Might be a bigger question than you intended huh jk? Similar, really, to what's best about a career in the army. Might be anything from shooting guns to building bridges!
Selling is a very big career option, stretching from a retail environment, across a variety of roles on the telephone (inbound, outbound etc.) through to field sales, and then different levels of "management", where "area", "account" and "territory" tend to imply managing yourself and your customer(s) whereas regional, national etc., infers a team of employees, right up to Sales Director - implying board-level responsibilities. So point 1 is that you've got a lot of options to try and maximise your own personal skills and ambitions. And, personally, I don't think anyone should even be allowed to run a company as MD, unless they have some substantial sales experience.
Point 2 - why sales or selling as opposed to finance or engineering? Easy - if you were going to have developed a passion for numbers or widgets (the old sort) you would have done, by now, so assuming that you do at least have a passing interest in people and business why not maximise the pleasures of human interaction by spending your time talking to them, and solving their problems? If that process in itself turns out to be your biggest reward, you'll probably go far, but even getting your buzz out of being paid for it is probably more rewarding than being paid for stacking shelves.
Proud about sales or reticent about mentioning it? Yes. And, once upon a time, most definitely (it was "publishing" first, then "advertising" and finally "sales"!) - but I'm out of the closet now. It really all depends on how well you and our fellow sales professionals perform in the future. If significant numbers of us remain as dodgy barrow-boy types, out for a quick buck at the punter's expense, then we'll keep any "snake-oil" associations we deserve. But if enough of us really do try to maximise our roles as trusted advisers and problem-solvers, then we'll get increasing levels of respect, pride, value and so on.
And finally - recommend it? Absolutely - my son's going great guns with a telco, for example, but I think we should be tracking this back into schools and universities to try to get selling recognised as a genuine, separate, commercial activity, worthy of study, standards, qualifications and so on. That would make it less of a dustbin for those who fail and something else, and more of a serious option for those with the right inclinations.
It is a lot of fun, too!
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