Sales Rep 101 – Chapter 28

Starting Young vs Old

So am I too old to start a sales career? Absolutely not. In fact, sometimes that can be a huge plus. You learn many life lessons over the years and that help you in the beginning. The reality is this. Your personality and the ability to have a conversation with complete strangers is universal young or old. I was in my 20’s when I started my sales career but it took me many years to really understand what I needed to do to really succeed. When we are young we can be very stubborn. We think we know how it can be done better. So we don’t listen as well as we should. Like I have said many times, you either love sales or you hate sales. So if you are older when you start your first sales job that might be the only disadvantage. Maybe the reason you are trying sales is because the job market in your area is tight. And you decide to give sales a try. But what happens if you hate it and know that it is not for you? That may happen but you should never like you should not have tried. I know many people that got into sales in their latter years and they said it was scary to try something like that. But they ended up loving it and had great success. If they wouldn’t have taken a chance who knows where they would have ended up. When you are young it is much easier to give sales a try. Usually your income requirements are smaller. And younger people usually don’t have as many priorities…aka….kids. When you have kids that depend on you it is harder to take a chance on sales because if it doesn’t work out it can put you in a bind. But if you can make it work it is always at least worth a try. I know a lot of people that thought that they couldn’t make it. But they did. They were willing to take the chance. The bottom line is this. If you are right out of college and you feel like sales could be a great fit then go for it. But if you are in your 40’s with a couple of kids then it may be a harder decision. You need to make sure that you can be okay if it doesn’t work out. But as you get older you will find yourself again in a position to be more apt to take a chance. The decision is all relative to your situation, but if you are willing to take chance it could turn out the best thing that has ever happened to you!