Not the engineering, science, or medicine type, but want to make a great salary? Here’s why you should consider a career in sales, who it would or wouldn’t suit, and some common misconceptions.

062 – Not STEM-Inclined & Want to Make 6 Figures Consider a Career in Sales

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Welcome to The Wealthy Healthy, the podcast and blog dedicated to inspiring better mental, physical, and financial health. I’m your host, Riki Newton, and today let’s chat about something I’ve wanted to discuss, but it’s finally something I feel somewhat qualified to actually talk about. As a heads up, I am starting to schedule to join other podcasts as a guest and will likely in some part speak about this topic, but in any case I thought this was worth talking about here and I don’t think there’s a ton of similar content out there currently.

For those who follow the show, you know I work in professional tech sales. I’ve done this for 3 years, or 4 depending if you count a less tech-oriented sales job I had in college. Before talking about any specifics, I just want to set the stage here: for June 2018, LinkedIn published a workforce report that showed that in several tech-dense areas like the San Francisco Bay Area, professional sales is one of the largest skill gaps as of present. Which is to say, that in the Silicon Valley, there are more open positions for sales roles than there are people working in professional tech sales. It’s a literal seller’s market. While geography and economy certainly affect this — just like it would affect any job function — professional sales is an extremely viable way for people to make a sizable salary their entire careers, without having to be a technically inclined engineering or science and medicine type.

I’m going to break this down into a few areas of focus, starting with why sales should at least be considered by non-STEM inclined people, and in that we’ll talk about expectations and realities. Then I’ll talk about WHO should consider sales as a career and naturally help weed out or checklist off what kind of people should NOT consider a career in sales, and then I’ll close out with some discussion of misconceptions. Nothing is for everybody and sales is certainly NOT for everybody, but at the same time I think in some places and among some people it still has a weird stigma or brings to mind images of a sleazy, fast-talking used car dealer, or a greedy Wolf of Wall Street character in a boiler room who will say anything to make a sale. In 2018, that’s very very rarely what sales is about, which is why I’m passionate about evangelizing it as a great career if you want to make a solid income but don’t want to go to graduate or medical school or pursue a career in software coding. And just to be clear, for the sake of this article, when I refer to sales or professional salespeople, I am primarily speaking in general about high-tech, software or solutions based product offerings and am not referring to door-to-door selling, telemarketing scammy free 5-day cruise offers, or wheel-and-dealing auto or gym membership sales. These are all forms of sales, but they are not what I’m referring to by professional sales, where you’re almost always selling a software as a service.

Why You Should Consider a Career in Sales If You’re Not STEM-Inclined

So with that stage set, let’s talk about why you should consider a career in sales if you’re not STEM-inclined. First off, the barrier to entry for sales is honestly quite low. I mentioned already that there is a skill gap in many high cost of living, tech-dense areas — meaning as it stands companies are somewhat desperate for sales talent, which could frankly mean the bar is lower now than it would be in a lesser economy with a poor job climate. Even that aside, professional salespeople come from all walks of life, including even from retail work or auto sales. Most professional salespeople have a four-year undergraduate degree, and in terms of getting into an entry-level sales role, what you studied or the quality of the school you studied it at barely matters. In sales, your presence, hustle, and organization or “buttoned-up-ness” will take precedence over nearly any quantitative aspect of yourself on paper such as your major or your GPA. I’ve seen a near equal number of successful sales careers from “communications at such-and-such state” backgrounds as “applied mathematics from Ivy League school” — while competitiveness of major and school can certainly develop the skills required to succeed at a career in sales and thus be predictive of likelihood to succeed, it’s still truly a lower barrier to entry. You simply can’t walk off of a state school campus with a 3.1 GPA and a communications degree and ask a hospital to allow you to perform neurosurgery. The barrier to entry there is much higher, and I’d argue rightfully so, but this works out great if you’re thinking about the sales track as getting started is basically a matter of virtually any degree, and then interviewing well.

Another reason to consider a career in sales: entry level pay, let’s say right out of undergraduate schooling, is likely to be between about $60-90k a year in a tech-dense area. This means that if you’re near a city like San Francisco, San Diego, Austin, Portland, Seattle, Denver, New York, or Chicago, your first job offer will be for more money than any of your peers with a few exceptions such as those in software engineering majors. From there, moves up in salary are generally not difficult to come by: if you perform above quota, it’s not unusual to double or nearly double your starting salary within 2-3 years, while star performers who are aggressive about leverage and negotiating can likely nearly or more than double their starting wages within 1-2 years. Keep in mind folks, commissions are often uncapped and most tech sales jobs pay half base salary, half commission, so if you are a serious go-getter who looks at performance goals as mere suggestions, your earning potential can be pretty considerably higher than what you were even offered on paper.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be a top performer type of person to have a lucrative career in sales. Even fairly average performers — say, those who get close to their sales quotas but don’t always hit or exceed them — can achieve director-level responsibility in their 30s, which using the the Bay Area as an example would very very realistically pay between about $180-250k. On the flip side, if you are competitive and driven, you may end up a high performer. Star performers who are extremely aggressive about progression and negotiation could realistically get close to or above $300-400k and VP level responsibility 10-15 years into their career. I have to be clear that this latter group is more exception than rule, but I’ve worked at 2 companies and could name you 10 people I’ve worked with or know personally who were close to, at, or above this example, from a compensation and title perspective, before their mid-30s.

And that’s not even the ceiling. The rainmakers — we’re talking the true top 3% in competitive, expensive markets like San Francisco and New York — have nearly limitless earning potential. At my previous company, I know for certain that the top 3 sales reps were earning around $700k a year, and these were folks between 29 and 34 years old living in cities like New York and Chicago. At my best friend’s previous company, their top enterprise sales rep took home — AFTER TAXES — 7 figures a year. Again, very much an exception to the rule, I want to be very candid about that, but if 1000 people listen to or read this episode, and we assume this audience is fairly selective for people interested in money and interested in fostering a growth mindset, I would probably estimate 100-200 could have a lifelong career in sales, and very likely less than 5 would ever break past $300k a year in their careers; but those 3-5 or so people would make between $300k-2 million a year fo