Introduction
Searching for a job is a strenuous exercise coupled with online frauds, time wastage, and underpayment particularly when the candidate is not adequately prepared. Therefore, most people resort to looking jobs online. Despite the fact that this approach work for a sizable number of job seekers, cases of people being conned online has been on the rise due to unpreparedness and falling prey of quick money job swindles (Lauber and Kraig, 14). For instance, some perpetrators send checks to their victims to get account numbers, where over one million Americans are victims. This stems from the fact that, many job seekers have a vague idea of what they want regarding employment, which makes them easy prey for the online criminals. However, scaling down the fraudsters’ antiques and getting the optimum pay from the job search is attainable through appreciation of the job search process. Firstly, the potential employees have to be specific about what they want to do based on their capabilities. After that, they should target several employers who offer their desired packages, job growth and development as well equal opportunities among other employee benefits. This will be quite useful in overcoming the urge to be lured with fake jobs and empty promises by non-existing online employers. At this particular point, the job seekers should leverage on gathered information and creativity to seek attention and write application letters to the target companies. As such, the paper will evaluate the job description of salesmanship to understand the underlying details, the companies offering these opportunities as well as the industry outlook. Moreover, the paper will evaluate negotiation process through planning program and the scoring card.
Salesmanship job description
Salesmanship encompasses the process of identifying and meeting the customer needs through fair and honest deals. Consequently, the resulting commercial relationship will be beneficial and continuous. Notably, every enterprise engages in a selling process to meet the market needs by implementing a sales strategy formulated through the market research. More particularly, globalization has increased the growth of trading activities in the entire world due to increased competition. The art is not confined to the organizations selling product and services but spread to the NGO through the persuasive skills. Therefore, due to the diversity of this profession, there have been reviews in this area to ensure that it is in line with the global market trends, diversified customers as well as the ethical aspects to maximize the customers’ welfare.
Additionally, salesmanship is often termed as a personal selling venture. Therefore, such skills as negotiation, personal presentation and other forms of effective communication come into play to make an impact in the profession. This is the case since the sales people have to induce people to buy goods, services such as insurance and financial products as well as subscribe to certain beliefs. Ultimately, they aim at getting the prospective buyer to favor their product and make a sale.
It is of vital importance to ensure that the actual sale creates a mutual benefit, that is, the customers derive maximum utility from the product while the salespersons earn inform of commission and other benefits offered by the employer. Based on creating a lasting satisfaction, the sales people will be successive in making repeated sales in the future. Additionally, satisfied customers automatically become the product and brand ambassadors to their families, friends, and colleagues. As such, the employers entrust the sales people in creating both the revenue and the assets. More specifically, the revenue is in the form of income while assets cover the permanent goodwill created between the sales people the customers. Owing to the role of salesmanship in linking the buyer and the sellers such as making sales, providing feedback and maximizing on resources, the company insists on certain desirable qualities. Firstly, the sales people should possess analytical skills to identify the customer behavior and needs since they form the basis of actual sales. Additionally, their communication skills should complement their other qualities such as the personal appearance to make actual sales. Additionally, the sales person should inform the customers on the use and utility of the products. Finally, to close the deal, it is important to assess the preferences and tastes of the clients based on gender, age, and cultural background.
The target job search will target the banking and the insurance companies owing to the demand of the services offered and the existing customer awareness. Moreover, the potential employee will have an opportunity to sample the available large number of companies in this industry, conduct analysis and make the required decisions since the information is readily available in comparison to other industries. The first target company will be the MetLife Insurance Company, the largest insurance company in the world (Borscheid and Niels, 249). This has operations in over sixty countries, thus, it is an established brand and has better employees’ benefits as well as training programs. Moreover, its services serve the need of the customers, which potentially will increase the sales person motivation and productivity. Other insurance target companies are Prudential Insurance and Berkshire Hathaway. On the other hand, the job search will also focus on two banking corporations, that is, JPMorgan Chase and the Bank of America. Based on their large-scale operations as well as their reputations, the targeted sales people will benefit from growth and development opportunities in addition to hefty remunerations and compensation.
Market analysis
Strengths
The sales market has many advantages compared to other jobs due to some reasons. Firstly, the market gives immediate feedback, unlike other jobs that involve a sequence of procedures. Here, the sales person is exposed to the prospective customers as part of their jobs. Therefore, it allows them to learn from exposure, presentations and ultimately making actual sales. Moreover, the industry has large number of sales people owing to the huge number of customers served in the financial and the insurance company. Thus, a new sales person can learn from the others. The job is also versatile as all the enterprises have sales department, thereby, a good sales person will not undergo long periods of seasonal unemployment. Companies are always engaged in the marketing and advertisements to promote their brand and create awareness among the potential customers. As such, the sales team benefit from these campaigns since the customers are already aware of the products.
Weaknesses
Nevertheless, the nature of the sales job in the finance and insurance industry has intrinsic weaknesses. The sales people have to make sales to earn significant income. Therefore, during the first few months the new employee will make do with limited budget before mastering the art and closing business. Moreover, the industry requires networking, something lacking in the beginners. Finally, it requires aggressive personality since it is part of the job for the products to be rejected. Thereby, the sales people need to be self-motivated and aggressive in order to make it in the industry.
Opportunities
The populations of the United States as well as other countries where these companies have operations are increasing gradually. Moreover, there is an increase in the middle class globally, which will increase the demand for the financial and the insurance products. Therefore, the sales job outlook indicates continued growth in the future. Besides, the largest expenditure by the United States citizen is on health. As such, the sales people are presented with an opportunity to sell health policies to the citizen so that they minimize the spending on health and divert the excess money to other investments opportunities. The emergent of financial technology and the portfolio management systems can improve the sales people job if integrated into their work. The technology can also be exploited in marketing the sales person services through social media and other online platforms while database can store real information on the clients (Pride and Ferrell, 632). Generally, the technology, product innovation and the huge population will give the sales people chance to grow their portfolio.
Threats
The financial and insurance market has lot of players who compete fiercely for the available clients. Thus, the sales persons in these fields need to be well equipped to make a mark since the competing companies make huge expenses on marketing their products. Despite the opportunities presented by technology, there has been an increase in the number of financial fraud and cybercrimes targeting the vulnerable clients in this industry. As such, the clients are quite cautious on matters relating to the insurance and banking.
The table below shows the average salaries and other benefits for insurance agent in The United States.
Source: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=State_Farm_Insurance_Company/Salary
Planning document
Negotiation: ------------------------------- Role: ---------------------------------------------
The most important issue to me (sales person)
Maximum salary
Earn more bonus and commission
Reduce the expenses such as the rent and transport
Achieve job development
Sales person Reservation Price
Employee’s source of power
The job seekers can leverage on the job outlook and the changes happening to the population such as the immigration and increase in the number of middle class in various cities. This will provide potential customers who will favor their products. Moreover, the job seeker can choose their target companies based on the terms of employment for these companies.
The employers
Maximize the productivity of the sales person
Increase their customer base
Improve their economic performance
Reduce the cost of marketing
The price reservation for the target employers
The BATNA for the target employer it to maximize the output of the sales team at minimum expense. Therefore, they have several alternatives for the newly employed sales persons. For the highly productive people are sales they would be posted in the populous cities and regions that have cut-throat competition so that they can have an edge. To realize these goals, the candidates are highly trained through activations among other modes of training. Moreover, these employees are exposed to varied situations in the market to build their capacity. Thus, high performance translates to high salaries, bonus and commissions. Naturally, low performing candidates would not meet the cost of living in the high profile cities and thus, would have to be located in areas with low population to live within their means. Clearly, the BATNA inherently favors the employer since the earnings are largely dependent on the output. Therefore, the entry in these marketing jobs is easy; however, attaining growth takes personality, hard work, and resilience.
Source of power for the employer
The target company will use its desired criteria to select the sales people who meet their standards and offer them the first salary as they may find a fit. Therefore, they will be at their discretion and it is upon those seeking jobs to prepare adequately y to meet the minimum requirement to secure the jobs.
The planning program is summarized in the package 1 and two below.
According to the results of the scorecard, working in high populous cities will lead to benefits in the career development, and the high cost of living while working low populous regions will have more benefit regarding the low cost of living but low career growth.
Conclusion
Seeking employment opportunity in this paper has provided two important conclusions. Firstly, is the fact that the potential employees have an upper hand I negotiating their employment terms than they are aware currently. This benefit can be maximized by planning in advance and searching for the relevant information. Secondly, the study shows that have a specific objective before embarking on a search for a job would increase the chance to earn higher, lower seasonal employment opportunities and work at their dream company.
References
Borscheid, Peter, and Niels V. Haueter. World Insurance: The Evolution of a Global Risk Network. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
Lauber, Daniel, and Kraig Rice. International Job Finder: Where the Jobs Are Worldwide. River Forest, Ill: Planning/Communications, 2002. Print.
Pride, William M, and O C. Ferrell. Marketing. Australia: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2014. Print.
Uden, Lorna. Knowledge Management in Organizations: 9th International Conference, Kmo' 2014, Santiago, Chile, September 2-5, 2014, Proceedings'. , 2014. Internet resource.
