If you are a creative person who enjoys professional development and loves to interact with people, a career in sales might be ideal for you. As a salesperson, you are not just selling goods, you are helping your customers by providing them with products and services to provide solutions to everyday problems.
In this article, we bring you the best sales project ideas to sharpen your skills, enhance your business knowledge, and develop your seller-to-customer relationship skills. Whether you are a beginner or an expert, you can find lots of sales projects that will enhance your skills and boost your sales portfolio.
5 Skills That Sales Projects Can Help You Practice
This section introduces you to the top five sales skills you should work on. By completing sales projects to share in your portfolio, you are honing these skills and making yourself a strong candidate for a career in sales. Salespeople must have a broad range of skills and the following five often encompass many soft skills as well.
- Marketing Skills. Marketing helps to increase your sales by promoting your products or services. Sales projects will help you learn about marketing strategies, social media management, graphic design, writing, and communication. This will allow you to successfully engage with your target audience, build strong customer relations, and build up your brand reputation.
- Project Management Skills. Project management skills include problem-solving, leadership, organization, and good communication. You will learn how to create timelines, develop effective sales planning, and handle a sales team. You will also learn to write technical documents since all of your plans, processes, and shared information should be documented as backup and better collaboration between team members.
- Basic Accounting Skills. Accounting helps you track sales and monitor expenses. Sales projects will teach you how financial records are organized through accounting reports, balance sheets, and cash flow. This knowledge can help you manage your clients when costs and pricing are brought up from time to time.
- Customer Service. Sales professionals often interact with a company’s clientele in order to provide a high level of service. Understanding how to optimize the relationship between seller and customer will enhance your ability to close sales. Being skilled in customer service means being skilled in communication, adaptability, listening, attentiveness, and problem-solving.
- Computer Skills. Sales projects can help you enhance your technical skills, such as proficiency in MS Excel and Google Sheets. Mastering this type of software can help you keep everything organized and on track.
Best Sales Project Ideas for Beginners
Gaining experience in sales typically involves more doing than showing. But if you’re a beginner in the sales industry, you may not have any sales achievements to share. Completing some of the following projects to add to your sales portfolio will show your skillset in the various crucial skills laid out above and will help you get a taste of what it’s like to work in sales.
Conduct Sales Interviews and Surveys
- Sales Skills practiced: Marketing, customer service
This project will teach you how to engage a business with your target audience. Your main objective in conducting interviews and surveys is to know what your target customer needs. It involves analyzing the possible marketing strategy and a project plan you can impose for your goods or services. It will also enhance your skills in customer relations since this project is about connecting and communicating with your potential customers.
Create a Sales Plan
- Sales Skills Practiced: Basic accounting, project management
A good salesperson understands the product or service and the needs of the business. Practice making a mock sales plan that identifies a business’ sales target, strategies, target market, and goals. Include solid procedures to accomplish these objectives. By doing this, you will enhance your skills in planning, managing, and organizing, and show a strong understanding of the seller and customer relationship.
Social Media Marketing
- Sales Skills Practiced: Marketing, computer skills
Depending on the size of the business, you may also be contributing to the marketing department from time to time. Sales and marketing work closely to get the message and the priorities of a business to its customers. Research and put together a short social media marketing strategy to show your acumen in understanding marketing and how your sales position can succeed in relation to it.
Sell Printed Items
- Sales Skills Practiced: Basic accounting, customer service, project management
What better way to practice your sales technique, and gain some tangible sales metrics, than selling things yourself. Selling small printed items such as posters, gift cards, or flyers is an ideal sales project for beginners. Use online tutorials for Adobe Photoshop or Canva to create unique designs for your products. As you work on selling your products, keep track of strategies that worked or failed to discuss as experience in a sales job interview.
Sell Cupcakes and Cakes
- Sales Skills Practiced: Basic accounting, customer service, and project management
If you love baking, why not use it as your sales project? Join local craft shows, bake sales, or even set up a stand by your home or in a public space (if allowed) and test your sales skills along with your customer service skills.
Best Intermediate Sales Project Ideas
Intermediate project ideas will help you apply your sales knowledge and your soft skills in a more challenging way. You will be handling larger amounts of data and transactions, and interacting with customers more often.
Dropshipping Business
- Sales Skills Practiced: Marketing, project management, basic accounting
In dropshipping, the selling store does not stock the items. Instead, it accepts orders then sends them to the supplier who will deliver the goods directly to the customer. To succeed in this business, you should be highly organized in handling a high number of orders and adept at making transactions.
Crafts and Handmade Items
- Sales Skills Practiced: Marketing, project management
DIY items such as candles, soaps, accessories, bags, or cloth masks are more popular than ever, making this a great opportunity for you to begin a sales project. In selling handmade items, creativity in marketing is highly advantageous. You should also be aware of product trends so you can innovate and create your unique product version to attract more buyers.
Personalized Items
- Sales Skills Practiced: Marketing, project management
If you love drawing, painting, or calligraphy, this idea is the best for you. Personalized items come in a wide variety of products. It can be personalized notebooks, keychains, mugs, frames, or anything that you think will be a good fit for your artistic skills. To succeed in this business, you’ll need strong marketing strategies and offer great customer service.
Selling Services
- Sales Skills Practiced: Marketing, customer service
If you are a graphic artist, a photographer, a writer, a virtual assistant, or a web developer, you can use your talent as a sales project to practice your sales skills. You can offer your services through various freelance marketplaces such as Upwork and Fiverr. Selling your services will give you an on-the-ground experience of the seller-to-customer relationship.
Write a Sales Pitch
- Sales Skills Practiced: Marketing, project management
Writing a few of your own sales pitches in the varying techniques in this project will help you discover which one feels most authentic to your sales style, as well as which is most effective. A sales pitch is an important part of getting the interest of your prospective customers, or “leads”. Having samples of well-written sales pitches will help you practice and surely get your portfolio noticed.
Best Advanced Sales Project Ideas
These project ideas will help you gain a strong understanding of the sales process and help you polish your customer relations skills and selling tactics. While some of these projects are major and will require some project management, the advanced learning you will gain from this hands-on experience won’t go unnoticed by potential employers.
Direct Selling
- Sales Skills Practiced: Customer service, project management, and basic accounting
Unlike drop shipping, direct selling doesn’t involve third parties. The salesperson will directly communicate with the potential client to sell the products. Direct selling helps you build a strong seller-to-customer relationship with clients since you have direct contact with them. This is a great opportunity for you to get to study a client’s needs and work on sales activities to hone your skills.
Source Leads
- Sales Skills Practiced: Computer skills, marketing
Sourcing leads is often a major part of a sales professional’s job. As a salesperson, your job is to drive business to the company, which means searching for leads to find that business. For this project, research a business and create a list of leads in an Excel spreadsheet that could be valuable opportunities to turn into a customer. Include your reasoning and what steps you’d take in pursuing this lead.
Create a Mock SWOT Analysis
- Sales Skills Practiced: Project management, computer skills
In business, knowing who your competitors are, what they offer, and their pricing, is important. In sales, it’s very valuable to know all about your competitor so you are able to pander to a customer’s needs in a more efficient way. Businesses evaluate their competitors by using a SWOT analysis. Create a sample SWOT analysis to show your ability to strategize.
Develop a Sales Presentation
- Sales Skills Practiced: Marketing, computer skills
For larger companies and more formal sales situations, salespeople are often required to make a sales presentation to prospective clientele or customers from time to time. Being able to speak comfortably and present a comprehensive overview of your company and how it can solve the prospective client’s problems are crucial skills in being a successful salesperson. Develop a mock sales presentation to share as a sample of your work.
E-Commerce
- Sales Skills Practiced: Project management, computer skills
E-commerce is the method of selling a product over the Internet. Start an ecommerce project by creating an account with Amazon, Alibaba, or eBay. You should also master how to use and navigate the platform you will use. For example, Amazon sellers should know how to interact with the Amazon Seller Central which is used to manage their sales and orders. Basic product research and product listing are also important in e-commerce.
Next Steps: Start Organizing Your Sales Portfolio
A good sales portfolio includes the lists of your experiences as a salesperson or your projects that will prove your success in sales and entrepreneurship. A strong portfolio can become your greatest asset when you apply for sales jobs, including sales manager or sales project manager positions. Here are a few tips you can take into account to make your portfolio stand out.
List Your Working Experience in Sales
If you have any working experience on a sales team as a sales representative, account manager, or any other related position, you should include them in your portfolio. Keep in mind that the purpose of this is to let the employers evaluate your technical skills so it should clearly state your specific roles and responsibilities in each position.
Lists Your Successful Sales Projects
After you list your previous work experience, choose your successful sales projects and organize them in your portfolio. You should explain how you managed the project, how you handled a sales team, and how you communicated with clients and suppliers. You should describe in detail the strategic plan you used in your project as well as your outcomes.
Add Graphs and Charts for Visual Representation
Graphs and charts are good ways to show the growth in your project sales. It tells the progress of your performance as well as the comparison of your sales over a period of time. This representation determines the success of your projects.
Sales Projects FAQ
First, you should earn a bachelor’s degree majoring in marketing, accounting, business management, economics, or statistics. Most employers prefer a candidate with experience in sales so it would be an advantage if you previously worked as a salesperson or as part of a sales team. A degree isn’t mandatory, however, and studying at one of the best sales bootcamps will also help to develop your sales skills.
Tech sales representatives offer tech-related products or services for an organization. To become a tech sales representative, having strong computer skills, basic knowledge of software applications, excellent communication skills, and adept marketing skills are highly desirable. You can find many job opportunities for tech sales representatives across various industries.
"Career Karma entered my life when I needed it most and quickly helped me match with a bootcamp. Two months after graduating, I found my dream job that aligned with my values and goals in life!"
Venus, Software Engineer at Rockbot
A career in sales is worth it if you have a knack for interacting with customers and helping them solve problems. Compared to other fields, it has a more flexible working environment alongside competitive salaries and benefits. It is also a field that offers many opportunities for professional development.
According to PayScale, the average annual salary of a sales manager is $62,891. An entry-level sales professional can earn a compensation of up to $46,691, while a sales manager with five to nine years of work experience can earn up to $62,005.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
