Sell products or services.
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 | 38 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Selling or Influencing Others (4.A.4.a.6) |
What could do this work.
These are the categories of tool that address selling and influencing, with a few live examples from our landscape. We name the category rather than promise that a specific product does your specific task, because that promise would not be true.
Vertical agents
Builders
Categories are matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Before committing to any of them, check that the tool can reach the system your record actually lives in. That connection, not the model, is where most of these projects stall.
Who does this work.
38 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Amusement and Recreation Attendants
- Animal Caretakers
- Automotive and Watercraft Service Attendants
- Barbers
- Bicycle Repairers
- Cashiers
- Concierges
- Counter and Rental Clerks
- Demonstrators and Product Promoters
- Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers
- Driver/Sales Workers
- Exercise Trainers and Group Fitness Instructors
- First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
- Flight Attendants
- Gambling and Sports Book Writers and Runners
- Gambling Cage Workers
- Gambling Change Persons and Booth Cashiers
- Hairdressers, Hairstylists, and Cosmetologists
- Insurance Sales Agents
- Jewelers and Precious Stone and Metal Workers
- Mail Clerks and Mail Machine Operators, Except Postal Service
- Manicurists and Pedicurists
- New Accounts Clerks
- Outdoor Power Equipment and Other Small Engine Mechanics
- Postal Service Clerks
- Postal Service Mail Carriers
- Retail Salespersons
- Sales Engineers
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Products
- Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Sales Agents
- Skincare Specialists
- Spa Managers
- Tellers
- Tour Guides and Escorts
- Travel Agents
- Travel Guides
- Ushers, Lobby Attendants, and Ticket Takers
- Veterinary Assistants and Laboratory Animal Caretakers
Work that goes with it.
O*NET groups these under “Sell products or services”. 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.