No careers offer better earnings potential and a lower barrier to entry than careers in Field Sales.
Most blue-chip college graduates will be surprised to learn that there are field sales professionals without college degrees out-earning doctors, corporate lawyers, and software engineers. Jake made more money per-month selling Cutco knives at 18 than he did later as a business analyst at McKinsey.
But the impact is more than financial. The skills learned in Sales are some of the most transferable, human, and AI-proof skills you can learn.
Our favorite thing about sales is the opportunity it offers to those who try it.
Our least favorite thing is that, overwhelmingly, most new reps never receive the coaching they need to take full advantage of it.
For some, sales roles are a gateway to financial freedom, but for most, sales roles are a constant struggle.
Individual sales productivity follows a Pareto distribution, meaning that the vast majority of commissions accumulate to a small group of excellent sales people.
Probability density function of a Pareto distribution
Probability density function of a Pareto distribution
The majority of sales reps will never come close to the income levels or financial freedom realized by the top producers.
Lopsided productivity curves like this are ubiquitous in sales, even in top-performing organizations. When Joe was the sales manager for Vector Marketing’s Paramus office, they finished in the top 2% of teams in the company, and their reps’ sales productivity still followed a Pareto distribution.
Individual sales production in Vector Marketing’s Paramus Office for summer 2018.
Individual sales production in Vector Marketing’s Paramus Office for summer 2018.
This begs the question: How can we help struggling reps become more productive?