Going to School to Work in Sales

With the continuing advances in technology, finance, and business-compliancy concerns, the demand for an educated sales force has risen. While not all sales careers require education beyond high school, many do. While certain sales industries may demand a specific degree, there are college degrees that are widely accepted and sought after in the sales industry.

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Pharmaceutical Sales

Close-up view of graduation tassel and diploma for sales and marketing — Vstock/Creative RF/Getty Images

Practically every pharmaceutical company that employs a sales force has a minimum requirement of a bachelor's degree.

While a degree in biology or chemistry is best suited for a career in the pharmaceutical industry, most any degree will suffice.

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Bachelors of Finance

In sales, a degree in finance is king. In sales, you will be designing solutions and proposals that will involve the transfer of money. Having a finance background allows sales professionals to more fully understand the financial impact to both the sales professional's company and the customer's. Understanding the financial impact of a transaction also improves the rapport that sales professionals can build with their clients.

The more complicated the financial side of a transaction is, the more a finance understanding comes into play. Working with lease rates, depreciation schedules, a total return on investment (ROI), and total cost of ownership (TCO) are all important financial factors that many potential clients will want to know.

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Masters of Business Administration

A Masters in Business Administration is a degree that often opens up doors leading to senior leadership. In MBA courses, students learn much more than the basics of running and managing a business and how to design a marketing program. This advanced degree prepares students for leading and managing several key areas of an organization:

Finances
Compliance
Human Resources
Marketing
Strategic Planning
Business Continuation and Disaster Recovery
Public Relations
Employee Compensation and Retention

Having an MBA is often overkill for many sales positions, but organizations that offer vertical advancement and "responsibility expansion" opportunities will often prefer a candidate with an MBA to most other degrees.

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Bachelors of Marketing

Marketing and sales go hand in hand, and the greater understanding of how to effectively market a product or service a sales professional possesses, the greater the likelihood that the sales professional will be successful.

Most sales-based companies have either an entire marketing department or a team of marketing-minded employees that are responsible for several key areas:

Product or Name Branding
Go-to-Market Strategy
Pricing Levels
Sales Compensation
Product Replacement

Having an understanding of how a product or service is marketed and why certain go-to-market approaches were chosen (or not chosen) could give a sales professional a unique advantage over others employed with the same company.

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Liberal Arts

For sales industries that are non-specific in nature, a degree in Liberal Arts is a well-rounded education that shows some degree of proficiency across many different lines of study. Many colleges and universities offer "concentrations" that augment a liberal arts degree. For sales careers, the best concentrations are in business management, finance, marketing, and, if available, sales.

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Specialty Certifications

Beyond the education earned in a classroom (or online), targeted training and certifications are other valuable components of a sales professional's education.

There are several certifications available for many different industries, and each is targeted for a specific part of an industry. For the IT industry, for example, CompTIA offers several certifications that salespeople selling IT services and products should consider.

To find what certifications are in demand in your chosen industry, search the internet for certifications available for your industry. The more times a specific certification comes up in the search results, the more likely that certification is one that you should consider.