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How Do I Choose the Best Sales Jobs?

Lori Kilchermann
Lori Kilchermann

Some of the best sales jobs will allow you to not only work in a field that you enjoy, but will offer a comfortable working environment along with a base salary and potential benefits. Typical sales jobs offer commission-only selling; in a nutshell, if you do not sell, you do not get paid. This is not, however, a standard practice for all sales jobs. Many companies realize the benefit in providing a salesperson with a base salary and then adding in commissions as a type of performance bonus package. You might decide that sales jobs that offer frequent traveling give you the best opportunities, or you may want to remain in one location for a long period of time to build up a base of loyal, repeat customers.

You might want to consider all of things that are important to you where a career is concerned prior to deciding on applying for any sales job. Many of the best-paying sales jobs are also the highest-stress sales positions. Once you have decided to search for potential sales jobs, you should consider selling a product that you are not only familiar with, but one that you are passionate about, as this will make it easier for you to sell the product to customers.

Woman posing
Woman posing

There are many types of sales jobs that involve working out of doors in the heat, cold and even rain, as well as sales positions that allow you to work in a comfortable office and use the telephone and computer to make your sales pitches. In either case, you should choose only those sales jobs that allow you the opportunity to work in the environment that you most enjoy. As long as you are selling a product that you are proud to sell in an environment that allows you to be at your best, you will likely be successful in your career.

Commission sales are the norm for most sales jobs; this provides a sales professional pay only when a sale is completed. The problem with this type of incentive program is that the salesperson often becomes nervous and edgy when several days have gone by without a sale. This can create a situation where the salesperson is trying so hard to earn a paycheck that he pressures a potential customer to the point where he doesn't want the product. For this reason, many top sales-driven companies typically offer employees a base salary along with an incentive program that is based on commission selling. You may want to choose one of these programs while you perfect your selling technique.

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