5 Reasons You’ll Love Working in Sales

5 Minute Read

Plenty of Jumpstart graduates have started their careers in sales and are loving it! In this article, we talk through our top 5 reasons we think you'll love working in a sales or commercial role, based on our alumni experiences.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you imagine working in sales?

More often than not the archaic ‘sleazy’ salesperson comes to mind, employing aggressive marketing strategies and endlessly chasing leads. Yet this stereotype is outdated and unreflective of the modern sales role.

Many of our Jumpstart alums have actually started their careers in sales, and they’ve found that, particularly in startups, sales offers an exceptional opportunity to pick up valuable skills that you’ll use for the rest of your career. Plus, it comes with a shed load of perks too!

In this article, we talk through our top 5 reasons we think you’ll LOVE working in a sales or commercial role (based on the experiences of Jumpstarters working in these roles!).

Interested in working in sales? Apply now for our next cohort!

(1) You’ll kickstart your professional network

Building a professional network at the start of your career is important. Having strong connections you can turn to for advice, support, or opportunities can prove invaluable when you’re looking to take the next step in your career. But, it can be hard to know where to begin, particularly if this is your first experience in the professional world.

A role in sales is great because networking is built-in to the job description. To generate leads for your business, you’ll speak with hundreds of clients and founders every month in industries you’re passionate about.

You’ll have unparalleled access to senior decision-makers across a variety of businesses and industries, and each person you can build a relationship with and learn from.

(2) You learn by doing

You don’t need to have studied or have experience in sales to be good at it. In fact, some of the best salespeople learn everything they know on the job.

Whether you’re sourcing clients, closing deals, or nurturing relationships, you’ll be learning constantly and developing essential hard and soft skills to help you succeed.

Perfection isn’t necessary in sales, and mistakes are key to help you and the business develop. How else would you learn the best opener for a cold-call if you didn’t test out a bunch of terrible openers first?

(3) Do well and you’ll progress FAST

Sales is the beating heart of any company – if you don’t sell anything, you don’t have a business.

As an early hire in a sales or commercial team, you’ll be invaluable to the business. And as the company grows, this means you’ll quickly move up the ranks as you become responsible for training, managing, and sharing your wisdom with new members of the sales team.

Plus, salary progression is very fast. If you’re consistently hitting your targets, you’ll be rewarded big time. It’s not uncommon for high performing SDRs to be making 6 figure salaries in their first 5 years on the job!

(4) Sales leads you anywhere

The skills you develop in a sales role will serve you anywhere, no matter the next step you take in your career.

Seriously, anywhere. Being able to sell is a core skill needed in all roles, whether that be selling a physical product, or selling your ideas to the rest of the team. Building up your persuasive skills and ability to build strong relationships will set you up for any future role.

No one knows the ins and outs of a business like a salesperson, and this means you’ll develop experiences to help you work across a bunch of different business functions – from marketing, to customer success, to partnerships, to product, to strategy and more!

Caitlin (a member of Jumpstart’s #dreamteam) for example started as an SDR before progressing to Founder’s Associate, then Strategy Lead at Jumpstart!

(5) It’s fun!

Last but definitely not least, we think you’ll love working in sales because it’s FUN. Really.

No day will be the same – one day you could be experimenting with eye-catching email copy to get a client’s attention, the next developing strategies to target new businesses, or having a brilliant chat with a company CEO. It’s exciting, ever-changing, and you’ll have endless opportunities to let your skills shine.

Don’t believe us? Here’s what a couple of our grads in sales have to say about it:

“The biggest misconception about sales is that we’re not interested in helping others, and that it’s all about making money for the company. But everyone I’ve met is in it because they love talking to people and making connections”

Zara, SDR @ Vitrue Health

“My role is really different all the time, I do a lot of experimenting, whether that’s with copy or emails to capture people’s attention. I love that my role involves a lot of writing and figuring out how to connect with people.”

Kim, Commercial Associate @ Prewarp

“At Ledgy, there is a positive and inclusive culture, something you wouldn’t normally associate with sales. There’s often a view that sales can be dishonest, or forced through by any means. But we’re looking to solve a problem, and I’ve found we never onboard someone that we don’t have anything to offer”

Gregory, Business Development @ Ledgy