3 Tips to Re-Evaluate Your Current Career Path

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Changing times calls for a new perspective.

Imagine yourself wearing old, dirty, cracked glasses with an outdated prescription. You may think you see the world fine, but that’s because you’ve worn them for so long that you don’t even realize anything is amiss.

This is the predicament for many traditional sales professionals. From insurance and mortgage to real estate and technology, there’s been a gradual and consistent decline in commissions, renewals, bonuses and perks.

It’s like squinting a little more each day without realizing you’re almost blind.

But not all professional sales people are losing sight. Many have shed their old spectacles and replaced them with an updated pair that gives them a clear, unclouded perspective. As a result, they are flourishing in their sales careers—even to the point of realizing their vision of retiring from full-time sales with residual income.

We hope the following tips can will shed some light on their point of view and provide clarity on how to reinvent—and reinvigorate—your sales career in 2013 and beyond.

1. Survey your field.

With your shiny, new glasses on, take a good, hard look at your career path. While it’s important to stay optimistic (many of us be optimistic to a fault), it’s also vital to be realistic.

Let’s say you’ve been in health insurance sales for ten years. It’s likely that your income has taken a significant hit over the last few years—not to mention near annihilation of your renewals. So if things go as planned and the Healthcare Reform Act is implemented, how might that affect your income? Will health insurance sales still be a viable career? What needs to happen for change to occur? Is that realistic or wishful thinking?

How about real estate? What have the past six to twelve months been like? Is that likely to change or remain the same in the next six to twelve months? If the market stays relatively unchanged over the next two to three years (or longer), can you hang on?

These questions aren’t meant to be doom and gloom, but if the environment around you is changing and you can’t adapt, then it might be time to enhance your product/service offerings or move to a more viable sales field.

2. Appraise greener pastures.

Remember Richard Dreyfuss’ character in the 80s movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills? He played a millionaire who had made his fortune in … hangers. The seemingly bland, insignificant business of making and selling hangers brought him and his family great wealth and comfort.

This is not to suggest that you go out and start selling hangers. The point is sometimes it’s the products and services that are “off the radar” that offer the most opportunity.

Take, for example, the small and mid-size business sector. As competition increases, smaller companies providing products and services to consumers need a lot of support in order to compete with bigger businesses that have more resources.

If you decide that it’s time to strengthen your sales portfolio—or even reinvent your career path entirely—consider looking for products and services that provide specific, nondescript solutions to small and mid-sized businesses.

Providing behind-the-scenes solutions that resolve their day-to-day problems and consistently make their life easier is likely to increase your value to the marketplace while solidifying your sales career.

3. Look for structure and support.

As most agents know, there are ample ups and downs in sales. And when you’re reinventing yourself in your sales career, sometimes it can seem like your “downs” are more prevalent than your “ups.” Especially in the beginning.

This is why it’s pivotal to have a strong support team in place that can help guide and encourage you every step of the way.

This does not mean a support team that’s cheering from the sidelines but doesn’t have skin in the game. The best way to reinvent yourself in your sales career is for your support team to:

✔ Be actively and successfully selling the product or service you’re looking to sell;

✔ Have an established track record selling the product or service and training others to do the same;

✔ Deliver training that is comprehensive, current and consistent so you learn how to be successful selling that product or service.

Too many sales organizations are being led by people who have very little relevant experience selling the products and services being promoted by the company. When a sales rep faces a challenge, they are often fed empty motivation that does little to solve their actual problem or advance them in their career.

To avoid this frustration, carefully evaluate support systems for how they walk the talk.

Auld Lang Syne (the good old times)

Many agents are nostalgic for the bygone sales days when things were simpler (though never easy) and companies were more loyal to their reps. In fact, some are still looking at the present sales landscape through that outdated lens. They are hesitant to adjust their vision because it may mean a temporary period of blindness.

Unfortunately, when they stumble and fall, it takes them longer to recover.

The path to a more prosperous life and sales career may mean that you momentarily see things worse than you did before. But the journey of reinventing your career isn’t one you need—or should—navigate alone. If you have an accurate roadmap, it’s one that will bring you more clarity and confidence with each step.

So what does the future look like for you? Does your current sales landscape look vast with green opportunity ahead, or is it starting to look like the dust bowl? What will you do to ensure an impressive income and enjoyable journey in your sales career in 2013 and beyond?