6 Steps to Find Your Dream Sales Job

A reader writes:

I've just graduated from university and have started working for a company that does real estate consulting. I majored in Management and never thought of getting involved in real estate. Now that I'm in the field, I find it pretty boring. I don't like my present company's culture because it's very hierarchical and there's very little effective communication. I feel frustrated because I can't use either my English skills or my business knowledge. I'd like to work for an international company that has a good training system and a corporate culture that fits my character, but I don't know where to start.

You've done the hard work, which is deciding to make a change. All you need now is a mechanism for getting what you want. Think about the job hunt as a sales campaign. Here's how:

• STEP #1: Start from Self-Confidence. If you're going to sell, you need to be motivated and convinced that you can do the job. But hey, that's easy for you, right? You graduated from college and picked a major that can easily be applied to a wide variety of sales jobs. You can write your own ticket, so you shouldn't be satisfied with a job that's not to your liking.
• STEP #2: Hone Your Business Skills. You're not going to be at your current employer for long, so this is a great opportunity to investigate and understand how this kind of dysfunctional company works. Get curious. Observe. Who knows? Maybe sometime you'll be selling to a real estate firm and your experience on the inside of that culture will help you out.
• STEP #3: Define Your Target Market. Your target is the ideal job inside the ideal company. You need to be very precise about what you want to achieve but flexible enough so that you can find the right opportunity. Unless you've got strong preferences, don't limit your research to a single industry.
• STEP #4: Build Your Business Contacts. Write down a list of everyone -- and I mean everyone -- who owes you a favor. Categorize them into three groups: 1) people who definitely know somebody who might hire you. 2) people who might know somebody who might hire you. 3) People who might know somebody who might fit into categories 1 or 2.
• STEP #5: Make Your Referral Calls. Start with category 1, then move to category 2, then to category 3. Try to get as many interviews as possible, even if they're just informational, in order to learn more about companies and industries. Get your contacts to refer you to new contacts. That's how it's done.
• STEP #6: Close the Deal. If you take this stuff seriously, you'll eventually be landing interviews inside the kind of companies where you'd like to work. When you interview, think about it as a sales call. Learn everything you can about the customer, and figure out how you're going to add value.

Let us know how it works out!

Readers: How did you land your first sales job? Did you "fall into" this field? Or were you somebody who always wanted to sell for a living?