17 Key Attributes Advertising Sales Agents Need To Succeed In Their Career

by Alex Garcia

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Advertising sales agents sell or solicit advertising space, time, or media in publications, signage, TV, radio, or Internet establishments or public spaces.

The core tasks that advertising sales agents are likely to carry out include:

Maintain assigned account bases while developing new accounts.
Explain to customers how specific types of advertising will help promote their products or services in the most effective way possible.
Provide clients with estimates of the costs of advertising products or services.
Locate and contact potential clients to offer advertising services.
Process all correspondence and paperwork related to accounts.
Prepare and deliver sales presentations to new and existing customers to sell new advertising programs, and to protect and increase existing advertising.

In order to successfully forge ahead with their careers, analysts in a survey carried out by U.S. Department of Labor (via O*NET) have marked out the following as important attributes that advertising sales agents would need. These attributes have been selected from characteristics and requirements strongly associated with the occupation. They are

Abilities: Enduring attributes of the individual that influence performance
Interests: Preferences for work environments. Occupational Interest Profiles (OIPs) are compatible with Holland's (1985, 1997) model of personality types and work environments. Six interest categories are used to describe the work environment of occupations: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. An OIP consists of six numerical scores indicating how descriptive and characteristic each work environment (or interest area) is for an occupation
Knowledge: Organized sets of principles and facts applying in general domains
Skills: These include basic skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate learning or the more rapid acquisition of knowledge. Plus cross-functional skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate performance of activities that occur across jobs
Style: Personal characteristics that can affect how well someone performs a job

We have listed out attributes which were scored 80% or more in terms of importance by the analysts.

Having a strong preference for enterprising work environments. Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.
Attribute Type: Interests Score: 100%

Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 98.6%

Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 90.8%

Persistence in the face of obstacles.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 90.2%

Establishing and maintaining personally challenging achievement goals and exerting effort toward mastering tasks.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 90%

Being reliable, responsible, and dependable, and fulfilling obligations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 88.4%

A willingness to take on responsibilities and challenges.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 88.4%

Developing one's own ways of doing things, guiding oneself with little or no supervision, and depending on oneself to get things done.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 86.6%

Being honest and ethical.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 86.4%

Accepting criticism and dealing calmly and effectively with high stress situations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 86%

Being careful about detail and thorough in completing work tasks.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 84.8%

Being pleasant with others on the job and displaying a good-natured, cooperative attitude.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 82.2%

Maintaining composure, keeping emotions in check, controlling anger, and avoiding aggressive behavior, even in very difficult situations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 82.2%

Creativity and alternative thinking to develop new ideas for and answers to work-related problems.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 80.2%

The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 80%