Sales can be a highly lucrative, rewarding career path — and one that doesn’t necessarily involve years of formal education or experience. If you’re new to the workforce and looking to land a role where you can advance quickly, work with others, and see the direct impact of your work, sales might be the right fit.
But how do you get into the field? We talked to sales professionals and took insights from top companies to create a go-to guide for how to get into sales with no experience.
Build Key Sales Skills
Sales isn’t a technical career path — even if you go into tech sales, you don’t need the same formal training as you might with a computer science career, for example. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need specific skills.
Negotiation
Negotiation skills are the skills you use to come to an agreement with someone else — and hopefully, get most of what you want out of that agreement. These might be the first skills you think of in a sales career; sales professionals may go back and forth with clients to negotiate a contract, whether that’s the pricing, how long the deal is, or the product offering.
Some sales professionals may follow different negotiation tactics, but the basics are simple:
- Go in prepared
- Listen to the other person
- Back your argument up
- Find an agreement that works for both of you
One of the best ways to improve your negotiation skills is to practice them in real-world scenarios. You don’t need to try to sell your friends a product; instead, start by practicing negotiating situations like where you want to go for dinner or what activity you should do.
Red Bull On-Premise Sales
Practice overcoming objections during the sales process in this job simulation from Red Bull. You'll learn key practices and techniques for negotiating and winning over a customer.
Avg. Time: 1-2 hours
Skills you’ll build: Data analysis and presentation, communication, strategy, account management
Active Listening
Active listening is when you’re genuinely engaged and paying attention when someone else is talking. While salespeople need to pitch a product, they also need to listen to their client’s needs. Understanding a client’s circumstances, including why they may need this product, their resources, and their objections, can help you tailor your pitch and better negotiate a deal.
You can build your active listening skills by listening more attentively in conversations in your everyday life. Focus on letting the other person speak and responding based on what you hear from them — not just waiting for your turn to talk. Part of active listening is talking, too. Be sure to ask clarifying questions or repeat information to ensure you understand.
Positivity
The best salespeople are the ones people want to connect with — because of their attitude and demeanor.
“Try to develop positivity to the point that it is something you’re known for,” says Alexander Gabbert, brand communications director at Publicity For Good. “Your attitude is a muscle, and you’ll eventually need positive muscle memory to kick in when you’re tested. Whether you know this yet or not, your attitude when you enter challenges is a choice. This can be hard to hear, but it is not a byproduct of your circumstances. Start at this moment to try and become the person whose energy is positively contagious at all times. Make a habit of leaving every person’s day better for having encountered you. Pessimism should be something you refuse to entertain because it’s also contagious.”
Connection
When you meet with clients, you want to establish rapport quickly. That means connection, and specifically connecting with strangers, is an important skill for the job.
“What you’re about to do day in and day out is develop trust between you and strangers,” Gabbert says. “If you want to be great, it’s not something you turn on and off for ‘work.’ Let’s take grocery shopping, for example, because everyone does it — a sales professional doesn’t keep their head down looking at the shopping list, you light that store up! Say hello to everyone you pass, compliment and make someone’s day, show appreciation for the kindness you receive, and try to make people laugh. Will it go south on you occasionally? Big time! But living this way will help you tremendously in prospecting, and you’ll accidentally get plenty of deals along the way.”
PepsiCo Sales
Practice the art of building a relationship in this real-world job simulation from Forage and PepsiCo. You'll create a selling pitch to use with a store manager to help them finalize a display of your product.
Avg. Time: 2-3 hours
Skills you’ll build: Being customer centric, acting as an owner, managing team members, gaining influence
Coachability
In the sales career path, you learn a lot on the job from watching and working with others.
“Think of sales as a simple game of ‘copycat’ at each level all the way to the very top in skillset and mentality,” Gabbert says. “Express your willingness to be coachable. If you just graduated, putting that student cap back on is a must! Before entering sales, develop the belief that there is something you can learn and use from everyone at the top. The fastest way to failure is to think, ‘I can see why that works for them, but that won’t work for me because of X, Y, Z.'”
Research
Most sales skills we’ve listed are soft skills, but there’s more to sales than just interacting with people. Before you pitch to someone, you need to research them. Having a strong sense of curiosity and being able to study a company you’re pitching to is crucial for crafting a personalized pitch.
HPE Presales
Learn how to research in a sales context with this job simulation from HPE. You'll start researching potential solutions for a new presales opportunity and prepare for your first conversation with a hypothetical customer.
Avg. Time: 5-6 hours
Skills you’ll build: Service approach, critical thinking, effective communication
Resilience
Unfortunately, you won’t make a sale every time you pitch a client. Rejection is a natural part of the job, but how you react to that rejection is important. Being able to bounce back quickly and figure out how to learn from challenges can help you move faster, refine your skills, and make more sales.
Drive Results
To become a full-time salesperson, you don’t need experience in a sales internship or part-time role — you need experience driving results.
What does that mean? It’s important to have experience, whether that’s volunteering, part-time work, personal projects, or extracurriculars, where you led to a specific result. For example, were you part of a sports team where you led team bonding sessions to increase team morale? Did you boost social media engagement by posting about your a cappella group?
“It is always important to showcase your ability to meet targets and highlight result-driven initiatives on your resume,” says Chris Sorensen, CEO at PhoneBurner. “This is one of the best ways to stand out and something I keep an eye open for when filtering through resumes. As an example, working in retail and even leading a fundraising drive is a great way to showcase your ability to meet targets while interacting with diverse people. These are core elements of a sales role and one reason I never overlook retail experience, especially with young professionals.”
Talk to People
“It’s rare that you get a job by applying for one, at least at my level and experience,” says Chelsea Curtis, a higher-education sales professional with 20 years of experience. “So build your network with intention. Meet as many people as you can and entertain every opportunity that comes across. Join networks, listservs, and local groups. Get outside and meet people in person. People who know people get the best jobs.”
What exactly do you discuss in these meetings? Jon Ball, president of Ball Fabrics, recommends starting with informational interviews.
“These interviews don’t have to be long, but it can be a casual conversation about how that salesperson got to where they are and what they do in their current role,” Ball says. “This will give the student real insights into the industry and company they want to work in. It also helps you build your network and sometimes hear about unadvertised job opportunities. So many sales roles are filled through referrals, so building these connections early on in your career can give you a significant advantage in landing your first sales job.”
>>MORE: Top 15 Informational Interview Questions to Ask (and Why)
Look for Entry-Level Roles
The sales career path has two main entry-level titles: sales development representative (SDR) and business development representative (BDR).
These two roles are focused on lead generation or generating interest in your company’s product or service. For example, a main part of your role may be cold-calling or emailing prospective clients (“cold” means you haven’t contacted the person before) and trying to get them to meet with a higher sales professional in your organization.
Searching for these titles can help you find roles that don’t require any (or much) experience. Plus, these roles often offer on-the-job training and paths for advancement within a sales organization.
Figure Out What Kind of Sales Is Right for You
While entry-level sales roles might have similar responsibilities across companies and industries — like cold outreach and prospecting — your work will vary depending on what kind of sales you go into. For example, if you’re interested in tech, a role selling scientific equipment might be a better fit. Or, if you might be more interested in media and advertisements, a role as an advertising sales agent might be more fulfilling.
How do you know what kind of sales is right for you? Take our free quiz to determine what best matches your interests, skills, goals, personality, and more.
Which High-Paying Sales Jobs Are Right for You?
Interview Well
It may seem like a no-brainer that you need to interview well to get a sales role without any experience, but the interview is even more critical in the sales career path. In a way, the interview assesses how you interact with others, as you might with a client. Are you positive and confident? Are you an active listener?
Show up to the interview how you imagine you’ll show up in conversations with prospective clients.
BCLP Interview Preparation: Own Your Story
Show up to interviews prepared and confident by taking this free job simulation with BCLP. You'll learn how to identify your strengths and how to talk about your experience in an interview.
Avg. Time: 3-4 hours
Skills you’ll build: Self-reflection, interview preparation, storytelling, communication
How to Get Into Sales With No Experience: The Bottom Line
Unlike career paths like tech or finance, getting into sales doesn’t require much formal training or experience. Instead, knowing how to get into sales with no experience is about being well-versed in the soft skills you need to sell well. Being positive and confident, for example, and knowing how to negotiate can take you far.
When applying for roles, be sure to demonstrate times you’ve driven results — those don’t have to be formal sales, but rather times you’ve shown initiative and reached ambitious goals, regardless of the field.
Finally, don’t be afraid to talk to people! Sales is all about making connections, and getting a role in the field can be much easier if you meet with professionals during your job search.
Ready to land a career in sales? Get experience, build skills, and stand out in your applications when you complete a Forage sales job simulation.
Image credit: Canva
FAQs
You can succeed in sales with no experience by building key sales soft skills, working directly with others, and adopting a growth mindset.
Yes, you can be a salesman with no experience. Sales is a career path that doesn’t require formal training before landing the role.
It’s never too late to get into sales! If you work well with others and have experience driving results, you have transferable skills that would make you an asset to any sales team.
The easiest sales jobs to get are entry-level roles like sales development representative and business development representative.
