Promote products, services, or programs
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
The research, the list building and the first draft of the pitch are already automated across most sales teams. Closing is not. Buyers still want a person to be answerable, and volume without judgment mostly produces noise.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Selling and influencing |
| Jobs that do it | 25 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Selling or Influencing Others (4.A.4.a.6) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 25 occupations that perform it.
- Represent organizations or promote their objectives at official functions, or delegate representatives to do so.
- Promote the industries and products of their electoral districts.
- Contact organizations to explain services and facilities offered.
- Advocate for new schools to be built, or for existing facilities to be repaired or remodeled.
- Solicit project support by conferring with officials or providing information to the public.
- Market or promote the casino to bring in business.
- Perform marketing and public relations activities.
- Solicit industry-sponsored trials through contacts and professional organizations.
- Market vacant space to prospective tenants through leasing agents, advertising, or other methods.
- Speak to community groups to explain and interpret agency purposes, programs, and policies.
- Sell funeral services, products, or merchandise to clients.
- Attend community events, meetings, or conferences to promote organizational goals or solicit donations or sponsorships.
- Conduct field demonstrations of new products, techniques, or services.
- Direct marketing, advertising, or other customer recruitment efforts.
- Participate in community activities for funeral home promotion or other purposes.
- Recommend and sell lotions, tonics, or other cosmetic supplies.
- Demonstrate and sell hair care products and cosmetics.
- Promote and sell nail care products.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for selling and influencing, and what it costs.
The research and the first draft of the pitch are the automatable part, and a $20 assistant does both. Clay is worth its $149 a month only once the list is bigger than you could research by hand.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
25 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Advertising and Promotions Managers
- Architectural and Engineering Managers
- Barbers
- Chief Executives
- Clinical Research Coordinators
- Customer Service Representatives
- Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary
- Exercise Trainers and Group Fitness Instructors
- Farm and Home Management Educators
- First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers
- Fundraisers
- Funeral Home Managers
- Gambling Managers
- Hairdressers, Hairstylists, and Cosmetologists
- Legislators
- Lodging Managers
- Manicurists and Pedicurists
- Morticians, Undertakers, and Funeral Arrangers
- Order Clerks
- Property, Real Estate, and Community Association Managers
- Recreation Workers
- Reservation and Transportation Ticket Agents and Travel Clerks
- Social and Community Service Managers
- Telephone Operators
- Tour Guides and Escorts
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Promote products, services, or programs”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.