Picture this, you are a talented sales professional who has been crushing quota for a few years.  Comfortable with where you are at, but are starting to feel stagnant at your current job. With a defined goal of becoming a VP of Sales you can’t wait around forever until things happen for you. You feel you need a promotion in order to continue to the climb the ladder in quest of the illusive VP Sales title.  So the the time has come again to start looking around for new opportunities. Right?




If you have ever switched job’s then you probably understand how different one company can be from the next, and more importantly, how different a title like “Sales Rep” can be from one organization to the other. So it is extremely important that you understand exactly what type of sales role you are looking for and for what reason.
What are the first things you think of when visualizing your new job? Is it higher paying? An amazing company culture? A better office location? These can be important lifestyle questions to have answered, however, these factors can have very little influence in your long-term success in sales.

What is going to get you to the next level?

Before starting a job search it is imperative to define what your ideal role would look like. Using the questions listed below, deeply define what type of sales role you're looking for (not just saying “I want to make 6 figures”).

 	
What is the length of the sales cycle? Do you excel in transactional or enterprise?
 	
What is quota and how big is the average deal size?
 	
What type of product / who is the biggest competitor / What is the pain you are solving?
 	
Are leads provided or self sourced?
 	
What is the expected call volume from successful reps?
 	
Who will I be selling to?

These answers will clear the fog and make it easier to identify and apply for the roles that are right for you. So now we have checked all the boxes and are ready to hit the job market.. Right???

Not quite. 

WE ARE MISSING THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION!!! 

“Will this job help me grow closer to my goal?” 

The questions listed above will help to understand the nature of a given role, however, none of them identified if they will help me to reach my goals of residing in VP Sales Land. The most important factors in evaluating a company are often the easiest overlooked. Try asking questions like:

- Will you be working for leaders in their given industry?

- Will you have access to a mentor? How much access?

- What type of coaching will you get?

- Will you be provided opportunities to achieve personal & professional development?

- Is there a pre-defined promotion track in place that other reps have previously executed on?

By asking yourself the right questions, you can identify the right opportunities and build a fun, rewarding sales career that ends in a leadership role.

Ryan Beauchamp is an Account Executive at Qualia, the first settlement system that empowers Title Agents and Real Estate Attorneys to close real estate transactions quickly and easily by taking advantage of modern technology.

 

Ready for your own Sales Job? Learn about Always Hired’s sales bootcamps.

 
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Update:

I wanted to provide an update on this blog post to provide a little more context regarding some of the most important factors you should consider before accepting a sales job at company X. This update will be focused on providing you long term success in your sales career. The most important thing to consider at the beginning is the coaching/mentorship/ training you will get starting out, especially if you are relatively new to tech or sales. You can assess how companies train their employees in multiple ways.

Ask someone who used to work at the company

Today's technology is crazy. You are able to seek out people who currently work at the company and people who used to work at the company. Sending someone a message on Linkedin and asking for their feedback on training isn't weird. If you want to improve your success with this, offer to take them out for coffee to discuss. You should be able to have a decent success rate with this.

Ask your interviewers

What's key here is that you ask multiple people. If you just ask Joe in sales, he may not be completely honest with you regarding the quantity of the training you would receive. That is why you also ask the recruiter about the training that the company provides. Hearing from multiple sources within the company should give you a general idea of what to expect.

Read reviews online

There are so many places on the internet where you can find information like this. The first one that comes to mind would be Glassdoor. You may have to dig a little deep to find a specific review that mentions training. But you should be doing as much research on a company as possible before accepting  an offer from them. Other places where you can find reviews on companies are Reddit and Quora. These message boards tend to have honest feedback on companies.

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Why does training and mentorship matter so much? Well, when you are starting out in a profession or industry, it is important to get guidance from people that will help your long term success. Starting out in tech, you need to be thinking about laying the foundation for you career. So your career potential is what you should really be focused on when deciding between companies.

The online sales training videos on our Teachable will help you learn some sales skills as well as give you a preview of what our bootcamp training is like.

And if you're asking yourself: "How can I find a boot camp near me?" You can learn sales skills online because our sales bootcamp is virtual.