Is your service job building the skills you will need for a successful career in sales?
The debate is right here in front of us: whether or not working in the service industry is a good idea. Many believe that such experience must be gained at least once in a person’s life, and they are not wrong. Even if it is not your calling, bar tending provides some invaluable skills that will be of great use for any future career you want to pursue. Especially a career in sales.
Did you know that past bartenders succeed as the best salespeople?
‘’Tending bar back in college and while paying for my university expenses has provided me with skills that were essential for a successful career in sales. Without my bar tending days and memories, I wouldn’t be where I am now’’ – says Hope Jackson, content writer at Edugeeksclub.
So, before you decide to quit your job as a bartender because it is not directly related to your desired career, or eliminate it as an opportunity altogether, take the following skills into consideration. Here is what you will gain if you take on a bar tending job at least for a little while in your life.
1. People Skills
This is the most obvious skill all good bartenders share. It is practical – in this job position, you will be surrounded by mostly different customers every day or night. People skills are the key to maintaining such a job since the job itself requires serving customers with what they need.
Some people are simply born with people skills. Others find it harder to communicate and deal with others, which is where this job comes very handy. Without the extra responsibilities of other careers in the office or in the field, a bar tending job gives you a unique opportunity to learn how to handle customers.
There are various types of people skills you will master in your bar tending days. Start with communication skills from making conversation with customers, customer service skills from working to keep customers happy, diplomacy from dealing with people in the best possible way, etc.
If you become good at this, you will surely notice an improvement in your sales skills. Whether you need to provide recommendations for beverages or up-sell a product, all this adds to your career in sales.
Even bad situations teach you people skills. The ability to work with rude customers or unhappy customers will teach you how to improve yourself, as well as how not to take everything to heart.
2. Teamwork
As a bartender, you’d have to work with a team. Even if you are by yourself inside the bar, there will be people serving tables or preparing drinks. To be able to handle a busy day or night at work, you’ll simply have to develop some teamwork skills.
This skill is very valuable, and not only to a career in sales. Being able to work and delegate is a great trait of every successful person, and bar tending can help you master it faster than anything else.
3. Work Ethic
A bartender always has his or her hands full. The job isn’t simple and in most cases, your employer will ask you to run all kinds of errands. Starting from preparing drinks and serving them, to cleaning the bar and handling tough customers – a bartender’s job is far from simple.
But, all this presents you with a speedy course in work ethic development. Late nights and hours, a lot of standing and working with literally all kinds of people will make you develop the advanced work ethic. This is definitely a reason to choose bar tending, even though the job doesn’t seem so inviting on its own when you look at it from this point.
4. Organization
Organization skills are a must behind the bar. Being a disorganized bartender makes you a messy bartender, and that never sticks with the employer. As soon as you start your bar tending journey, you will learn to organize yourself better than you ever could. This is the name of the game in the life of a bartender.
Whether it is organizing the bottles or bar equipment, you need to make everything perfect to sustain a good workflow. When the crowd comes rushing in, you need to find everything easy and fast, as well as keep things clean at all times. After a short while, you will see that a bit of time spent on organization saves you from a lot of trouble later. That’s how motivating this job can be in terms of organization skills.
Organizational skills are important for both your professional and personal life. And as a future salesperson, you’ll be glad to hear that they are essential for building a great sales career.
5. Knowledge
You learn a lot in every career, including bar tending. If you plan to pursue a career in the food and beverage industry, bar tending is an excellent first step. Even though this may be far from the goal you have set for yourself in terms of career, bar tending provides you with unique knowledge of the beverages and their preparation.
In addition to this industry, bar tending makes people great candidates for other knowledgeable careers. Bartenders know how to handle different people, when to say no to a customer, and even how to charge a difficult customer.
The very same concept applies to sales. If you are knowledgeable about your job, you can prescribe the solution to the customer and make them buy the product or service.
6. Speed
Bartenders have to make several drinks at once. The faster and better they are at this, the more tips they will get. This is a great motivation and a way to improve your multitasking abilities.
Why do we say multitasking? Because when you are a bartender, you don’t just have to prepare several different drinks at the same time. You also need to remember who to serve and serve everyone in a timely manner, calculate their check rapidly, make a conversation with them, and organize the bar all at the same time.
This requires speed and great multitasking abilities. If you are up to it, you will benefit a lot from your future sales development career.
Bar tending is a life lesson everyone should learn, especially if they want to succeed in the sales business. These are just the most obvious reasons, but I’m sure you can think of many more!
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Warren Fowler is a marketing enthusiast and a blogger at Edugeeksclub, who loves music. If he doesn’t have a guitar in his hands, he’s probably embracing new technologies and marketing techniques online! You can meet him on Twitter and Facebook.
