If you’re lucky enough to land a graduate sales role, then you’re already off to a flying start. Graduate roles are increasingly harder to secure, with the job market continually fluctuating and competition higher than ever. Now you’ve landed your dream job, the hard work doesn’t stop there. You’ll want to make an impression, ensure you stand out from the crowd and make sure you’re leading the way for a successful career in sales.
If you want to progress and ensure you’re doing the right things to impress your manager, team and overall the company, we’ve compiled 10 things you need to know to get the most out of your first sales role.
1. Get to know your team
From day one make the effort to get to know your team. If 1-1 time hasn’t been placed in your diary, make sure you schedule that time for yourself. This comes both in the form of formal meetings, or via in person or virtual informal chats, where you can ask a member of your team to grab a coffee with you. Both are equally important.
For the formal meetings, you really want to understand their role and how it might affect or overlap with yours. Ask questions such as “How can I help make your work-life easier?” or “How do you see my role coming into contact with yours?”. Get to know how they like to work, do they prefer online messages or emails, do they prefer to have meetings face-to-face or over Zoom. This will all help in making sure you understand your place within the wider context of the team and how everyone can work together.
Just as important, are the informal coffee breaks, ‘water cooler’ chats or general group conversations you may find yourself in around the office. If you’re fully remote then software based group chats may be your best insight. These help you to develop deeper connections with your team and ensure you have a good working relationship.
By forming these relationships early on with your team, you’re building the foundations to help progress your career. These will be the people that can help you when you’re facing challenges, point you in the right direction when you have questions or provide that sound advice you need when facing a dilemma. One of the main benefits of working for a SME is that you’re likely to have greater access to senior members of staff, an opportunity that you won’t receive in many graduate roles, so be sure to use this to your advantage and make the most out of your time with any senior team member.
It is also worth noting that relationship forming shouldn’t be limited to just your direct team. Whoever you come into contact with in the business, ensure you find out who they are, and what they do, clearly introduce yourself and make a good impression.
2. Understand the business
Making time to really get to know your team, understand their roles, their clients and their involvement in the company, it will help you to understand the overall business.
That isn’t to say that this is the only way to understand the business. Take the time to read up on the industry, delve deep into any articles on the company, research competitors and any clients that are mentioned on the website. Ensuring you know the business from the ground up will help you when it comes to selling. You’ll be able to lean on the values of the company, reviews from current clients, understand the pain points of the industry and explain how your products and services can help resolve them.
Don’t wait for someone to give you a history lesson, start the research yourself. This will make you stand out from the crowd and ensure a smooth start to your sales career.
3. Understand the business ecosystem
Once you’ve introduced yourself to your team, formed connections to help you within the first few months of your career and understand the business, it’s time to move to the wider context.
Throughout your career you won’t solely be limited to only coming into contact with your direct team, instead, you’ll work with wider departments and areas of the business. This is where your knowledge of the business starts to come into play. Understanding how your sales team might work alongside the marketing team, operations department or even the legal department will all be key to your success.
You’ll need to juggle how teams overlap and how different departments work. You may think that other teams don’t affect you but that’s a very short-term way of thinking. If you’re aiming to build a successful career then ensuring you make contacts throughout the business and help every department when you overlap will be key. Sales isn’t a straight line, instead, there’ll be bumps along the way, where you’ll need assistance from legal, marketing etc. And that’s when knowing how these departments work together and link in with the entire ecosystem will be key.
4. Learn about the market and the customer base
Time to look outside of your own bubble and get to know the market. Start to ask yourself questions like:
- What are competitors doing?
- What does the landscape look like?
- What companies have received investment and might need your help?
- Which companies are struggling and could benefit from your services?
Once you start to look around, you’ll soon gain an eye for potential customers and start to see trends in the market. Take a few hours to really sit and do your research and then take it to a member of your team, ask for feedback, their thoughts and their understanding of the market. Ask them if they already have a sales enablement strategy. This is when those initial first steps start to come into play and you can really benefit from strong working relationships. Once you have this information and perfected your market and client research skills, you’ll have a strong foundation to start your sales process.
5. Learn your products and services
Learning about your products and services is going to be your bread and butter to success. You need to know them inside out and upside down. If a client has a question on a call, you need to be able to answer it. There are only so many times you can get away with, “Let me go find out and get back to you on that” before your clients are going to be left unimpressed.
This is where having a sales playbook comes into play. This playbook is a document that outlines your entire sales process from strategies to sales tools and resources. Within these resources will be all of the information you need to sell more effectively such as sales collateral and marketing materials.
Once you have this play-by-play and can use it to ensure your knowledge is coherent on all of your products and services you’ll be better serving your clients and ensuring a quicker turnaround in your sales cycle. Which in turn means more sales in a shorter period of time and more commission.
6. Networking and building your personal profile
Your knowledge will be the most important foundation that you build but at the end of the day that age-old sentence of “It’s all about who you know and not what you know” still holds some weight. Connections throughout your career will be vital in hitting your sales targets, so it’s never too early to start building your personal profile and ensuring your network is as wide and useful as possible.
Start talking about your experience, knowledge and expertise from day one on public platforms. Ensure to get face-to-face with people in as many networking opportunities as you can, and leverage your current network for any recommendations. And always remember that past and future clients will also be connections that can recommend you to their network, so be sure never to burn a bridge.
7. Find a mentor
A career in sales can be a highly rewarding journey but it can also be difficult. The best way to prepare for the journey is to find yourself a mentor, preferably one that’s already on or has completed the journey. This person will be your go-to for advice, guidance and support. They’ll be able to guide you through those losses and advice on how to find new clients. Having that extra support will be the difference between winning and losing on your career path. Using your growing network and personal brand will be a great place to find the perfect mentor to suit you and help you to combat your weaknesses and harness your strengths.
8. Remember it’s a team sport
Many think a career in sales is a solo sport but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, you need to remember that this is a team sport, it requires input from various players to close a deal, including your product/service specialists, your manager, the legal team and the support you’ll receive from your wider team. Without those support systems around you, you’ll never be able to close those larger deals. Don’t try to claim the glory of every sale for yourself or think working on your own is the way to success. Instead, recognise those around you that are helping you, seek their support and advice and be sure to work around them. Collaboration is the key to success and while Covid has helped introduce flexible working, we believe that you’ll never learn more or be supported more than being surrounded by your team. With a team around you, you’ll go further, faster.
9. Learn how to handle rejection
No one said this was going to be easy, but you’re not here for easy. You’re here for a career that’s going to take you far! Part of that sales career is learning how to handle rejection. It’s always a tough blow to know a deal won’t close or that you’ve lost a client and it never gets easier, as each sale matters. However, learning to handle rejections in a positive manner is key to being successful in sales. Don’t allow yourself to take it personally and instead use it as an opportunity to learn and improve. Resilience is one of the key skills needed to work in sales, without it, you’ll find yourself overthinking and worrying about every lost deal instead of focusing on closing the opportunities that are still available. Learn, improve and move on.
10. Be adaptable
Throughout your career, you’ll realise just how many different types of prospects there are. Sales situations can vary from person to person and people like to be communicated with, approached and handled in different ways. This is where being adaptable will become a key skill, learning early on how to approach different situations, change your communication style or tailor your pitch will help you fit the needs and preferences of each individual or organisation that you come into contact with. Without this you’ll only end up closing deals with very specific clients, limiting your reach and reducing your chances of reaching your targets.
Overall the journey your career path takes and how successful you are in sales, is all down to you. That’s the magic of a graduate role in sales, the power is in your hands. It’s up to you to form those relationships, seek out that support, do your research and be prepared. By following our top 10 things to do in your first sales role, you’re taking the first step towards success. Still looking for your dream role? Apply with your CV today.
