I need to leave in about five minutes. It’s for an outside sales job with an insurance company that I won’t name, but whose corporate mascot’s voice echoes. I’ve never had a purely sales job, I don’t even know for sure what “outside sales” means, I already know I’m not going to get to the second interview let alone get hired, and the interview clothes I hung up to steam in the bathroom are damp.
Well, whataya know, I made it past the first interview and the second one is scheduled. I guess it just goes to prove that old adage, “When you go to the first interview, lie. A lot.”
:smack: Now they tell me!
Outside sales means you will be calling on people trying to sell them insurance. You will possibly have a list of potential customers but most likely will be expected to generate your own leads. You will most likely be expected to sell insurance to everyone you know. You may be expected to negotiate prices to make the sale and will most likely be expected to push slow moving pruducts to people who dont’ know they want them. outside slaes means you go outside the company and sell, inside sales you stay at the company and sell. Purely sales jobs can be very exciting and the financial rewards can be large but you have to be a strong personality, very organized and always on the sale. A lot of companies will hire just about anyone with a pulse and then see if they can make it. You usually have a small “draw” or minimum salary til you generate enoguh sales to cover it. Some companies you have to pay the whole draw back. For example, if your draw is $1000.00 per month and in month 1 you make enough sales to get a commission of $500.00 and in month 2 you generate enough sales to make a comisiion of $900.00 and in month 3 you generate enough sales to make $1500.00 in commission. In some companies over the 3 months you have made $2900.00 in commission but you have to cover your total $1000.00/month draw so you would still be owing $100.00 and would get your $1000.00 draw for the month. Other companies will write off your draw from month to month, so in month 3 you would make $1500.00 in commission and be over your draw. Any time off can be paid creatively as well. The company I worked for you got whatever commissions you had coming into effect for the time you took off and that was it. Other places figure what you average was before and pay you accordingly. Most outside sales people I know never took anytime off for fear of losing their momentem.
On the positive side, you are only limited by how hard you are willing to work and you get daily gratification for doing a good job (signatures on the contract). It isn’t for everyone but for some folks it is the only way to go.
Godd luck.
The job should be a natural fit for a detail oriented person like you and you can do well financially. You do need a will of iron to be successful at outside sales. If you are easily discouraged and can’t deal with rejection save yourself the grief and look at other career paths. If you can focus on getting the sale and not take stuff personally you can do quite well.