Sales job, low effort 9 to 5 and side hussle or direct startup?

[Re:Kay]

Hey folks,

need your thougts on a problem I stumbled upon last days.

Since I am finishing my bachleors degree I´m faced with this decision and dont really know what to do. Of couse I DO NOT expect you to solve this problem for me but rather give me another perspective since some of you might have been in the same positon along the way.

So how is it looking currently:

I am finishing a bechlors degree in business administration with mediocre grades, however from a very decent university so I expect to be able to find a job if I want to.
Financially I´m a bit in the red, since I had to finance my studies on my own, so starting capital for a physical startup first has to be aquired via VCs or other investors, since bootstrapping (without working first to aquire the money and pay back the loan) is not really an option. However there might be subsidies in my country which I could use aswell.


My thoughs on the topic with pros and cons:

Sales job like: Management Consulting, B2B sales, Key account management and so on.
pro:
learning sales seems to be the most important thing when it comes to starting a own business - and i would get paid for it.
opportunity to save money and pay back student loans
financial stability

cons:
little to no time to focus on own ideas

low effort 9 to 5: basically all kind of jobs that I would not want to do for my life, but that are not very hard
pro:
earning mediocre money
possibility to be a "Spy" and look for business opportunites within this company (even sell the solution for problems back to them or to competitors)
more energy left to work on side hussle

con:
most likely no real startup skill to find here (like sales e.g.)

direct startup:
pro:
many potential ideas that i could fieldtest and get feedback for
beeing not tight to authoritys of a job
starting the scaling earlier
gathering more experience

con:
little to no starting money availible and would have to make it work in 2 months (after graduation, since I have to study for exams until then)


what are your thoughts on my kind of thinking, and what have I might forgotten?
Interested to hear your thoughts

Bes wishes
Re:kay

 

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[NCNY]

"so I expect to be able to find a job if I want to "

People hire managers based on experience not based on a college degree and the mediocre grades definitely doens't help...

Don't be so sure you will get a job that quick and if so it will probaly be a shit job for the beginning...

 

[Ilya C]

Hello. I think you might find this post valuable and actionable

 

[Lex Love]

Well I have yet to just jump into a startup without funding/income so I won't speak to that.

I currently have a sales/business management job and the experience I have gained there has been invaluable. I work as a freight broker and it is a total grind. I operate with pretty broad range of freedom which has forced me to learn a lot about sales, lead generation, cold-calling, customer service, accounting, collecting bills (surprisingly difficult), leading a small team, etc. Honestly, were it not for my current job, I might have never even ventured into entrepreneurship. So I think you seem to have the right ideas of the benefits of a sales job. You also should realize that your "spying" idea works in a sales just as well, if not better. To sell well, you must understand the ins and outs of the solution you are selling as well as the problems your customers face. I am constantly thinking of new business ideas not only for my industry, but for the various industries of my customers as well.

You are right however in acknowledging the greater time and energy investment. But guess what? I am still finding time to invest into my own thing even as I work to continue to grow in sales, and all this with having a growing family at home. It's just a matter of making time (i.e. I'm spending all of this SAturday morning soft-proofing my business idea).

What's even better, taking the principle's from MJ's book actually have a ton of overlap in sales. It's a great opportunity to get practice in while you're preparing for the real thing. You interact with various markets directly, begin to understand things from a customers point of view (well, at least you should), learn the general principles of how business operates, and on and on. Not to mention, whatever venture you decide to go down, at some point you will have to sell and teach people how to sell.

But this is my experience man. I was already here when I starting becoming curious about entrepreneurship. I definitely see pros/cons of the other alternatives. The best thing is to not get paralyzed by options and just act. If you choose a path and it doesn't work out, cool. You've just learned something and the other two doors are still open.

If you're the age of an average graduate, you have plenty of time to make mistakes. And you WILL make mistakes. So whether you make them in one job or another, you can rest assured knowing there is absolutely no plan you can lay out for the next few years that won't be riddled with mistakes.

Enjoy!

 

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[MHP368]

Sales for sure. Thats a keystone business owner skill IMO and you can get a job with a better time element once you're comfortable with some face to face hustle.


Starting a business and expecting it to pay your bills in 2 months when you dont even have an idea yet is lunacy. I imagine the "important business lesson" you'll learn is that credit card debt is real debt and ramen noodles suck and you have this weird thing where moving back in with your parents makes you depressed.

 

[Ernman]

Sales for sure. Thats a keystone business owner skill IMO and you can get a job with a better time element once you're comfortable with some face to face hustle.

I agree with MHP. Sales - IMHO - is one of those common skills needed to be successful. Even with online sales, you need to understand buying behavior and how to handle customers. I'd get some sales experience. But don't just take any sales job. Search for one with a good track record of training their sales staff. Even a small biz with a mentor owner will work. Getting sales experience will accelerate your trip on the FL.

Of course, another way to do this is on your own. There are many here that have sales experience who I'm sure would be happy to help. But there's nothing like having someone right there teaching you in the beginning.

 

[Kevin88660]

Hey folks,

need your thougts on a problem I stumbled upon last days.

Since I am finishing my bachleors degree I´m faced with this decision and dont really know what to do. Of couse I DO NOT expect you to solve this problem for me but rather give me another perspective since some of you might have been in the same positon along the way.

So how is it looking currently:

I am finishing a bechlors degree in business administration with mediocre grades, however from a very decent university so I expect to be able to find a job if I want to.
Financially I´m a bit in the red, since I had to finance my studies on my own, so starting capital for a physical startup first has to be aquired via VCs or other investors, since bootstrapping (without working first to aquire the money and pay back the loan) is not really an option. However there might be subsidies in my country which I could use aswell.


My thoughs on the topic with pros and cons:

Sales job like: Management Consulting, B2B sales, Key account management and so on.
pro:
learning sales seems to be the most important thing when it comes to starting a own business - and i would get paid for it.
opportunity to save money and pay back student loans
financial stability

cons:
little to no time to focus on own ideas

low effort 9 to 5: basically all kind of jobs that I would not want to do for my life, but that are not very hard
pro:
earning mediocre money
possibility to be a "Spy" and look for business opportunites within this company (even sell the solution for problems back to them or to competitors)
more energy left to work on side hussle

con:
most likely no real startup skill to find here (like sales e.g.)

direct startup:
pro:
many potential ideas that i could fieldtest and get feedback for
beeing not tight to authoritys of a job
starting the scaling earlier
gathering more experience

con:
little to no starting money availible and would have to make it work in 2 months (after graduation, since I have to study for exams until then)


what are your thoughts on my kind of thinking, and what have I might forgotten?
Interested to hear your thoughts

Bes wishes
Re:kay

Don't be to optimistic on job opportunities unless you count middle and back office paper shuffling jobs as good jobs. Decent pay and zero prospect.

Every kid wants go into management consulting, investment banks or hedge fund but very few could make it. It will be cut throat competition and as you said you scraped through tour grades it will be harder to land an interview.

Sales job is a good “middle way” approach if you hate dead end 9-5 while also do not have the capacity to really run a business. You can make good money without worrying about developing good products and do good marketing campaigns. The company should have done the job for you and you can focus on selling. I am in sales of financial products in Singapore.

Sales skill in business...is overrated. The reason why online forum members talk about sales often is because they are often running a one man show consulting business-high profit margin but low turn over. It takes a lot of effort to convince the customer to pay a large sum of money for the intangible values.

If you are in some sort of low margin high volume business it is much more about your operation and execution skills than making a good presentations. E-commerce or traditional trading/distributing business are some examples.

It is up to you how much risk you want to take, with 8-5 the lowest, business running the highest and sales people like me falling somewhere in the middle. But do consider getting into a new budding industry for instance crypto. Passion don't make money but trends do. Its no coincidence that the 90s belong to the stock broker, the early 2000s belonged to the realtors and the social media/E commerce dominated the recent years. Picking and timing an industry growth is important. You want to be in a trade that even a monkey can make money.

 

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[Re:Kay]

First of all,

thank you for the replies and taking the time, really apprecicate it and they are very helpful to me! Great to have so many friendly faces around here.

Of course you guys are right that mediocre grades without job experience is not a good hand. Fortunately I got some job experience, and have networked well during studies, but we will see how it goes.

@Kevin88660 very decent point with following a trend when it comes to sales. I also think that SaaS, AI, IOT and other digital services are good point to start. However, I feel like I would get a better sales training with some sales company with a mentorship program.

@Ernman totally agree with you - having someone to guide you is so important. Not like holding my hand, but providing me with the tools to make it work. In the beginning of a career this might be especially valueble

@Ilya C cant open the link, guess it´s an INSIDERS thread, but thx for the effort

 

[Ilya C]

Yeah, my bad. I think I can't copy/paste, since the author (@RHL) made the choice to post it there. I can, however, tell you that there is a way to gain experience both in sales and entrepreneurship. It provides some income, it takes zero dollars to start and I think it might be considered a better option than becoming a hired saleman, since you can steer and improve upon that, start a side hustle or grow that one. But whether that income is enough to cover your monthly expenses I can't know.