Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

Make presentations to prospective customers, sell our products and services, manage relationships. Hiring and recruitment, training, run sales meetings, ride along on sales appointments.

Twice a week prepare for sales meetings which involves having the monthly sales numbers ready for my team of 10 to review how each person is doing in relation to the KPIs.

Review sales methodology and constantly train on how we sell in the house. Tweak sales methods by using what we learn in the field either on installations or from experiences in the home.

Twice a month report on numbers to upper management and explain highs and lows.

Ride along with my team members to ensure they are following our processes and handling their business properly in the house. Write detailed reports on how each one of those appointments go and submit to the company sales manager.

Maintain a full-time sales administrator and train her on our processes and review inbound contracts for their validity and to make sure that customers receive what they order.

Travel to previous customers' homes to follow up on installations and to try and sell to customers that have not bought in the past.

Seeing customers delighted with their installations. People are nervous about spending the amount of money that they spend with us. It is my job to make them feel good about the process and follow up to make sure everything went the way they hoped it would and that our products and service went above and beyond their expectations. I also enjoy my team and working with them. They are like me in that they are self motivated and all have certain characteristics that I respect in others.

Dealing with sales in general. One month may be great, the next one might be terrible and you haven't changed anything. It is challenging to be able to identify what is different in our customers and adapt and continue to sell at a high level while maintaining customer satisfaction. Dealing with 10 different individual sales people is also challenging. Trying to motivate them when they are in the dumps is never easy. Reporting numbers that aren't ideal to upper management is also never an easy thing.

Home Improvement is an area I have been involved with for most of my life. There is money to be made in the industry and our company is the best window replacement company in the industry. We sell high value products that have lifetime warranties and we stand behind our installations 100%.

Management of people. Teamwork is something I learned playing sports my whole life but also working in groups in my academic career. Time management is also hugely important and you learn a lot about that in college.

Sales training. The management training is ongoing and intermittent. Most of the people management training is learned on the job and ever evolving.

I have really only had this job since leaving University. I did some manual labor jobs that were not using my academic qualifications so I made the switch to a "real" job that actually pays decently.

I see myself in sales for the foreseeable future. It is a very profitable job if you are willing to work on commission only and you find a company whose pay structure makes sense and is fair. I have found that at this company.

Don't be scared of a commission only job. Most of the time they are most profitable but also can be risky if you don't have a safety net. If you put effort into a commission only job you will get out what you put in.