Are you looking to start your career as a field sales representative? Wondering about field sales agent duties or what is it like to work as a field sales representative? Here’s everything you need to know about field sales, benefits and skills required to become a successful field sales representative.
What is Field Sales?
Field sales is all about the selling of products or services by sales representatives outside the office or a formal team environment. Salespeople literally go out into the field to meet face to face with prospective customers.
In field sales, you don’t always work normal office hours or work in an office setting. Instead, field sales representatives are often on the go, meeting with potential clients and maintaining relationships with existing customers.
A field sales agent should always adjust when approaching different clients and they should also be ready to sell in in different social classes and residential areas, always figuring out the clients needs in each of areas.
Why work in Field Sales?
Being a field sales agent will maximize your communication skills and your ability to build rapport with strangers improves and you will become more independent. You will not be chained to a desk or stuck working from home between four walls you will be out and about making deals, field sales offer a sense of freedom most can only dream of! As well as a less rigid work schedule, there’s more variety to your working day!
What are Field Sales Agent Duties?
- Generating revenue and finding new customers.
- Follow the Metrix of sales and complete and input sales activity on the handheld.
- Conducting face-to-face meetings with customers in the field to offer their company’s product or service.
- Keeping records of all potential sales leads and arranging call-backs.
- Monitoring the company’s competitors, new products, new rates, excellent product knowledge and understand a customer’s specific needs.
- Attend training sessions in hub for pitch practice, sales training and team bonding.
What are the benefits of Field Sales?
If you’ve got the talent and drive, there’s a lot of money to be made! The more you put into field sales, the more you get out of it.
It builds resilience
Although initially getting doors closed in your face can be a painful process, learning to deal with rejection really is an invaluable life lesson. It makes you more resilient, more determined and more equipped to handle critique. These attributes will be a big asset in any future job.
Confidence
Working in a team and having face-to-face contact with customers and potential clients does wonders for your confidence. Your communication skills improve, your ability to build rapport with strangers improves and you become more independent.
Perks
Most companies will provide you with a decent company car, incentive leisure trips away, bonuses, phone etc. and when you are making sales nothing is really off the cards to ask for, so the perks get bigger for the best salespeople.
What are the top skills needed for a Field Sales Representative?
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Self-motivation
Self-motivation is, in its simplest form, the force that drives you to do things” (Skills You Need). It’s the drive you must work toward your goals, to put effort into self-development, and to achieve personal fulfilment.
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A high degree of resilience
Resilience is the ability to brush ourselves off after getting knocked down, learn from our mistakes instead of repeating them, and rebuff rejection instead of internalize negativity. It’s also what sets high-performing sales agents apart from the low preforming sales agents
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Fantastic presentation and communication skills
The root of sales success is the ability to gather and provide information in a way that makes your prospect want to do business with you. Your value proposition, your pricing, even your product’s features — none of that matters unless you’re able to get your prospects to talk to you and listen to what you have to say.
That means you must be incredibly focused to your buyer and understand what they mean when they tell you – or don’t tell you – something. It also means that you can’t just reel off a list of reasons to sign up! because nobody would be interested, It’s just not that simple you need to follow a structured pitch and use personality and people skills immensely get the sale across the line.
- Make sure you’re speaking the same “language”
- Watch their body language
- Know when to listen
- Be as clear as possible
- Be a very good negotiator
- Have excellent closing skills
What is it like to work as a Field Sales Agent?
Being a field sales agent is a rewarding and challenging career. Sales is a performance-based career. The more you sell the more bonuses you earn. For anyone with a competitive streak or the desire to be rewarded for their hard work, this is a key motivator and something that will drive a successful career for years
I fell in love with the sales profession because of the freedom, flexibility, daily learning and unlimited earning power. Though some people still have a bias towards people in sales, the truth is that good salespeople are focused on helping buyers solve their business problems and earning money.
The main reason is that people who earn their living in sales are truly compensated on their performance. They earn above-average incomes because they are in charge of their own destinies. When everyone else is locked into a limited income job where no matter how hard you work you still earn the same money, salespeople can go out and write their own pay checks!
If your goal is to start a career in field sales or outsource a field sales team, we can help transform your business. Check out our current job vacancies or contact us at info@billsave.ie to join Ireland’s leading field sales agency, BillSave!