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... and did you have to change careers in order to do it? Can you share your experience? How hard was it/is it for you to move to a regular paying position?
The reasons for people making the move are many: need steady pay/can no longer afford 100% commission, no more drive to push to meet already high quotas, changes to your industry (i.e. mortgages), no more satisfaction, etc. I already understand the "why".
What is hard is the "HOW"?
It seems like once you are in sales, you get pegged as sales only and all you ever receive are calls from insurance companies, credit card processing companies, or other 100% commission jobs where the company is also sketchy. This is even when you have other skills that can transfer over to other areas.
Some people say salespeople are hard to manage and cannot work a 9 to 5, and don't like to be micromanaged. Yes, this is mostly true. We like having some control over our destiny. So, they are passed over for jobs where their other skills (listening, presentation, well-spoken, empathic, time management, expense management, planning, etc) could be an asset. However, if one has decided to take a regular, steady paying position, they are usually well aware of what type of environment they are going into.
Anyway, just wanting to get some experiences and thoughts. Thanks.
Yes I did, and yes it is incredibly difficult and humbling, I went from owning a venture capital firm and a mortgage company to a job working at just above minimum wage for a landscaping facility and for $10 an hour working for an accounting firm doing data entry (despite a previous history of running a tax franchise for 5 years). You see any legit company would not hire anyone from either line of work for any better job at the time, especially if they had worked their way up and ended up owning their own companies.
Some of my part time jobs were better than others, but they all sucked compared to being a known good salesman.
It took me 5 years of working my way up before I could make enough to pay my bills on one job and even then it was not even 30% of what I made in sales. It took me that long to figure out the only way I would ever make any kind of real money would be to spend at least a decade working my way up the corporate ladder, or I could start my own company. Which is what I ended up doing.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have stayed in sales and figured out a way to struggle through the downturn.
I just got offered a salaried sales job. I can't imagine being on just salary anymore after working in sales for so long making both base and commission and bonuses. I like writing my own check. I will take a lower base pay with the potential to earn more in commission rather than a guaranteed salary with no chance of earning more.
If you stay in sales find a way to tweak your resume and make your previous jobs a bit more glamorous. There are plenty of jobs out there where there is a base and comm. Look for these. Sales is for very motivated, hungry and ambitious people though.
I tried, like jwiley, and learned that I make a crappy employee. The answer for me, like wiley, was to start my own company. All those traits that made me a crappy employee made me a great business owner.
I started out at sales job in the mall right after college. I used to be quite soft spoken guy but that job changed me. I believe every business student needs to be given a sales job as a course or try it as an intern. It changes the way your deal and interact with people. It was so much helpful in future career dealing with clients and stake holders. I know I wouldn't be successful as a sales person down the road but the mere experience was so important in my professional life in terms of business communication, I wouldn't mind repeating it just to learn something new.
The trick, I think, is to segue away from strictly sales into roles that have some overlap in skill sets. For example, Development for non-profits (essentially fundraising) is the sales role for non-profits. By moving into that sort of role you could then move into something else in non-profits or related to the type of non-profit you're in.
If it makes you feel any better, I think now that so many people are looking for work it is very hard to move into a different field regardless of what your background is. There's not a reason to interview or hire someone who has a similar but not exactly the same background when there are 50 other people who have a background doing exactly or very similar to the open position.
Thank you for the replies everyone and for the support. I can relate to something in each of your responses. It's good to read what others have done. Again, it's appreciated.
At this point in my life, I need stability of income plain and simple. I would love to go the entrepreneur route. In fact, I owned my own business for 3 years and appreciated the freedom and autonomy. I simply had some key factors missing and expenses came up that required more money than the business was bringing in. I looked at sales as a compromise - a company provides benefits, products/services, and support while I still have autonomy (so I thought) to run and build my (actually their) business.
Meh. I like sales. I really do, but I don't have the hunter/killer instinct. My sales approach is more like a consultant, leading and guiding with knowledge keeping the customer's interests a top priority. Oddly enough, I find the best salespeople have a certain detachment - they sound like they care, and maybe do a little, but they really don't, if that makes any sense. They want to win, plain and simple. I want to win too, but not at all cost. I'm not into the Hunger Games mentality.
On the flip side, I can't punch a clock. I can't. I've always had a flexible schedule even when I was a salary employee. However, if the right government job came along that actually wanted me, I'd do it. The steady income would allow for me to start and run a business in my spare time without worrying about how to take care of bills and expenses. Pay isn't great, but decent enough depending on your grade. Government workers typically don't work overtime so I will have reasonable time to devote to building a business also. It's not bullet proof in terms of stability, but once you're in, you're in.
In the interim of that plan, I recently started a sales role with a very large company that recruited me in. No, it's not salary, but a reasonable monthly draw plus commission with the first few months being larger non-recoverable pay which is nice. My plan is to hopefully move into another role in a year. The only issue I see is that because the company is so large, certain departments operate in other cities, but since I regularly see remote workers in a given hierarchy, I will stay hopeful.
Funny this topic pops up today. I have been having the same thoughts lately. Have always been more of the account manager/consultant sales person and the landscape for those types of jobs is dramatically different than it was 20 years ago when I started out. Looking for new business was never my strength, but with increased security measures hunting new business is impossible. Sell to a lot of warehouses and manufacturing plants, so I used to just drive to the loading dock and look for the manager. Now it is common that you need to get past a guard booth or get buzzed in to get onto a property. Going in the front door has changed as well. Most companies lock their front door now and if you do walk in I very rarely find a receptionist to ask who I need to make an appointment with.
Have thought about going the development route as well. But the pressure on those people is pretty high right now, the generation that donated to charity has pretty much died off or will within the next 5 years. Trying to get Baby Boomers and Gen X'rs to donate like their parents and grandparents did is a huge obstacle for the people I know in that industry.
One word of warning to both of you considering getting out of sales, once you get out it is actually harder to get back into sales and find a decent job. I know many sales people that have gotten out of sales at least for a year or two, and then got back into it. The problem is some managers (especially the young ones) have decided that if you got out of sales than it was because you could not sale, limiting the opportunities over the 1st couple of years that you will find if you should get back into it. The longer you are out of it the harder it gets to find a job in sales.
I moved from sales into marketing.
It was easy.
Expensive computer hardware and software, bot positions.
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