How To Choose A Sales Role Based On The Product
When choosing a company to work for, you should be thinking like an investor.
Whereas an investor makes a choice to invest money into a business, you are making a choice to invest your time into a business. And you stand to benefit if the company does well.
Because if a company grows, then its people grow along with it—new promotion opportunities, increased value of stock options, etc.
A product with proven sales history and strong product-market fit is an essential variable in the equation for company growth.
For those just starting their careers in tech sales, a lot of times the question of product boils down to picking between a product that you’re passionate about versus a product that has a strong market fit (but may seem less exciting).
For example, everyone and their dog wants to work for a social media startup that promises to be the next Instagram or the next Snapchat, but far fewer want to work for startups focused on disrupting “unsexy” industries like insurance or accounting.
There are different versions of the same piece of advice that is often given to those in the early stages of their sales career: “You have to enjoy / believe in / be passionate about what you sell.”
To be sure, being passionate about and believing in what you’re selling is important. After all, if you’re going to be talking about something all day, every day, it should be something that you’re interested in.
But passion and belief aren’t going to do you much good if the market isn’t interested in buying your product (or, in the case of a startup, if the company fails).
So make sure you don’t choose a product that you think is really cool at the expense of strong product-market fit and a good business model.
For example, let’s say I really like paperback books. I would probably enjoy having conversations with up-and-coming authors about getting published. But paperback publishing isn’t exactly a burgeoning industry. And first-time authors don’t have the deepest pockets. So when it comes to my livelihood and career, I’d probably opt for a product and industry with more promise of commercial success.
Here are some of the products sold by the largest tech sales organizations:
- Salesforce sells CRM software
- SAP sells ERP software
- Oracle sells Cloud software
- Google sells PPC advertising
- Adobe sells design software
- Yelp sells PPC advertising
In order to evaluate a product’s market fit and the financial health of the underlying business model, here are some questions that you can ask the company:
- What are some common objections that your salespeople hear?
- In your opinion, what’s the biggest flaw in the company’s product or service?
- If you could change one thing about the product, what would you change?
- Who are some of your competitors that offer a similar product?
- How would you describe the company’s target market? How big is that market?
- Can you tell me more about the company’s growth trajectory?
Researching a company’s product before the interview process is time well-spent. Not only will you be able to give an informed answer during the interview when asked about the product (you might even be asked to role-play as if you were already a salesperson at the company), but you’ll also have an idea of whether this is a company where you actually want to work based on your judgments about the company’s potential for long-term success.
After all, being a salesperson at the company, your life will be a lot easier if you’re selling a product that customers are beating down the doors to get, rather than a product that customers have never heard of or have no interest in.