Every year many students graduate with degrees in Marketing, with focuses on brand management, advertising, consumer behavior and a host of others. Career advisors promote similar marketing strategies for job seekers; the development of a personal brand to market your candidacy to potential employers. The goal is to present a consistent image of your traits, values and skills at every stage of the recruiting process. This marketing exercise is important to reinforce the ideas you want to convey but this is just the first step; closing a transaction requires sales skills.
High pressure sales tactics in countless industries such as car sales, life insurance, vacation time-shares, etc. has cast a negative stigma on salespeople. Some industries refer to their salespeople “marketers” to avoid the negative connotation of salespeople so that even professionals are sometimes confused about the differences between marketing and sales. A useful analogy is that marketers are the military strategists who create the plans and the salespeople are the “boots on the ground” who implement the plans. It’s actually quite simple – if you have direct client revenue responsibility, you are a salesperson.
Sales is not a natural skill as the constant rejection is counter to the human social need to gain the acceptance and approval of others. However, sales is the necessary function to engage customers and consummate transactions. This subject is relevant for students seeking internships and full-time positions because they must become their own salespeople.
Sales requires the ability to influence the actions of others, incorporating many steps which culminates in successfully closing transactions. Overcoming objections, establishing rapport and relationships, crafting your story and listening skills are all very useful skills for salespeople which can be used to directly improve your job search efforts.
When students are involved in extracurricular activities, participating in tutoring or test prep services, or just sitting in classes in school – they are the client in the relationship. When students are looking for jobs, it’s likely the first time in their lives that they are in the unfamiliar position of being the salesperson in the relationship. They need to learn how to promote themselves as “the product”, translating their academic and extracurricular successes into job qualifications. Successful salespeople understand that clients purchase benefits, not features, and also understand there is an emotional component to purchasing decisions. Analogously, employers are clients wanting to find out what benefits prospective applicants can provide to them, as well as being convinced the candidate is a good fit for the company.
I was a sales professional in technology for seven years and can attribute much of my overall professional success to that invaluable experience. One of my first lessons in sales was the “sales funnel”; the concept that sales is a straightforward process where the more people you contact and follow up with, the more sales you will close. When networking and building your contacts, the more people you reach out to, the better your chances of finding a job. Develop the discipline to keep feeding your “job funnel” by setting numerical targets for sending out resumes, arranging informational interviews and attending corporate presentations.
Even if you do not choose sales as a career, developing a salesperson’s mindset will significantly improve your chances of landing your dream job.
Jerome Wong
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