Public Speaking Training At Toastmasters To Prepare For Sales Careers

Many individuals who want to pursue pharmaceutical sales or other sales careers have no prior experience in selling. This lack of experience often results in applicants not reaching even the interview stage with companies as many sales managers and recruiters do not bother with people who haven’t been in sales before. However, this isn’t always the case.
Many successful pharmaceutical sales representatives had zero sales experience before getting their first jobs in this field. I know representatives who came from past non-sales careers such as journalism, lab work and nursing. Some even came right out of college or university. What they all had in common were excellent communications skills which made up for the lack of actual sales backgrounds.

If someone has above average communications skills and the right aptitude for a sales career, he or she can be successfully trained in selling techniques by companies. Most companies with sales forces will have sales training departments internally or access to good professional training programs externally no matter what industry they are in.

In order to successfully compete with others who already have some sales experience, one must beef up his or her communications skills, especially with oral presentations in front of people. After all, sales jobs involve this type of activity whether to one customer at a time or to an entire group. This is where Toastmasters can step in to help.

The public speaking training at Toastmasters involves watching and doing. Members learn by listening to other members speak and by speaking themselves in front of a group of people, all in a friendly, supportive environment. Members can start with short impromptu speeches called table topics or even actual toasts. They can then move onto doing prepared speeches which last several minutes.

Advanced members can conduct longer seminar type of projects. Some projects even have a sales tone even though Toastmasters is not really a sales training organization. Members are always given constructive feedback by fellow members in order to further develop and improve skills.

From my observations of other members developing over time at my own Toastmasters club for singles in Montreal (Singled Out Toastmasters), I can certainly say that the training one gets at Toastmasters definitely improves both communications skills and overall confidence when speaking in front of people which are necessary in the sales field.

I would recommend to those who want to pursue sales careers that they should check out a few Toastmasters clubs in their own local areas as a visitor. Guests can always sit in at club meetings to see how the training can be of benefit. Toastmasters is a non profit organization so the cost of participating as a full member is very low. Visit the international Toastmasters website at www.toastmasters.org to locate a club nearby.

He is the author of the book "How To Get A Dream Job In Pharmaceutical Sales - Direct Inside Advice and Guidance from a Sales Manager". He had a very successful fourteen year career as a pharmaceutical sales representative, sales trainer, product marketing manager and a national sales manager. More information about pharmaceutical sales careers can be found at www.GetPharmaceuticalSalesJob.com

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