Every year in the United States, thousands of seminars, conferences, weddings, and business meetings take place in hotels, motels, and convention centers. According to the JW Marriott chain, the MICE market (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) is worth about $106 billion in sales revenue.31 The salespeople employed by these companies, often referred to as account managers, sales managers, or account executives, play important roles in attracting clients to utilize these facilities. Salespeople build relationships; carefully analyze needs; configure solutions; often upgrade services to sell room space, food, beverages, and entertainment; and can offer services to create an attractive atmosphere for potential clients. (For more insight into personal selling opportunities in the MICE market, refer to Appendix 3, Partnership Selling: A Role-Play.)

Typical of the salespeople employed in this service sector is Brian Moon, sales manager of the Renaissance Indian Wells Resort and Spa located in Indian Wells, California. This resort is a world-class facility located in the desert and includes exquisite swimming pools. 32 When Brian and his sales force encounter resistance from a client, they work diligently to identify the sources of the resistance, clarify the issues, and resolve the problems so as to consummate the sale. In the selling of hotel and convention center sales, as well as a number of the other types of service selling, salespeople may be involved in both B2B and B2C selling, depending upon whether they are selling to a business or to an individual. Buying motives and selling strategies described in later chapters will vary considerably depending upon whether the sale is B2B or B2C.

The deregulation of telephone service resulted in the fragmentation of major telephone companies and the creation of numerous new communications companies. This has led to an increased need for telecommunications salespeople. These individuals must have a thorough knowledge of their system and a good understanding of competing telecommunications systems.

Today there are more than one million sales jobs in the securities and financial service field and employment continues to increase. Banks, credit unions, brokerage firms, and other businesses continue to expand, branch out, and diversify, selling a broader range of financial planning and investment services. Brad Duffy, financial service wholesaler for Riversource Investments, educates and advises financial advisors for American Express on new and existing products offered by his company.33

Revenue from both local and national advertising supports the radio, television, newspaper, and magazine industries and is also a major source of profit for the Internet. Each of these media forms must sell advertising to remain in business. In fact, newspapers and magazines generate far more revenue from the sales of advertising than from subscriptions. Amy Vandaveer, a sales representative featured in Chapter 6, sells advertising space for Texas Monthly. The wide variety of client needs and the task of meeting these needs make the work of media sales representatives interesting. Additionally, the requirement for the members of the media sales staff to develop or to help the client develop commercials makes this work very interesting.

The purchase of a home is usually the single-largest expenditure in the average person’s lifetime. The purchase of commercial property by individual investors or business firms also represents a major economic decision. Therefore, the 800,000 people who sell real estate assume an important responsibility.

Busy real estate salespeople often hire sales associates to conduct open houses or to perform other tasks. Real estate salespeople must obtain listings, advertise the properties, conduct visits by potential clients, and sell properties. Susana Rosas, a sales representative for CBRE featured in Chapter 4, stresses the need to create relationships with her clients.34 Honesty is essential in establishing and maintaining good relationships. Susana believes that if the experience is good for the client it will result in referrals to friends and members of the family, providing additional clients.

Selling insurance has often been a very rewarding career in sales. The types of insurance sold include fire, liability, health, automobile, casualty, homeowner, and business. There are two general types of insurance salespeople. One type consists of salespeople employed by major insurance companies such as Allstate, Farmers, Prudential, Travelers, State Farm, Geico, Hartford, and Mutual of Omaha. Salespeople for these companies sell both personal and commercial lines; however, all their product solutions are offered exclusively by their company. Ryan Guillory, whom we introduce in Chapter 2, is an excellent example of this type of salesperson who sells various insurance products but only for his company, The Woodlands Financial Group (TWFG). The second type consists of independent insurance agents who represent a number of various companies. The typical independent agency sells a very broad line of personal and commercial insurance services, offered by many companies.

The great number of new businesses and the expansion of existing businesses have resulted in an increase in the demand for business services provided by outside contractors. Some of the services provided by outside contractors include computer programming, training, printing, credit reporting, payroll and accounting, payment processing, recruiting, transportation, and security. Many other sales careers involving the sale of services exist. This field is increasing at a rapid pace and sales positions become available in service sales every day.