Sales and marketing jobs vary in expertise and type, including business-to-business, direct-to-consumer, wholesale, and sales management. Marketing careers start as assistants, leading to management and director roles. Sales require interpersonal skills, attention to detail, and commission-based compensation. Both aim to increase revenue.
There are many different types and levels of expertise in sales and marketing jobs. A career in sales can lead to work in business-to-business sales, direct-to-consumer sales, wholesale to a supplier, or sales management. In addition, there are sales support jobs such as account managers and sales assistants. A career in marketing can entail jobs as a marketing assistant, marketing manager, or even director of marketing. Jobs in sales and marketing must work together to increase revenue through sales.
A career in sales involves a lot of interaction with prospects and customers. It requires strong interpersonal skills and self-discipline. People who work in sales spend much of their communication with prospects through face-to-face contact, phone calls, and e-mail. These jobs require a lot of attention to detail and the discipline to keep up with the sales process. Most salespeople work on a commission-based compensation model.
Business-to-business (B2B) sellers sell products and services used by organizations in their business operations. This requires the seller to be able to identify and communicate with the decision maker or decision makers. Typically, B2B sellers expect a long sales cycle and work hard to develop relationships with decision makers. Examples of B2B sales include selling group benefits to a company’s human resources department or selling printing services to an administration department.
A subset of B2B sales is wholesale to a supplier that provides products and services to companies. Suppliers typically have a portfolio of similar products and services from different manufacturers or companies. They choose which products to offer companies, and they often give companies a choice of products. An example of wholesale to a vendor is an insurance company salesperson who hires a broker to offer their insurance products to the broker’s customers.
Salespeople working in direct sales typically target individual consumers. Direct sales are usually done in higher volume than B2B sales, and the sales cycle is much shorter. People who work in consumer sales often try to close their sales in one meeting. Examples of direct sales include car salespeople and personal insurance agents.
A career in marketing involves generating interest and response to a company’s products or services and using that information to provide opportunities to the sales department. Most people start their marketing careers as marketing assistants. A marketing assistant carries out daily details of the marketing strategy decided by the marketing director. A marketing assistant can make phone calls, mail material, or generate reports using marketing software.
Marketing managers usually supervise marketing assistants. They assign tasks and ensure assistants have the tools they need to execute the marketing strategy. They communicate with the director about the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns and make recommendations.
The marketing director is typically responsible for planning the company’s broad marketing strategy. He or she will determine viable marketing channels and how best to enter those channels. The marketing director works closely with company executives to gain a clear understanding of the company’s objectives and the resources allocated to marketing, as well as with marketing managers to learn how the strategies are working.
Jobs in sales and marketing are both challenging and rewarding. They require a different set of skills and different personalities. Jobs in sales and marketing, however, both have the goal of increasing your company’s sales and revenue.
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