There are plenty of jobs you could have picked before sales, but here you are anyways. That’s probably because you — like me, fell into it.
Put it this way, there’s no ‘BA of Sales’. You probably didn’t spend $60k or more at a university just to graduate into cold calling, qualifying and closing. But let’s face it, you’re also probably making enough money to live a trendy lifestyle and you figure it’s too difficult to transition out of the role and make the same kind of income.
According to US News and World Report and the Bureau of Labor Statistics the median annual salary for a sales rep is $57k while some of the better paid reps (and probably higher performing) are making upwards of $121k – plenty to start paying back those hefty student loans, and definitely more than their 20 something college counterparts. Conversely, the BLS reports that the average household income in 2017 ranged from $21,944 to $50,752 peaking between the ages of 35-44. What does that tell you?
That maybe it’s not about money.
Or maybe that it’s only been about the money.
Because the hours are long, but the tasks are tedious. The skills are powerful but the growth is limiting. The earnings have the potential to be big, but your worth and value only correlate to your last number.
The problem is, we live in the age of ‘immediate.’ This means we – similar to that client you’ve been prospecting for the last 8 months, want the quickest path to our ROI. It’s not that sales houses the highest netting jobs – in fact, according to a list created by our friends at Glassdoor, NONE of the 25 highest paying jobs in America are sales roles. It’s simply that they’re the easiest to slip into and the most confusing to move out of.
So where does that leave us?
Well, needless to say, if you’ve survived the on going pressure, day to day grind and harsh hourly rejections, you’ve got some serious grit. If you’re sitting pretty at the top, chances are you’ve exceeded your performance goals and advanced in the art of overcoming objections. And if there’s still something about sales that keeps you just a tiny bit entertained in spite of the exhaustion, your endurance is far beyond the average.
The complicated truth is, I don’t absolutely hate sales either.
I live for building relationships. I get a high off the rush of the close. I thrive off learning and listening to my clients to come up with solutions (sometimes for the problems they didn’t know they had). Obviously the money is a huge plus. And I’ve developed an immunity to rejection that’s so powerful, I wouldn’t even hesitate to ask Brad Pitt to a coffee date if I had the chance.
And for some that’s enough to stay – but for me, I know that no matter how similar it looks, no matter how much it will have in common, no matter how parallel the job – the work I’ll do will be Anything but Sales.
Because the one thing I know for certain, is that sales will never fulfill me as a role –
Because Sales is not who I am. Sales is simply my most valuable skill.
So maybe there is a way to keep the parts of the job you love, while finding new avenues for the parts that no longer motivate you. Maybe it’s about re-appraising the significance of your skill set. Maybe, just maybe, the most sustainable way to the future we’re after is to understand more of the roads less traveled.
After all, we’re living in the new age work revolution – and sure, the highest paying roles may not be sales, but you can bet the highest paid executives were once-upon-a-job-role: salesmen.
Anything But Sales 