Diving Deeper into Sales

Introduction

Zoe has had two jobs in the sales area of business and after my interview with her I learned a lot about what sales actually is. The ups and downs, the challenges and fun parts of it. Talking with Zoe really opened my mind and made me interested towards sales as well after seeing how passionate she was towards it. Keep reading to learn directly from Zoe about sales!

Key Takeaways

• sales is a very social role in the business industry mainly focusing on direct communication with consumers

• Pay is two parts, a base and commission, not a stable yearly salary

• Lot of front-facing client work

• Different sales tactics should be used with different people to attract their specific needs

• Easy to get into sales with right connections

• Hard to deal with rejections in the beginning

Nestlé Internship (Sales Analytics)

Zoe worked as a sales analyst on the Nespresso team at Nestle so it was focused a lot on coffee and beverages where she analyzed the sales data and made presentations and decks. She would then present her work to the finance team and Nespresso division on zoom calls.

Key skills Zoe did gain from interning here were especially analytical skills. She analyzed a lot of data in this role and made many pivot tables which in her words, "was very practical for the corporate world."

Role at Just Iced Tea / Honest Tea (B2B & Customer-Facing Sales)

This role for Zoe was a much more front-facing role at Just Iced Tea. Her work there mostly consisted of B2B and in-store work. B2B work is basically when one business sells products and services directly to another business instead of to a consumer. Zoe's specific job was to go from retailer to retailer and accomplish B to B sales.

She would first schedule calls with grocery stores and then go in person to sell Just Iced Tea products to the store manager. A specific example of something they would ask her was ," How many units of product can we get from you for X amount of dollars?..I would say and sell 400 units and then put that amount into the sales database, and finally stock the shelves with all the Just Iced Tea products."

Customer product demonstrating was also a big part of her role. She would demo the products for 5 to 6 hours some days to attract new customers. She described it as a great experience but also challenging to hear no's from a lot of people. The best way to target these situations were to use different sales tactics for different customers. "You have to learn how to target each customer differently and how to strategize. Like, okay, what is going to be your selling point to this specific customer, right? Like, if it's a mom with three kids, like, how can you sell to them so that you get the sale done. You're efficient. You take as little time as possible, but make the sale."

Overall, the front facing client part of sales was what really made Zoe excited.

"That was more front facing client work, which I really enjoyed, because I'm very extroverted person."

She mentioned how people with more extroverted personalities end up doing really well in sales. This position also gave her the opportunity for exploring as she drove around to many different whole foods and grocery stores all around the area to promote Just Iced/ Honest tea. So for talkative, social people who love exploring and putting themselves out there, sales is for you!

How Zoe chose her major and got into Sales

Zoe first chose economics and psychology as her majors at Berkeley before she ended up shifting to sales. Initially, she always wanted to go into healthcare and be a pre med major but, "once I actually took a bio class, I was like, oh, this is a lot."

Why did Zoe choose sales then? Zoe loved to communicate and socialize with people but also wanted to help people (which explains her passion for healthcare) so she,

"looked on google and was like, How can I combine my love for talking to people and helping people...and sales was the first role that popped up."

Her mom works in consumer products, which helped introduce her to the day to day of her work and see the ins and outs of the operations that went on. Zoe found it very interesting and thought that that's where she belonged as well.

In the last few years, she has been working for sales in the food and beverage industry. Overall she has had three years of experience in sales.

Pivot to Med Tech Sales & Looking Back

After working on just sales for a while Zoe now wants to combine her healthcare passion with it by going towards med tech sales after graduating college.

Something she wishes she did differently was to study more on the healthcare field in college since she is planning to pivot there now. “If I knew that I was gonna end up going back into healthcare… I would probably have honed in more on the science aspect, and maybe done public health, or a minor in biology.”

Although, she is very happy with the two degrees she will end up acquiring and feels like she talked to the right people throughout her journey and joined the right extracurriculars.

Challenges in Sales & Key Skills

The main challenges in sales have got to be the rejection, feedback and the emotional intelligence it comes with. In sales you are talking to people all the time and "It is hard to balance hearing criticism from your team to fix the way you speak to somebody or your approach. It is also hard to try and sell yourself at the same time as selling the product."

Another hardship that you need to be skilled in is emotional intelligence. Since everyone is different Zoe described that how you talk to one person should not be the same as how you talk to another as everyone is different and has different needs.

Another key tip from Zoe was to be strong when entering sales as all the rejection in the beginning can get to you but it is important to persevere through it as in the end she deems it as worth it. "When you start out in sales, like I said before, you're going to be hearing a lot of No, and you just have to use that and leverage that to work towards achieving the next sale and getting the next Yes."

How Hard It Is to Get Into Sales

Zoe reassures that sales is extremely accessible if you are motivated. She describes sales as being a great starting point to getting into business. “Sales is a really easy way to get started and understand the macro level way of how companies interact… It is so easy to… get a general understanding of business.”

She says the main three key points to getting into sales is passion, drive, and connections.

What surprised me?

Something that surprised me the most after my interview with Zoe was how enjoyable and engaging the sales industry can be. Before the interview, I assumed sales was mainly about simply making a sale, but I learned that it involves much more than that. It involves building trust, solving problems, and connecting with people every day. The interview helped show how important communication, confidence, and persistence are in this field. Hearing about the day-to-day experiences really helped paint a clear picture of this field. For students exploring different career paths, sales can offer both challenges and rewarding opportunities for growth.