Planning to start your own business? You might need to brush up on your sales and marketing skills first.
Entrepreneurship and sales go hand in hand – if you want to run your own business successfully, you need to be good at selling stuff and if you are a pro at handling sales, you are already well on your way to be a successful entrepreneur.
The idea might seem confusing to you at first but don’t worry. The following article will help you understand why there is a strong connection between sales, marketing, and being a successful entrepreneur. Keep reading, and you will learn how you can leverage a sales-related job to earn a reputable name for your newly started business.
Ready to find out? Let’s begin with this simple question.
If someone were to ask you which is more important, the product or the way in which it is sold, what would your answer be?
If you answered ‘product,’ you are not really wrong. After all, there would be no business if there wasn’t anything to sell in the first place. However, the way in which a good or service is being sold holds an equal (if not a greater) amount of importance than the commodity itself.
Today’s market is characterized by cutthroat competition. No matter which industry you might be catering to, it is bound to be brimming with a myriad of vendors including both large and small-scale businesses offering quite similar things. Therefore, new business owners often face a tough time in establishing a prominent place for themselves as they step into the public eye.
According to research, about 50% of all startups fail within the first five years. And amongst the leading causes of failure, running out of cash or being outcompeted are the two biggest concerns.
Needless to say, both of these problems arise when you are unable to meet your sales target during the given period of time. When you fail to earn the minimum amount of revenue required to keep the business running smoothly without incurring any losses, problems like cash crunch are bound to spring up and hinder your day-to-day business operations.
The Connection Between Entrepreneurship and Sales
For anyone who’s aspiring to become an entrepreneur, the basic starter kit for setting up your own business comprises of having an idea along with a passion and willingness to act upon it. But if you are really interested in turning your startup into a huge success and making it a big brand one day, you need a deep understanding of sales as well.
If you are not obsessed with sales, then you are probably setting yourself up for failure already.
Did you know that approximately 15% of all people who made it to Fortune’s list of top 500 CEOs in the world initially started their career in sales?
That’s just one of the reasons that highlight the importance of developing sales skills for anyone who wants to be a successful business leader in the future.
People who are good at sales have a complete overview of the ongoing market trends and conditions. They have a profound knowledge of what tricks and tactics work and what do not. This is what enables them to attract customers and keep them coming back for more.
Not only are they able to catch the attention of their target audience but also get them excited about buying the product or service that they intend to sell. A killer sales pitch is a primary requirement of ensuring that a product launch is successful and brings in big bucks right from the start. And people with strong sales skills are able to provide just that for their newly founded business.
As far as running your own business is concerned, these are some of the most basic skills that you will require in order to stay ahead of the game and become a renowned entrepreneur.
Here are some more reasons that explain why having experience in sales is so crucial for all entrepreneurs.
Why Entrepreneurs Should Start out in Sales
Gives You a Complete Overview of the Current Market Trends
Working in sales means dealing with customers and their changing needs and preferences either directly or indirectly. This gives you valuable insight, which allows you to familiarize yourself with market trends and helps you in finding a niche where your business has the highest potential for growth.
Helps You Gain Technical Expertise
When you go about selling a commodity, you interact with the consumer as well as the producer from whom you obtained the product in the first place. This o helps you gain technical expertise as you will learn how different forces in the industry work together as a whole. Moreover, it will also help you understand where your own business and its products fit in the bigger picture.
Serves as a Training Ground for Entrepreneurship
Sales jobs, especially the ones that entail door-to-door selling or fulfilling a set sales quota in a given time period, are amongst the hardest jobs out there. They require you to step out of your comfort zone and experience what performance-based income really means. Whether you have a fear of rejection or find it difficult to initiate a conversation or keep it going, working a sales job will help overcome it all. It will also make you a quick-thinker in addition to sharpening your decision-making skills. And these skills are something that no entrepreneur aiming for greatness can do without.
Makes You a Networking Pro
The corporate world is not a place fit for the lone wolf. If you want to survive, let alone thrive, you need to have a strong support system. Starting out in sales will expand your social circle and strengthen your contacts network. The acquaintances and relationship that you form during this time will certainly prove useful in the long run as well. Remember how startups usually face cash flow problems in their initial years? If you have a strong and far-reaching network, you might be able to attract investors easily.
All in all, experience in sales and marketing can open the doors to bigger and better opportunities whether you want to become an entrepreneur or not.
So, now that you know all that there is to know about entrepreneurship and sales, perhaps it’s time to start hunting for a job in this field.
