How to Become a Sales Representative

By Marqee Editorial, Senior Career Strategist · Updated June 2026 · ~11 min read

What a Sales Representative actually does

A Sales Representative sells a company's products or services to other businesses or directly to consumers, and is judged on one thing above all others: revenue against a quota. The role spans an enormous range — a retail associate on a showroom floor, an inside-sales rep working leads from a desk, a field rep covering a territory, a wholesale or manufacturing rep selling to retailers and distributors, and a technical or medical-device rep who has to understand a complex product as well as the buyer does. What unites all of them is ownership of a number and a repeatable process for moving prospects from interest to a signed deal.

The core responsibilities that define the job, week to week:

• Prospecting and lead generation. Find and qualify potential buyers through cold outreach, inbound leads, referrals, networking, and territory research — keeping the top of the funnel full.
• Discovery. Ask questions that uncover a prospect's real needs, budget, decision process, and timeline, instead of pitching blindly.
• Presenting and demonstrating. Match the product to the buyer's situation, run demos, and tell a value story tied to the buyer's outcomes, not your feature list.
• Objection handling and negotiation. Address concerns about price, timing, and competitors, and negotiate terms that close without giving away margin.
• Closing. Ask for the business, manage the paperwork and approvals, and turn verbal interest into signed commitments.
• Account and pipeline management. Keep the CRM current, forecast accurately, and nurture existing customers for renewals, upsells, and referrals.

It helps to know the variants, because they change which skills and credentials you need. Retail sales is the most accessible entry point and rewards energy and product knowledge. Inside sales works leads remotely by phone, email, and video. Sales Development Rep (SDR) / Business Development Rep (BDR) is the modern on-ramp into B2B tech: you prospect and book meetings for closers, then graduate to an Account Executive (AE) role that owns full deals. Wholesale and manufacturing reps sell to businesses that resell or use the product. Technical and medical-device reps sell complex products and often need a relevant degree or deep product training, and they tend to pay the most. Insurance and securities reps sell financial products and are legally required to hold a license. Knowing your target variant tells you exactly which skills and credentials to build.

Education & degree paths

Sales is one of the most open careers in the economy — but the right preparation depends heavily on what you want to sell. Here is the honest landscape.

The no-degree route

For a large share of sales jobs, no degree is required. Retail, inside sales, many SDR/BDR roles, and plenty of small-business and direct-sales positions hire on drive, communication, and coachability, then train you on the product and process. A substantial number of high-earning reps never finished a four-year degree; they out-worked and out-sold credentialed peers. If this is your path, your numbers do the talking a degree otherwise would.

The bachelor's-degree route

For competitive B2B, technical, and enterprise sales, a bachelor's degree is increasingly expected. The most useful majors are business, marketing, communication, or a field directly related to what you sell — for example, a life-sciences or engineering degree for medical-device and technical sales, where you must speak the buyer's language. A degree signals discipline and gives you a credible foundation, but recruiters still weight a real sales track record far more heavily than the major itself.

The licensing route

Some sales specialties are not about degrees at all — they are gated by law. Insurance reps must pass a state licensing exam for the lines they sell (life, health, property and casualty). Reps selling securities or many financial products must pass FINRA exams such as the SIE (Securities Industry Essentials) and a Series qualification like the Series 6 or Series 7, usually sponsored by an employer. Real-estate sales requires a state license. If you target one of these fields, the credential is the entry ticket, not an optional extra.

Core skills to build

These are the skills sales managers actually screen for, grouped so you can self-assess where you stand and what to build next.

You do not need all of these at expert level to start. You need enough across the board to be credible and one or two genuine strengths that match your target variant — relentless prospecting and CRM discipline for SDR roles, product depth and consultative discovery for technical and medical sales, rapport and speed for retail and transactional inside sales.

Certifications & licenses

Certifications are optional for general sales and never replace a track record — but some tracks legally require a license, and the right credential can add credibility for a career changer with no sales title. The credentials that carry the most weight:

• HubSpot Sales Software / Inbound certifications — free, widely recognized, and a useful signal for inbound and inside-sales roles.
• Salesforce certifications — valuable wherever Salesforce is the system of record; show CRM fluency that many employers screen for.
• Certified Professional Sales Person (CPSP) — from the NASP; a methodology credential respected in B2B sales.
• State insurance license — legally required to sell insurance; the lines (life, health, P&C) depend on what you sell.
• FINRA SIE + Series 6 / 7 — legally required to sell securities and many financial products; usually employer-sponsored.

The step-by-step path

Here is the sequence that reliably gets people into a sales career, written so you can follow it whether you are a student, someone in a customer-facing job, or a full career changer.

A realistic timeline

How long it takes depends entirely on your starting point and the kind of sales you target. These are honest ranges, not best-case fantasies.

• Anyone → entry sales roleWeeks to a few months. Retail, inside sales, and SDR/BDR seats train on the job and hire on communication and drive, so the work is in landing the offer, not building years of experience.
• SDR/BDR → Account ExecutiveRoughly 1–2 years of proven prospecting and quota performance. Hitting your activity and meeting targets early is the single biggest accelerator.
• Licensed specialty (insurance / securities)A few weeks to a few months to pass the required exams, often with employer sponsorship, before you can sell at all.
• Into technical / medical-device salesOften 1–3 years of prior B2B closing experience, plus the product knowledge to sell credibly to expert buyers.
• Rep → Sales Manager or DirectorSeveral years of consistent quota attainment, then a track record of coaching and forecasting for a team.

The single biggest accelerator across every path is early, consistent quota attainment. Managers promote and poach the reps who hit their number — a documented record of doing so, even in a small role, opens doors that tenure alone never will.

How to break in (entry routes & experience)

Most successful entries come through one of a few repeatable routes. Pick the one that fits your situation rather than spraying applications.

Retail or hospitality sales

The most accessible on-ramp. A showroom, store, or front-desk role gives you daily reps at reading people, presenting value, and closing on the spot. Track your conversion and any sales targets you beat — that record translates directly into the language of quota.

SDR / BDR at a software company

The modern path into well-paid B2B sales. These roles exist to train prospecting machines who book meetings for closers, and they are explicitly designed to promote strong performers into Account Executive seats. They reward outreach discipline and metrics, not a prior sales resume — making them one of the few routes that genuinely welcome newcomers.

Adjacent customer-facing pivot

Move from customer service, account management, or a support role into selling, leveraging the product knowledge and relationships you already have. Frame your existing wins in sales terms — accounts retained, expansions driven, customers referred.

Build proof when you have no sales title

If you cannot get a sales seat yet, manufacture evidence: hit a fundraising goal, run a small side venture, sell at a market, or close referral business for a friend's company. Then quantify it. A documented record of persuading people to buy — even at small scale — is the most reliable way to overcome a missing title.

Salary & job outlook

Sales pay is unusually variable because most roles pair a base salary with commission, so two reps with the same title can earn very differently depending on performance, product, and plan.

These are on-target total-compensation ranges combining base and commission; top performers routinely exceed plan, and uncapped commission means a strong rep in software or medical sales can earn well past the top of the range in a good year. The mix matters as much as the headline: a high base with modest commission feels safer, while a lower base with aggressive commission rewards closers. Product, territory, and deal size drive most of the spread.

Outlook: the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects little to modest change in overall sales-representative employment through the early 2030s, with automation trimming some transactional roles. But that headline hides where the demand is: technical, software, and consultative sellers remain in strong demand, and high performers are perpetually sought after because revenue is the one function every company must fund. The reps who thrive pair genuine relationship skill with comfort using data and modern sales tools — and they can always point to a number they moved.

A day in the life

No two sales days are identical, but a representative one for an inside or B2B rep looks like this. Morning: block an hour of prospecting — cold calls, personalized emails, and follow-ups to keep the funnel full — then review the day's calendar of discovery calls and demos in the CRM. Midday: a discovery call where you ask more than you pitch, followed by a product demo tailored to what you just learned, and careful notes logged so the deal does not stall. Afternoon: a negotiation or pricing conversation with a near-close prospect, a forecasting update with your manager, and pipeline hygiene so next week's deals are accurate. Threaded throughout: follow-ups, objection handling over email, and chasing the approvals that turn verbal "yes" into signed contracts. The work is less about any single pitch and more about running a disciplined process that consistently moves prospects toward a close — which is exactly what your resume and interview answers have to prove.

Once you are ready to apply, the next moves are concrete: nail the Sales Representative resume so your quota attainment and revenue get top billing, prepare for the Sales Representative interview questions you will actually be asked — discovery, objection handling, quota stories, and behavioral — and write a sharp Sales Representative cover letter that leads with a number. All three are role-specific and worth working through before you submit a single application.

Frequently asked questions

Keep going

Related role-specific guides and tools to build out your move into sales: