The likes of Arthur Daly, Del Boy Trotter and latterly Gareth Cheeseman have done little to promote a positive image of the sales profession, being as they are either thoroughly dishonest or thoroughly unlikable.
However the back of the lorry, nod-and-wink tactics of the traditional spiv or the slogan-spewing of the 1980s-style power seller just don't work in today's sales industry, where we're told the watchwords are customer relations and trust.
"It's the sales person's job to go out and win new business for the company and manage existing customer relations. It's very much a customer-relations role, making sure customers are happy and informing them about new products," Georgina Charleton, director of the Sales Institute of Ireland, says.
The dodgy geezer character is firmly "an image of the past", she says, when professional training was not particularly prevalent. "Companies themselves are investing a lot more in training, to the extent that their sales people are acting as business advisors to their customers."
Charleton also explodes the myth that sales people must be pushy, slick talkers. "A lot of people associate sales with the gift of the gab. However one of the key skills is listening. You need to listen to find out what the customer needs."
The job market open to sales people is vast. Almost every organisation needs them, be it the hotel industry, consumer goods industries or the media. Their working environment is also very varied. They may be working as an individual sales person for a small company, as part of the sales team in a larger company, managing their own individual clients, in telesales, in an office or on the road.
"Generally you will start out as a sales rep," Charlton says. "Then move to field sales out on the road going from client to client. Then progress to being an area manager, looking after a large geographical area. Eventually you can become a sales manager or a sales director, but still always dealing with customers."
Sales people need to be self-motivated, "self starters, who like challenges and goals and have good interpersonal skills," says Charlton. It's these skills that will make the good sales person, the others can be developed through your career.
"Sales makes you confident. You can do courses in sales skills and your sales manager will regularly sit down with you and work on your weaknesses in particular areas, such as time-management or presentation."
People come into sales from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some from business or marketing degrees where they may have already gained specific training in selling. Others come straight from school and some will hold qualifications in other disciplines such as nursing or engineering, but will require additional training to become good sales people.
The Sales Institute of Ireland runs one and two day training courses but it also has a part-time certificate in professional selling run in conjunction with Cork IT and DIT and a part-time diploma in professional sales practice in DIT.
These courses are for people who are already working in some area of sales but would benefit from more formal training, or the "enhancement of their sales skills", says Laura Cuddihy, senior lecturer at the faculty of business in DIT Mountjoy Square.
For school-leavers interested in pursuing a career in sales, Cuddihy recommends studying for a business or marketing qualification.
"Our degree in marketing has selling modules, individual subjects that give a very good understanding of selling."
Whether you go into the sales department of a company straight from school or with a third-level qualification, Cuddihy advises you look very closely at their educational development policies.
