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 this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 38 occupations that perform it.
- Sell products, services, or memberships.
- Sell pet food or supplies to customers.
- Sell pet food and supplies.
- Sell food, beverages, or tobacco to players.
- Sell or collect admission tickets, passes, or facility memberships from patrons at entertainment events.
- Sell tickets and collect fees from customers.
- Recommend and sell lotions, tonics, or other cosmetic supplies.
- Demonstrate and sell hair care products and cosmetics.
- Promote and sell nail care products.
- Sell makeup to clients.
- Provide food and beverage services to guests.
- Solicit tour patronage and sell souvenirs.
- Sell travel packages.
- Promote health clubs through membership sales, and record member information.
- Perform work activities of subordinates, such as cleaning and organizing shelves and displays and selling merchandise.
- Sell tickets and other items to customers.
- Sell gambling chips, tokens, or tickets to patrons, or to other workers for resale to patrons.
- Rent items, arrange for provision of services to customers, and accept returns.
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
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.