The Work of the Sales Rep Being a sales rep, one needs to take charge of the entire sales process, which includes handling product inquiries, making quotations, sending sample products for evaluation, negotiating prices, fixing payment and delivery terms, receiving orders, arranging manufacture and delivery issues. I work in a Japanese trading company in Shanghai, which has already adapted flexibly to the working style of a local Chinese company, yet still retains the traditions of a typical Japanese enterprise. Such traditions include that every salesperson must report daily work to the team leader, attend frequent sales conferences to present sales summary data, cooperate with colleagues in sales and technical tasks. Sometimes I am driven crazy by the leader's overemphasis on details. For instance, one of my customers has recently received their colleagues from German side and hopes to pay a commercial visit to our Shanghai manufacture site. I reported it to the leader and received the below questions from my leader: what is a commercial visit? what is their purpose of visiting? what are their identities? why must we accept their request? what if we don't let them into our place? ......Speechless. At times I want to yell at him, "You are so noisy. How the hell do I know about it? If you feel suspicious, then refuse! " The job can drive you crazy especially when you hate details and prefer to empty your memory from time to time to reduce pressure. Sometimes it's fun to talk to the customer though. The job entails some interpersonal skills and ability to make up stories and to judge if your client is making up stories. That is to say, a sales rep should be cunning, talkative and eloquent. Maybe my idea is biased, but that's what I learned from this job. Unfortunately, I am not a qualified sales rep, for I am straightforward, aggressive, and sometimes naive. Perhaps I am the so-called mono-cell creature:) Sales rep must be patient, a quality which I have enhanced a lot recently through making numerous sales estimation sheets, preparing sales materials, formulating customer information documents, etc. I was so surprised I endured all the boredom and crazy trivial stuff! If it were one year ago, I might have torn the papers to pieces and thrown my resignation letter on the leader's desk, but I didn't. The sales rep must also be adept at building friendly relations with the customer and obtaining competitor information. That's what I know about the sales job.