What Does a Sales Representative Do?
As a sales rep you will be given qualified clients each day for you to give a presentation to. Depending on the company you choose to work for you will either be working from a sales office / exhibition centre or from an actual resort. In either case the position is generally the same. You will collect your client from reception and begin your presentation which can last anything from 90 minutes to several hours depending on how well you do and how many questions the client asks you during your presentation. Typically your clients will be married and with / without children. You will be required to give a full presentation of the facts and benefits of joining your company’s holiday club, which will usually include a tour of a resort (where applicable) and a multi-media presentation as well as verbal and written examples. It is important to understand that this job is not like any of the following “sales” jobs: Retail, FMCG or even car sales where basic salaries exist as you must wait f
Any company that creates a product or products may employ a sales representative, a person who represents the company and showcases and sells products. The range of jobs available to the sales representative can vary significantly. For instance if you work as a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company, you’d have to have excellent understanding of science, chemistry, biology and some medical terms. Frequently people who work in sales for these companies hold a bachelor’s degree in either business or one of the life sciences. At other times, products are more general and won’t require a four-year degree to sell. For instance you can be a sales representative for a candy manufacturer, a company that makes chairs, or a carpet cleaning company. The job of a sales representative can be highly variable. Many people are expected to travel, at least locally, and sometimes nationally or internationally. They are the point of contact between a business interested in buying a product or
A GOOD sales representative can make a great deal MORE than 60K. However, sales is NOT for the faint of heart, not for people who are easily offended and can’t take rejection and not for people who like to “take the easy way out” or are slackers. Sales is NOT a 8-5 job, you’ll be putting in lots of extra hours if you expect to make good money. There are “inside” sales reps or “outside” sales reps, both usually have a specific geographic “territory”. Inside reps sell over the telephone. An outside rep obviously is expected to present in front of the customer. Generally outside reps pursue larger business while inside reps handle smaller accounts with less sales potential. As a sales rep you have to constantly study….your product line, your competitors product line and you also have to study ways of improving your sales skills and ways of finding new customers. Being a sales rep is really quite like running a small business.
There are different kinds of sales reps, inside and outside, etc… If you don’t mind travel, outside reps go on site to sell to their clients, often following up on qualified leads that the inside sales reps came up with for them. Inside reps are either the kind in retail stores, selling you a couch or whatever, or working in a cubicle on the phone either taking incoming calls or cold calling.
