSM, normally becomes involved once somebody has become a customer.

Their job is to help make sure the customer successfully adopts and uses the product or service they have purchased.

Depending on the organisation, the CSM might be responsible for onboarding, training, ongoing support, customer adoption, relationship management and retention.

The role can be particularly important in subscription businesses such as SaaS companies.

Winning a customer is only valuable if that customer continues using the product and remains with the company.

Customer Success therefore exists to help make sure customers achieve what they originally wanted to achieve when they made the purchase.

Account Manager (AM)

An Account Manager is also responsible for existing customers, but the role will often have a stronger commercial focus than Customer Success.

Account Managers typically develop relationships with existing customers and look for ways to protect and grow those accounts.

Their responsibilities might include renewals, retention, upselling additional products and cross-selling other services.

In some organisations, Customer Success handles onboarding and product adoption before handing the relationship across to an Account Manager.

In others, the responsibilities overlap significantly.

The Account Manager effectively sits somewhere between Customer Success and new business sales.

They are not normally responsible for finding completely new customers, but they are still expected to generate revenue from the customers the business already has.

What does a typical B2B sales structure look like?

If every role existed separately, a fairly traditional structure could look something like this:

BDR → SDR → Account Executive → Customer Success → Account Management

The BDR helps identify potential prospects. The SDR contacts those prospects and books meetings.

The Account Executive manages the sales opportunity and closes the deal.

Customer Success helps onboard the new customer and make sure they are successful.

The Account Manager then nurtures and grows the commercial relationship.

In reality, very few businesses follow that structure perfectly.

One company might combine BDR and SDR responsibilities. Another might have Account Executives prospecting for themselves. Another might combine Customer Success and Account Management into one role.

As long as you understand the basic responsibilities, you’ll quickly learn how each individual company has chosen to organise them.

Career Paths in B2B Sales

One of the biggest attractions of B2B sales is the number of different directions your career can take.

That was certainly my own experience.

When I moved from consumer sales into B2B, I found the work considerably more challenging, but I was also learning far more. I was able to move from booking meetings into managing my own sales opportunities, then into leadership and eventually senior sales positions.

I’ve seen the same thing happen with many other salespeople.

If you’re good at what you do, work hard and make it clear where you want your career to go, there can be significant opportunities to progress.

The traditional sales career path

A common route might look something like this:

SDR → Account Executive → Sales Manager → Head of Sales → Sales Director or VP Sales

It isn’t the only option, and it certainly doesn’t mean everybody should become a manager.

Some of the best salespeople build extremely successful careers as individual contributors.

A senior Account Executive selling large enterprise deals can have a highly rewarding career without ever managing another salesperson.

The important thing is that B2B sales gives you options.

Moving into SDR leadership

If you work in a larger sales organisation, there may also be a separate career path within the sales development team.

You could move from SDR to Senior SDR, then Team Lead and eventually SDR Manager.

Some people use that experience as a route into broader sales leadership. Others move from SDR leadership back into an Account Executive position because they decide they want to become responsible for closing their own deals.

There is no single correct path.

Moving into Revenue Operations

Not everybody working in sales eventually discovers that they love selling.

Some people realise that they enjoy the systems, processes and operational side of the job more.

That can create a route into Sales Operations or Revenue Operations, commonly known as RevOps.

These roles often involve managing areas such as CRM systems, sales technology, processes, data, forecasting, reporting, lead management and commercial operations.

Someone who is highly organised and analytical may find that side of the business more appealing than spending their day prospecting or closing deals.

Moving into Account Management or Customer Success

You may also discover that you’re much better suited to developing existing relationships than constantly hunting for new customers.

That can make Account Management or Customer Success an attractive option.

These roles still require excellent commercial and communication skills, but the nature of the relationship with the customer is different.

Instead of continually trying to create new opportunities, you’re helping existing customers succeed, retain their business and potentially expand the relationship.

B2B sales therefore isn’t one rigid career ladder.

It’s more like a commercial foundation that can lead in several different directions.

The Benefits of a Career in B2B Sales

Moving into B2B sales was a major turning point in my own career.

Compared with the consumer sales roles I had worked in previously, I found B2B sales considerably more challenging, but also far more interesting.

I learnt about businesses, industries, technology, negotiation, communication and commercial decision-making. More importantly, I discovered a career where good performance could create opportunities surprisingly quickly.

There are several reasons I still believe B2B sales can be an excellent career choice.

1. There are relatively low barriers to entry

One of the most attractive things about sales is that you don’t necessarily need a particular academic background to get started.

Many companies recruit junior SDRs based more heavily on communication skills, personality, motivation and potential than formal qualifications.

That doesn’t mean getting your first sales job is easy.

You still need to convince somebody that you deserve an opportunity, and competition for good entry-level positions can be strong.

However, if you communicate well, show that you’re motivated and demonstrate that you’re willing to learn, there are businesses prepared to give people their first opportunity.

Compared with careers that require several years of formal education before you can even begin, that is a significant advantage.

2. You can earn while you learn

Sales is also a profession where much of your education happens while you’re actually doing the job.

You don’t necessarily need to spend years studying before you can start earning money.

Once you’re in a sales role, you’re constantly learning through experience.

You learn how buyers think. You understand how businesses make decisions. You learn how to communicate with different people, deal with objections, negotiate and solve problems.

You also become much more commercially aware.

Every conversation gives you another little piece of information about how businesses operate.

Over several years, that knowledge becomes incredibly valuable.

3. B2B sales offers strong earning potential

Sales is one of the few professional careers where your income can be directly influenced by your performance.

Most B2B sales jobs include a basic salary alongside some form of commission or variable compensation.

The exact structure varies considerably between companies.

Some businesses pay commission based on revenue. Others use targets, bonuses or more complex compensation models.

You will also see plenty of job adverts promising “uncapped commission”, although I would always recommend looking carefully at how achievable the targets actually are rather than becoming too excited by the wording in the advert.

The important point is that good B2B salespeople working for the right business can earn very good money.

As you progress towards larger deals and more senior Account Executive roles, that earning potential can increase substantially.

4. Good salespeople will always be valuable

Businesses need revenue.

That simple fact makes good salespeople valuable.

When companies are growing, they need people who can help them acquire more customers. When conditions become difficult, they still need people capable of generating revenue and protecting the business.

That doesn’t mean salespeople are literally recession-proof or that sales jobs never disappear.

Companies restructure. Markets change. Products fail. People lose jobs.

But developing a strong track record in B2B sales gives you a highly transferable commercial skill.

If you know how to prospect, communicate with buyers, manage opportunities and close business, there will always be companies interested in those abilities.

5. You are constantly developing

B2B sales creates an enormous amount of ongoing personal development.

Some of that should come from your employer. They need to teach you their product, market, customers and internal sales process.

But I strongly believe that the best salespeople take responsibility for their own development as well.

Read books. Take courses. Study your market. Listen to calls. Ask better salespeople how they approach difficult situations. Learn from customers. Pay attention to what your competitors are doing.

You don’t improve because somebody gives you a job title saying “salesperson”.

You improve because you stay curious and deliberately work on your skills.

The development also extends beyond traditional sales skills.

If you spend years selling to businesses, you naturally learn a great deal about how companies operate. You speak with leaders from different departments, learn about different industries and see hundreds of different business problems.

That commercial education is difficult to replicate elsewhere.

6. Career progression can happen quickly

I’ve rarely seen another profession where somebody can progress as quickly as they potentially can in B2B sales.

I’ve watched people move from SDR positions into Account Executive roles and then into senior commercial positions within only a few years.

Performance gives businesses a very visible way to judge whether somebody is ready for more responsibility.

If you consistently perform, learn quickly and demonstrate that you can handle more complex situations, opportunities tend to appear.

That doesn’t mean you should obsess about getting promoted every six months.

There is enormous value in spending enough time in each role to properly develop the skills you need.

For somebody starting as an SDR, for example, spending time learning how to prospect properly can create a foundation that remains useful throughout the rest of their career.

Progress quickly when you’re ready, but don’t mistake job titles for experience.

7. You have the freedom to be yourself

One of the things I particularly like about B2B sales is that being genuine is an advantage.

There is still an outdated stereotype of the salesperson who has to become some loud, overly confident version of themselves whenever they speak with a customer.

Good B2B sales doesn’t work like that.

Trust matters too much.

You’re often building relationships with people over weeks or months. You’re having multiple conversations, answering difficult questions and sometimes helping them make important business decisions.

Trying to maintain a fake sales personality throughout that process would be exhausting.

You don’t need a “sales voice”. You don’t need to pretend everything is amazing. You don’t need to behave like the stereotypical salesperson.

Be professional. Be respectful. Know your subject. Be genuine.

People tend to recognise authenticity very quickly, and in B2B sales that can become a major advantage.

8. You can have a genuine impact on businesses

I’ve spent a large part of my career working with technology companies and startups.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most has been seeing the direct impact sales can have on a business.

You bring customers into the company. Revenue grows. The company hires more people. New teams develop. Processes you helped introduce become part of the organisation.

When you’re working in a smaller or fast-growing company, that impact can be particularly visible.

There is another side to this as well.

If you’re selling a genuinely useful product or service to the right companies, you can also have a meaningful impact on the businesses you’re selling to.

You might help somebody increase revenue, reduce costs, improve productivity, solve a major operational problem or grow their own organisation.

That changes the way you think about selling.

The objective shouldn’t simply be to persuade somebody to buy whatever you’re selling.

The objective should be to understand whether you can genuinely help them and, if you can, help them make a good purchasing decision.

What Makes a Good B2B Salesperson?

There is no single personality type that makes somebody good at B2B sales.

I’ve worked with successful salespeople who are naturally outgoing and others who are relatively quiet. Some are highly analytical. Others rely much more heavily on their ability to build relationships.

You also don’t need to possess every important characteristic before you start.

Many of these skills can be developed.

However, after more than two decades working in sales, there are certain characteristics I repeatedly see in people who perform well.

Resilience

Resilience is probably the most important characteristic on the list.

Sales involves rejection, and there is no way around that.

If you’re working in new business sales, particularly in an SDR or outbound role, you will hear “no” constantly. People will ignore your emails. Prospects will reject your calls. Meetings will be cancelled. Opportunities you thought were going well will suddenly disappear.

That doesn’t stop when you become experienced.

I’ve worked in sales for decades and rejection remains part of the job.

The difference is that you learn how to deal with it.

A good salesperson doesn’t allow one unpleasant conversation to destroy the rest of their day. They can recognise that something didn’t go well, learn from it where necessary and move onto the next opportunity.

You don’t need to enjoy rejection.

You simply need enough resilience to keep going when it happens.

Without that ability, sales can become an incredibly difficult career.

Curiosity

Curiosity is one of the most underrated skills in sales.

I would much rather have a salesperson who is genuinely curious than somebody who has memorised fifty supposedly brilliant discovery questions.

A list of questions can help you prepare for a conversation, but it shouldn’t become a script.

Good discovery happens when you actually listen to what somebody tells you and become interested in their answer.

If a buyer says something unexpected, don’t immediately rush towards the next question on your list. Explore what they just told you.

Ask them what they mean. Find out why it matters. Understand how the problem affects the business and what happens if nothing changes.

That natural curiosity makes the conversation more useful for both sides.

It also improves qualification because you start understanding the customer’s real situation rather than simply collecting answers.

The best B2B salespeople often behave much more like consultants than stereotypical salespeople.

They want to understand the problem before deciding whether they have something worth selling.

People skills

You are going to deal with a huge variety of personalities in B2B sales.

Internally, you’ll need to work effectively with managers, other salespeople, marketing teams, product teams, customer success and sometimes senior leadership.

Externally, you could speak with junior employees, technical specialists, department heads and CEOs during the same sales process.

They won’t all communicate in the same way.

One buyer may be direct and want you to get to the point immediately. Another might want to talk through every detail. One person may care primarily about commercial impact while somebody else wants to understand exactly how the product works.

Strong people skills allow you to recognise those differences and adapt.

That doesn’t mean pretending to become a different person depending on who you’re talking to.

It means understanding how the other person prefers to communicate and making the conversation easier for them.

That ability becomes particularly important as you start dealing with more senior stakeholders and more complex sales.

Authenticity

Authenticity has come up repeatedly throughout this guide because I believe it is fundamental to good B2B sales.

Trust and credibility matter.

In a transactional consumer sale, somebody might meet you once, make a decision and never speak with you again.

B2B sales is different.

You can be communicating with the same buyer for weeks or months. They may introduce you to colleagues. They’ll ask questions. They’ll challenge your claims. They’ll compare what you say with competitors.

If you’re trying to maintain some artificial salesperson persona, eventually the cracks are going to appear.

Being genuine is much easier.

If you don’t know the answer to something, say so and find it.

If your product isn’t suitable for something, don’t pretend it is.

If you genuinely believe another approach would be better for the customer, tell them.

People remember that.

Credibility isn’t built by constantly trying to impress people. It’s built when your behaviour gives them reasons to trust you.

The ability to learn quickly

B2B sales constantly puts you into situations you haven’t experienced before.

A customer will ask a question nobody has asked you before. You’ll encounter a new competitor. Your company will release a new product. You’ll start selling into an industry you know very little about.

You have to be comfortable learning as you go.

That means paying attention, asking questions and actively searching for information rather than waiting for somebody to teach you everything.

The resources available to salespeople today make that considerably easier.

You can read books, watch training, use AI tools, speak with colleagues, research companies and access enormous amounts of information online.

The specific method doesn’t matter.

What matters is having the hunger to keep learning.

The faster you understand your product, market, customers and sales process, the faster you’ll normally become effective.

Adaptability

Things change constantly in B2B sales.

Companies change their processes. Leadership teams change direction. Territories get reorganised. Targets change. Products evolve. Buyers change their minds.

If every change causes you to become frustrated and complain for the next three weeks, you’re going to struggle.

That doesn’t mean blindly accepting every decision your company makes.

If something doesn’t make sense, ask why. Challenge bad decisions professionally. Push back when you genuinely believe something could hurt the business.

But learn to distinguish between a problem that deserves challenging and ordinary change that simply requires you to adapt.

The strongest salespeople are able to adjust quickly without allowing every change to derail their performance.

Competitiveness

I believe you need some degree of competitive nature to succeed in sales.

That doesn’t mean you need the outdated sales culture where everybody is shouting across the office, banging their chest and trying to prove they’re better than everybody else.

Good modern sales teams can be highly competitive while still supporting each other.

You can share advice, help colleagues and work towards team goals while still wanting to perform at a high level personally.

Sales is ultimately a performance role.

You have individual targets, individual opportunities and individual results.

If you’re ambitious, you will naturally want to improve those results.

And once you become one of the strongest performers on the team, the most useful person to compete with is often yourself.

Can you perform better than last quarter? Can you close larger deals? Can you improve your conversion rates? Can you become more effective at discovery or negotiation?

Healthy competitiveness gives you a reason to keep improving even when you’re already doing well.

Confidence and humility

Good B2B salespeople need confidence, but they also need humility.

The two should exist together.

You need enough confidence to speak with senior decision-makers, present ideas, handle objections, negotiate and challenge customers when necessary.

You cannot become intimidated every time somebody has a more senior job title than you.

At the same time, confidence can become arrogance very quickly.

Nobody wants to buy from somebody who behaves as though they know everything. Your colleagues don’t want to work with that person either.

Remain confident in your ability while still recognising that you can be wrong.

Listen when somebody knows more than you. Accept feedback. Admit when you don’t know something.

Confidence earns attention.

Humility helps earn respect.

Structure and consistency

Structure is another characteristic I have seen repeatedly in strong salespeople.

B2B sales involves managing a lot of moving parts.

You may be prospecting into dozens or hundreds of companies while simultaneously managing existing opportunities, meetings, follow-ups, proposals, internal tasks and forecasts.

Without structure, things quickly get missed.

I’ve seen talented salespeople struggle because they lacked consistency, while people who initially needed more development in their selling skills became excellent performers because they had strong processes and continually improved.

That matters because sales performance is not about occasionally having one brilliant month.

The objective is consistency.

A structured salesperson can repeat the right activities, identify where something isn’t working and refine their approach over time.

Sales skill without structure often produces unpredictable results.

Structure combined with steadily improving sales skills is much more powerful.

Communication skills

Finally, good B2B salespeople need to become excellent communicators.

That includes far more than being good at talking.

Communication means being able to explain something clearly, ask good questions and adjust your message depending on who you’re speaking with.

It also means listening properly.

In many sales conversations, listening is considerably more important than speaking.

You need to hear what the buyer is actually telling you rather than simply waiting for your turn to talk.

Your communication also changes depending on the environment.

You might speak with somebody face-to-face, over the phone or through Zoom or Google Meet. You might need to communicate an idea verbally and then summarise it clearly in an email afterwards.

Body language still matters too, even when meetings happen online.

How you sit, whether you appear distracted, your facial expressions and whether you seem genuinely engaged all influence how the other person perceives you.

Excellent communication isn’t about using impressive words.

It’s about making it easy for people to understand you, trust you and have a productive conversation with you.

Is B2B Sales the Right Career for You?

B2B sales certainly isn’t for everybody.

You will deal with pressure. You will have targets. You will experience rejection. There will be months where everything seems to go well and others where nothing appears to work.

But for the right person, it can be an incredibly rewarding career.

You can enter without following a traditional academic route, learn valuable commercial skills while earning money, progress quickly and build experience that can take you into sales, account management, customer success, operations, leadership or even entrepreneurship.

More importantly, you can spend your career learning about businesses and helping them solve real problems.

If you’re resilient, curious, comfortable dealing with people and willing to keep learning, B2B sales can open an enormous number of doors.

You don’t need to know everything before you start.

You just need to be prepared to learn.

Final thoughts

If you’re considering moving into B2B sales, my advice is to look beyond the stereotypical image of what a salesperson is supposed to be.

Modern B2B sales isn’t about talking somebody into buying something they don’t need.

Good sales is about understanding people, understanding businesses, asking intelligent questions and working out whether what you’re selling can genuinely help.

You will develop many of those skills through experience.

That is part of what makes B2B sales such an interesting career.

You never really finish learning it.

After more than two decades in sales, I’m still learning today.

And if that idea excites you rather than puts you off, B2B sales might be a very good place to start.

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