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I've done sales now for about 8 years and im utterley bored of it. The long drives and the solitude dont help! It seems that all the other jobs available which i can be considered for are more sales jobs which obviously wont solve the problem. Have you done sales and managed a career change? If so id like to hear your story on how!
Been doing some sales/BD work for the last 7 years now and seen a lot of it, You way out probably depends on what your doing there and what the market is - Where does your company have a path to? Can you head to a more central role? BD/Strategy/Management?
Move to account management, normally less travel and more remote support?
If you find out, do let me know!
Money is the biggest barrier for me, I've had the chance to move into doing the do, rather than selling it - but it's always a case of going in pretty much at the ground level for buttons.
I'm 95% account management and 5% new business these days, far better. I guess it's that or going into management.
I was shit at selling.
Lordy Lord ...you boys haven't even served an apprenticeship yet !😁
I've been in sales from the age of 16 ..still going strong 45 years later ..
Depends a lot on your industry. We do a lot of engineering consultancy so standard route out is to sell yourself into a delivery role as part of a bid. However, only works when you're selling people rather than "stuff"!
I was in sales / business development / account management for years working for Coca-Cola. I struggled to move out of it as the package was good and it was relatively easy money. I wanted to move to Social Care and work with kids but I couldn't afford it. Luckily, in a moment of weakness, I was lured over to becoming a Recruitment Consultant. I hated it with a passion and my commission fell away each month until I was barely earning minimum wage. I then realised I could live on less than I was earning before so I was able to move into care work with ease.
Not a conventional path but it worked for me. I do (very occasionally) miss sales but I wouldn't go back to it. I was lucky as my territory was Borders / Edinburgh / Fife / Perthshire so although I was driving a lot I was doing so on great roads with no traffic.
Get involved in other departments used to support sales; marketing and integration etc., and you can start pushing yourself into a more Client/Account Management role. Also, eradicate the "sales" or sales slang from your cv and replace with customer centric terminology.
Careful though, a lot of account/client management roles are BD/Sales roles in disguise.
Everyone plays their part in sales of course - but its all part of good customer service.
Good luck
I moved out to a back office function in the same org, that worked well for a while and the experience at the front end was actually pretty valuable too.
Then I got made redundant, and went to work for what is basically a sales job, except selling stuff that I care about in a good working environment without much travel and only to the right people. (my job title is "student recruitment" but I call it "degree salesman". And I really like it.
Key accounts/account management is the easy step. Non-billing sales manager/director is also a route, in fact it's the one I took. Are you techy enough for pre-sales? Or Service Delivery? I've seen sales people move into both.