Transcript
My name is Al Hart. I’m the account manager for Coca Cola. What that is, is I manage a territory for Coca Cola, and I sell our products in an area, and I go to several different kinds of businesses, such as supermarkets, small convenience stores, and restaurants. I really love my job. I look forward to it every day.
I’m a commissioned sales person. Commissioned sales persons’ salaries are based on how hard they work. One of the reasons I chose this career was because you need some level of education, but you don’t need a high level of education, like a master’s degree or something of that sort. An associate’s degree is really what you need to get started to be successful.
I can remember taking a Dale Carnegie course earlier in my career — that the company actually paid — that gave me the opportunity to understand people, and that’s what sales is all about, being able to understand people, and to understand how to get through to people, to sell yourself, that what is comes to. People like to buy products from people they like.
Another thing I like about my job is its very competitive. Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola are probably the two biggest competitors in the world in anything. Every day, its about competition. It’s about winning and losing.
You can succeed and win by good old hard work. It not who you know, not if the boss above you likes you, it’s about you winning and succeeding. The more you sell, the more you succeed, plus everybody likes to win. If you’ve ever been on a team, it’s always about winning. And that spirit is in sales, that spirit is what competition’s all about. It’s never a boring day. There’s always something you could do more or better.
Another reason I chose this career was it gave me the ability to stay in Maine. Maine is a wonderful place. I’m fortunate to be from the County, which is really a unique part of Maine, and if you’re from the County, you know what I mean. It’s about community and being able to raise my family in that community and have them have the strong values is really a unique thing I don’t believe I could have gotten anywhere else in the world.
Industry
- Sales jobs (Salary.com)
Occupational pathways
ENTRY
- Retail Salespersons (ONet: Job Zone 2, Interest code EC)
MID-LEVEL
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing (ONet: Job Zone 3, Interest code CE)
EXPERIENCED
- Sales Managers (ONet: Job Zone 4, Interest code EC)
Maine Sparks 