Sales Career Myths Debunked.

​We’ve all seen the job title ‘Sales Executive - £80k OTE uncapped bonus + company car + personal desk butler + 600 days’ holiday a year’ and thought, hang on, this is just another scam sales job. I know exactly what that entails: cold calling strangers all day who shout at you and threaten your family, selling double glazing while being stuck in a windowless basement that you’re only allowed to leave when you’ve hit 327% of your target.

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Before discounting sales-based jobs, let us try to set some of the common sales role myths right. Who knows, you could be missing out on your perfect career!

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True or false: You just cold call all day

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False: Most sales roles these days, especially B2B, consist of selling products or services to warm and hot leads consisting of people and companies who have a specific need that you can solve. Gone are the days of calling people while they’re having their dinner to ask them about their dreaded PPI claim. You won’t spend all day on the phone – you’ll also be meeting clients and partners, working out tailored sales plans and strategies and working with internal teams on lead generation campaigns.

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True or false: You only make money if you can hit purposely unattainable targets

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False: Granted, if you’re not any good at selling you’re not going to make much commission, but most sales roles have very attainable targets in addition to a healthy base salary – often with uncapped commission. So you’re not going to be sat at home crying into a tin of cold beans because you can’t afford dinner – you’ll be able to treat yourself to a Nandos…with a FINO side! You’ve earned it, player.

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True or false: There’s no progression in a sales job

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False: Sales is one of the best ways to start your career. It gives you great commercial understanding, bags of confidence to speak to anyone and everyone, and helps you spot opportunity in every situation. A sales person’s skills are highly transferable and can lead you anywhere!

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True or false: You can only go into sales if you’re obsessed with money and would throw your nan under a bus to close a deal

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False: Thanks to sales strategy, lead generation and the close work of marketing with sales, your leads are mostly well informed so there’s no need for you to be aggressive or pushy to sell the equivalent of ice to Eskimos. Selling a product or service you believe in to people who actually need it will make selling natural. And there’s no need to be obsessed with money – but who takes a job for free? Money is a great motivator to improve your skills and up your game month to month. It’s all about balance.

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True or false: Sales jobs being advertised are usually scams

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False: We may be biased here but we work with some of the best companies and brands in the business and have loads of great sales jobs on offer. Check them out here. Make sure you can differentiate between genuine opportunities and those promising an £80k OTE graduate sales role…if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

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Sales roles are a great opportunity for fresh grads or anyone looking for something new. Let our Associate Director, Olivia Paviour, tell you all about our sales workshops if you’ve changed your mind and want to give it a go:

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