How to Evaluate Your Future in Sales

There’s a lot of talk about the future and how technology will change our workplaces, our lives, and perhaps our careers. That’s especially true if you’re in sales — of pretty much any kind. So what about it? Are you in a situation where artificial intelligence or some other kind of automation impact your role? Here’s how to evaluate your future in sales, by way of a quick and easy questionnaire. Curious? Let’s do this!

How to Evaluate Your Future in Sales Questionnaire

Do you come into your office thinking this could be the best day of your career and act accordingly?

Do you add value to everyone you come in contact with – in the office and out?

Do you listen well to future customers and really understand their industry and business?

Do you use creative thinking skills to solve problems for your buyers and prospective buyers?

Are you able to come up with ideas, solutions, and strategies that improve them or their company?

Do you help bring people together who can benefit from knowing each other, regardless of whether there’s anything in it for you?

Have you written down an idea that will help your company to grow, develop, or scale?

Do you make it a point to learn new things every day?

Do you teach what you know to others, so they can be better every day?

Do you make that extra call or contact because you can — to challenge your own numbers perhaps?

That’s it. Pretty simple, isn’t it? When you’re thinking about how to evaluate your future in sales, if you do these things, you’ll always be able to have a sales role of some time, if that’s what you want. The machines will, no doubt, get smarter, but one thing is a given: Machines aren’t human. Machines will never replace an intelligent, thinking, caring individual who brings an attitude of help, support, and improvement to work.

But don’t relax just yet. If you’re focused on how to evaluate your future in sales, it’s important to also think about the characteristics of the person who WILL get replaced. These characteristics and work habits include:

• The person who does research for hours, looking up people to reach
• Someone sits at their desk all day, maybe with headphones on, and we are not really sure what they do all day
• The individual who rarely has anything positive or constructive to contribute and about whom the general feeling (while maybe unexpressed) is that the office might be better without them
• The person who is negative and puts others down on a regular basis
• The person who treats their role within the organization as a temporary one rather than a professional looking to learn and grow
• An individual who doesn’t ever go away out of their way to do anything extra – but who can always be counted on to do just the bare minimum
• Someone who mentally cuts out mid afternoon, say between 2PM or 3PM, doing work that they think makes them look busy, or focusing on personal stuff until it’s time to “clock out” and go

You’ve nodded your way through this list, haven’t you? We all know, or have encountered, or even continue to work with, individuals in the workplace (and sometimes even on our teams), who personify the things mentioned above. Those people? There’s a good chance that a career in sales is not likely to be on their horizon as technology advances and as businesses embrace automation and technology in order to be more efficient, deliver better customer experiences, and streamline operations.

How do you evaluate your future in sales? I believe the key is pretty simple. Don’t work to be a professional for someone else – do it for yourself. The art of the challenge is important as well. Challenge yourself, bring value to your workplace, and to your buyers. If you do that, you will NEVER be out of a job – and you’ll have a career that is rewarding to you and others the rest of your life.

The original version of this article was first published on the Score More Sales blog.