What industry should a newbie choose to work in sales?

Choosing a career in sales is like choosing a server for playing games. In some servers, there are abundant mineral deposits, you can buy equipment with an attack power of 500, and there are level 80 masters fighting alongside you. In another server, there are only a few mines in the entire map. The equipment that comes out is all scum, and you can still find pig teammates all over the mountains and plains.

Choosing the wrong server will determine your upgrade potential from a probability perspective. Unfortunately, the vast majority of salespeople do not have maps or just jump into the water with this cheating guide. Many people may be stuck in a swamp for the rest of their lives and never get up.

So how do you judge the prospects of a sales job? The following are 5 criteria that I think are crucial:

Problem Importance

Decision Complexity

Market Growth

Productivity Advancedness

Feedback Efficiency

Okay, in this article you will see how to follow these 5 principles to find high-potential sales job opportunities. But before that, we first need to solve a question: What industries can you choose? What types of sales jobs are available?

Industry classification of sales work

The following figure is a common industry classification. Usually the sales work we are engaged in will be in these industries.

From the picture above, we can see that the two largest categories are divided according to customer types: B2B and B2C. The so-called B2B refers to your customers, that is, the business is the one who pays the bill. As for B2C, the customer who pays the bill is an individual.

Effort does not equal reward

In a market economy, the existence of any industry is to solve the problems of specific groups.

But customers usually have a variety of problems, and these problems have different priorities in their minds. Customers have limited resources, so they naturally want to spend their money wisely.

I know a friend who is a secretary in a world-renowned Fortune 500 company. She was very depressed because she worked very hard and her boss recognized her work very much. But when the salary was raised, it was only increased by 10, and this was extra earned by the boss. Yes, she did very well. But for a company, this is where the value of a secretary lies. The more effort you put in, the more likely you'll get in return.

For other fields, if the quality and effect are twice as good, the return may be more than double. For example, in the beauty salon, if someone can make a woman twice as beautiful as her peers, the customer is likely to be willing to pay you more than four times the price.

The essence of a market economy is that people vote with price to determine your value. In different sales fields, the rewards you get for the same efforts may vary greatly. So at the beginning, if there is no special reason, first consider the market where people are "willing to pay high rewards for high results."

A sales letter said: "I have been working for more than a year, and I have changed three companies in the middle, all of which are doing sales work. Now when I make the power distribution cabinet casing, I contact the customers myself. Every time I send information to the customer, the customer says to contact me again if necessary, but I feel very tired every day, but I feel like I am wasting my time every day.”

If you They sell ordinary power distribution cabinet casings. No matter how good or exquisite the quality is, customers can probably accept a price higher than the average price of RMB 10, and I am afraid that RMB 20 is too high. But on the other hand, if you are a math tutor and others can only help your child by 10 points, but you can improve your child by 20 points and make the parents pay three times the price, I am afraid people will still line up to beg you.

This "marginal return on quality" is largely not determined by sales staff, but by the psychology of customer needs. There is also a problem of choosing customers and markets.

Solve big problems to get big rewards

Usually only for key issues in the minds of customers will "first-class quality and effect" be placed in a higher position of "cost-effectiveness" .

So how to judge how seriously the customer attaches to the problem?

The simplest and most reliable method is to see how much the customer is willing to pay for the problem: how much money they are willing to spend, how much time they are willing to spend, what risks they are willing to take, and how many resources they are willing to give.

In a market economy, those who are unwilling to spend money are just hooligans. For example, most companies' job advertisements state that they "value employee career development," but the cost of employee training and development is almost zero.

If you want to choose an industry, analyze your target customer groups:

What are the problems they spend a lot of money to solve? What are the problems they are willing to solve at any cost for the sake of quality and effectiveness? What are the issues that keep them up at night, tossing and turning? What is a topic that immediately piques their interest? What are the issues that keep them focused and eager to solve?

Using this standard to analyze, you will find that for specific groups, there are often very few big problems. For example:

1) Children’s education is a top priority for parents. Even parents with average family backgrounds who live frugally can spend half of their savings or even borrow money to help their children “improve their grades” and “go to a good university”. There wouldn't be much hesitation, if they were confident about the outcome.

Parents are very interested in the topic "How are my children's grades?" and frequently discuss it with others. They are also very troubled by conflicts with their children over their children's grades.

They may even have trouble sleeping.

Since the birth of a child, many parents have been worried about it and never changed.

2) Being beautiful is a woman’s eternal pursuit. For a girl who earns 4,000 yuan a month, spending 4,000 yuan to apply for a beauty card is not an unusual or difficult decision to make.

Recently, two female friends I met told me that they had had their double eyelids cut and they said it was very painful. It hurts so much and they spend about 10,000 yuan to do it. They even dare to go under the knife on themselves for the sake of beauty, let alone spend money.

How to put on makeup and match it are eternal hot topics.

When it comes to career options, salespeople are often limited to what products they sell, but what problems you solve for customers is the most critical. If the problem is not critical, I am afraid that the efforts you put in will often not be reciprocated.

From this perspective, it is recommended that newcomers in the workplace avoid industries with minor problems, such as fast-moving consumer goods or even large-ticket consumer goods in B2C, and office equipment in B2B. Often customers don't really care about these issues, and just regard them as things that have to be done, and what they do is almost enough, lacking the in-depth pursuit of quality and effect.

Diaosi market vs. Gao Shuaifu market

Except for periods of extremely low productivity, human society always has mass and elite classes. In the Internet era, these two classes have new vests: diaosi and tall, handsome and rich. Strictly speaking, their meanings are not entirely consistent, but this does not hinder our discussion.

In many industries, there is a market for the diaosi group, and a market for the rich, handsome, and rich. For example, in the financial industry, there are both wealth management services for the wealthy and financial products for the general public.

From the perspective of sales staff career choice, I suggest that even in the same field, you'd better treat the diaosi market and the high-shuaifu market as different industries. The difference between the two may be so great that a person working in the diaosi market is more likely to switch to other industries in the diaosi market, rather than entering the field where the industry serves the rich, handsome and rich. For example, there is a huge gap between you opening an account for your aunt at a securities company today and helping wealthy people manage their wealth. Or the training industry is very popular at the bottom of the society, Success School. If these sales staff want to be customers of Fortune 500 companies, they may not even be able to touch the door.

In "Warring States Policy", there is an article "Tang Ju fulfills his mission", in which Tang Ju has a conversation with the King of Qin:

The King of Qin was angry and said to Tang Ju: "Mr. "Have you ever heard of the emperor's anger?" Tang Ju said to him, "I have never heard of it." The king of Qin said, "The emperor's anger caused millions of corpses to be laid down and blood to flow for thousands of miles."

Tang Ju said: "Has your Majesty heard of Bu Yi's anger?" "The king of Qin said: "The anger of commoners is also like taking off their hats and wearing bare clothes, and snatches the earth and ears with their heads. ”

In this conversation, King Qin, as the fighter of Gao Shuai Fu Zhong, explained the key differences between the two groups. Diaosi often just vent their troubles when they encounter them. But Gao Shuai Fu can Mobilize powerful resources to solve the problem.

In other words, the problems of diaosi are of low value, while the problems of tall, handsome and rich people are of high value. Ask, "Wealth in the mountains has distant relatives", this is also true.

How to view this issue morally and politically is not our topic today. But in the market economy, consumption power is a very real factor Problem. Salespeople have limited time, and they can only follow a limited number of customers in a month. If you work in the diaosi group, you are often more likely to hit the ceiling of income: it is difficult for you to tap higher value from each customer. The ceiling is much higher.

Some time ago, I went on a newly developed route with a travel friend. The theme was Shanghai’s Republic of China architecture and history tour. , while discussing the history of the Republic of China and various gossips, such as the relationship between the four major families at that time and the social changes from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China.

Then I asked them how much the tour cost, and she said 20 yuan. The reaction was "Nani, you should at least add a zero. Are you doing charity?" A bowl of noodles in Shanghai costs more than 20 yuan. ”.

In order to ensure the effect of a theme tour like this, the number of people should usually not exceed 10 people, preferably no more than 5 or 6 people. Calculate this as 20x10=200. Such a price is obviously not enough to support high-end tourism. Quality travel service.

Then she told me that this was the company’s decision for the purpose of market expansion, and the channel through which they sell this product is through group buying on Ctrip and other places. I was very speechless. Because of such prices and channels, the customers attracted are often not people who are very interested in history and have strong ability to pay, but are just "just looking around". Even if they come here, it is difficult to become such a group of people. They want to target customers in the high-end market. For example, if you raise the price from 20 to 200 or even 2,000, this group of people may run away quickly.

On the other hand, for the rich, handsome people. It is easy to pay for high-end services. In addition to affordability, there is another important factor. Generally speaking, tall, handsome, and rich people have to be more discerning and understand the value of things. For example, ordinary people often find things like history useless. But for entrepreneurs and politicians, it is easier to think that this thing is very important. I have read the Twenty-Four Histories.

So I told her about this theme tour. We can create high-end boutique projects for rich people such as entrepreneurs, or for the children of handsome and wealthy families. The price will go up and the market is sufficient. Of course, being a diaosi group has a strong educational significance in terms of social value, but it may be too expensive. It’s difficult in terms of money, and it can’t even support the cost of the service.

What’s interesting is that she told me that some customers said to her: “You are so meritorious in doing this.” She felt that they were doing it. Doing things that educate society.

Many people instinctively think that it is more difficult to be a rich, handsome person than a diaosi group. In fact, if you can really solve customer problems, in terms of sales communication, you are often a tall, handsome, rich person. It’s much simpler, because they have higher knowledge and ability to pay. On the contrary, the education cost for diaosi-level customers is much higher.

The first customer I entered the training industry was Porsche, and the customer’s project was. The person in charge has first-class EQ and IQ, and is easy to communicate with. He also sends my boss a thank-you letter and is unambiguous about paying. ***It’s a pleasure to work with and I can learn a lot from my customers.

Many people say that the quality of customers is poor, often because you are in the diaosi market and the level of customers is not high. The friend who is a traveler mentioned above also said that the people she contacts are often tall, handsome and rich. The group communicates more happily and knows how to express gratitude and appreciation. In contrast, the level of the group of 20 yuan is much lower.

So when someone asks me about sales career choices, I always say, "If there is no special reason, try to enter the market that serves the rich, handsome, and wealthy." As a salesperson, your professionalism and quality are more likely to be highly rewarded in a high-skilled, rich market.

Some people may say, oh, I know that the market for tall, handsome, and rich people is good, but I lack the professionalism to get in. This issue will be covered in the second half of this article.

By the way, there is a saying that "those who win the diaosi win the world", please, this is from a business perspective. For example, Tencent makes a little money from each of us losers, and Xiao Ma is also a millionaire. But as a professional salesperson, you are exchanging time for money. Without technical means like QQ, you can increase the unit output of time. Coming out is fundamental.

Buying decision complexity

We discussed the importance of customer problems earlier, but even if they are important problems, it does not mean that customers will definitely need salespeople very much.

This involves the second criterion: whether customers can make high-quality purchasing decisions independently without the help of outside professionals.

Whether customers can make high-quality purchasing decisions independently depends on the complexity of the purchasing decision. This can be divided into four situations:

We can divide customer purchasing decisions into four types:

Simple problem - simple solution

Problem Complex - Simple Solution

Simple Problem - Complex Solution

Complex Problem - Complex Solution

Type 1: Simple Problem - Simple Solution

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Buying a popsicle is a classic problem of simplicity - the solution is simple, the customer knows his problem (thirst) and knows what to do (buy a popsicle and eat it directly).

In this case, customers do not need professional advice from outsiders to improve the quality of their decisions.

Second type: The problem is complex - the solution is simple

It is said that a piece of equipment at General Electric was shut down, and engineers took a long time to repair it. You must know that once this kind of equipment stops working, it will cause huge losses every minute. They called in an expert.

The expert came over to inspect it carefully, then drew a circle on a screw and said to tighten it a little. Then the machine works normally.

The company had to pay 10,000 US dollars for this, and the engineer asked him: "Why is it worth so much?"

The expert said: "Draw a circle for 1 US dollar, and know where to place the wreath. 9999 US dollars. ”

In a scenario where the problem is complex and the solution is simple, the real value is actually the diagnosis of the problem. From a business model perspective, the diagnosis part should be charged. Otherwise, you may fall into the “free consultation” trap. It means that you have worked so hard to help the client discover the problem, but the client did not choose you in the end. Instead, he rolled up his sleeves and worked on it himself, or chose another company.

Third type: Simple problem - complex solution

For example, the client has decided to immigrate to the United States, but is confused about how to proceed.

In this case, in order to make a quality buying decision, customers need help from a salesperson to understand what is the right immigration approach for them. This process often also involves personalized program design. Usually, customers can make decisions with confidence only after they understand "the complete picture of the solution that suits me."

The fourth type: the problem is complex - the solution is complex

In this scenario, the customer himself is usually in a difficult position. He or she cannot even figure out the cause and impact of the problem, and cannot handle it independently. Make purchasing decisions.

A friend of mine has been very busy recently and asked him why he was so busy. They told me that they have to compile a lot of reports and get data from people in branches all over the country. It's a mess.

I asked him: "Isn't this matter automatically solved by general management software?"

He told me that when the company wanted to install management software, there were several suppliers. They thought one of them was good, but the boss thought they were all the same and chose the cheaper one.

They also have a hard time convincing their bosses with credible reasons. As a result, after going online, I found that I couldn't do a lot of things, but instead added a lot of workload to myself. And the suppliers can't help much. When it comes to actual problems, they have to add money, and I doubt whether they can solve it.

Enterprise management issues are typically complex issues. Customers face a lot of problems, such as low work efficiency, poor communication, poor execution, and they are not clear about "what impact the management system will have on work." Therefore, it has become a common thing to choose on the basis of patting one’s head, choosing based on price, or even choosing based on rebates.

There is also a very common and troublesome problem. Once a new management system is adopted, it will inevitably involve the adjustment of the responsibilities, powers, and interests of departments and personnel. In other words, there are "beneficiaries" and "Those whose interests are harmed". In this case, how to effectively promote change is also a very tricky question. Not to mention the technical complexity of the IT system itself.

In this case, customers have a strong demand for the professionalism of suppliers and sales staff, because they cannot handle it themselves.

In the field of personal products, there are also highly complex purchase decision scenarios, such as tutoring.

As parents, we usually don’t understand “my children have a hard time studying every day, and they have hired several tutors, why are they still so bad at math?”, let alone “how to improve my children’s grades effectively” Improve." Naturally, they would want to "see a professional teacher for consultation."

Buying decision complexity and sales prospects

We talked about 4 types of scenarios earlier. From a business perspective, each category may be profitable, but from a professional salesperson's perspective, it's quite different.

When faced with a simple problem-simple solution situation, customers do not need the help of a salesperson to make high-quality purchasing decisions. Their focus at this time usually only falls on product quality and price. Communicating with sales is more of a cost to customers and hardly brings much added value.

The development direction of this scenario is to automate transactions, completely eliminate sales personnel or only provide the most basic services, thereby reducing costs. For example, the distribution cabinet salesperson mentioned earlier should fall into this category. The customer feels that there is nothing to discuss with the salesman, as long as your quality is guaranteed and the price is lower.

It is recommended that you avoid this kind of area. If you are already in it, please get out as soon as possible. Customers don't need you, so it's hard for you to make any noise.

There is a term called "functional supplier", which means that the company's product requirements from functional specifications to quality standards are very clear, and the only thing that needs to be done is to find a supplier that meets the requirements. In other words, the complexity of customer purchasing decisions at this time is usually in a state where the problem is simple and the solution is simple.

It should be noted that the so-called simplicity and complexity do not mean the simplicity and complexity of the final implementation, but whether the key factors and quality standards of the problem and solution can be understood from the customer's perspective. For example, a product or service may be very complex, but customers have enough knowledge and experience that it is still easy for them to make high-quality purchasing decisions independently.

For example, in many manufacturing fields, although the technology itself is very complex, the entire industry has entered a mature period. Enterprises have a very good understanding of their own procurement needs and the suppliers in the market. At this time, it is very important for customers to In other words, it still falls into the category of simple problems and simple solutions.

With such a customer, sales are often awkward. The customer may have clearly defined product functional specifications, service level requirements, and supplier profit margins. All you have to do is lower the price while ensuring quality. Of course it may still be profitable from a business perspective, but the salesperson has very little room for improvement.

Here I suggest that before choosing a sales job, take a look at who among your customer groups is participating in and leading purchasing decisions? If the decision-making power has been basically delegated to the purchasing department, it usually means that this type of purchase is already a routine matter for the enterprise (there are also cases where the purchasing project is not important).

As mentioned before, for this type of purchase, the customer's focus is to reduce costs. Communication with the sales staff is also a cost. The lower the better if possible. Automated transactions/e-commerce is the development direction of this type of procurement. In fact, even the purchase of relatively large amounts of equipment and services in enterprises is now being e-commerce and automated in this category.

If the customer has figured out everything, it will be difficult for sales to be useful.

On the other end, that is, in a scenario where the problem is complex and the solution is complex, it is difficult for customers to make high-quality purchasing decisions independently, so at this time, they will expect the salesperson to provide consulting value. Sales under this situation have a great opportunity to influence and change customers' purchasing decision-making criteria, thereby increasing transaction rates and profits.

There is a saying that "first-rate companies sell standards, second-rate companies sell technology, third-rate companies sell services, fourth-rate companies sell products, and bottom-rate companies sell coolies." If you look at the companies at the top of the industry, or at the top of the social ecological chain, they often control the standards. For example, the law is a kind of standard. The same is true for salespeople. Your ability to influence customers' decision-making criteria often determines your grade.

For example, my first job after graduation was in a management software company. The company's products all ran on Microsoft SQL Server (database software). One day I heard from a colleague that they were going to place an order, and the customer's bidding requirements included one item: considering the scalability of the data, the database must be able to be placed on a minicomputer in the future.

Because Microsoft SQL Server can only be installed on PC servers, if this clause is implemented, it will actually be equivalent to a death sentence for our company. The other party's sales staff intervened early and had already educated the customer: "Small computer equals high performance." Despite their actual situation, this problem does not exist at all.

Well, if you can't reverse the standard, in this case, you won't even get a chance to play.

Influencing customer standards is an ability, but first of all, you have to be in a place where it is difficult for customers to make purchase decisions on their own, so there is a lot of room for you to play. At the same time, from the perspective of customers, this area is also where they hope that professional sales personnel can help them clarify problems and solutions and provide consulting value.

In the minds of most people, salespeople often come from the bottom of society, with low education and low average income. However, in fields such as high-tech and high-end financial services, sales are often highly educated, with excellent qualities and abilities, and even ordinary salespeople earn very high salaries. And the fields they work in are often highly technical, with complex problems and complex solutions.