If you're a top-notch salesperson who doesn't mind travelling, then you might make the perfect route sales representative. As a route sales representative, you'll drive to different locations to sell products to customers. To be successful at your job, you'll need to develop strategies that help you meet targets and maintain a growing client base.
You'll need to feel comfortable being on the road since a large proportion of your time will be spent driving to a different location. In addition to making sales, some of the tasks you'll perform on the job include evaluating customers' needs, forecasting sales, attending sales events and conferences, and producing sales reports.
If you're thinking of becoming a route sales representative, you should have a friendly and confident manner, good personal presentation, and excellent communication skills. In addition, you'll need to be able to work without direct supervision and have extensive knowledge of the products and services you're selling.
Typically, you'll only need a high school diploma or equivalent education. Most employers look for a high-energy individual who is innovative, creative and has a positive attitude.
How to Become a Route Sales Representative
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a route sales representative. For example, did you know that they make an average of $21.87 an hour? That's $45,491 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 2% and produce 30,100 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Route Sales Representative Do
There are certain skills that many route sales representatives have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed hand-eye coordination, math skills and patience.
How To Become a Route Sales Representative
If you're interested in becoming a route sales representative, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 36.9% of route sales representatives have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.1% of route sales representatives have master's degrees. Even though some route sales representatives have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a route sales representative. When we researched the most common majors for a route sales representative, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on route sales representative resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a route sales representative. In fact, many route sales representative jobs require experience in a role such as sales representative. Meanwhile, many route sales representatives also have previous career experience in roles such as assistant manager or store manager.
Route Sales Representative Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a route sales representative can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as driver, progress to a title such as foreman and then eventually end up with the title sales manager.
Average Salary for a Route Sales Representative
What Am I Worth?
Top Skills For a Route Sales Representative
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 20.5% of route sales representatives listed cdl on their resume, but soft skills such as hand-eye coordination and math skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Route Sales Representative Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Route Sales Representative templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Route Sales Representative resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Route Sales Representative Demographics
Route Sales Representative Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among route sales representatives, 8.3% of them are women, while 91.7% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among route sales representatives is White, which makes up 65.8% of all route sales representatives.
- The most common foreign language among route sales representatives is Spanish at 75.6%.
Online Courses For Route Sales Representative That You May Like
The Ultimate Sales Methodology for Business Development & B2B Sales to Learn Sales Strategy, Sales Skills & Deal Closing...
Sales Hacking: Essential sales skills, sales strategies and sales techniques to sell just about anything!...
Best States For a Route Sales Representative
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a route sales representative. The best states for people in this position are Michigan, California, North Dakota, and New Jersey. Route sales representatives make the most in Michigan with an average salary of $53,242. Whereas in California and North Dakota, they would average $51,333 and $50,680, respectively. While route sales representatives would only make an average of $50,374 in New Jersey, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Rhode Island
$49,511
Avg. Salary
2. Iowa
$49,902
Avg. Salary
3. New Jersey
$50,374
Avg. Salary
How Do Route Sales Representative Rate Their Jobs?
Top Route Sales Representative Employers
Most Common Employers For Route Sales Representative
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PepsiCo | $52,478 | $25.23 | 178 |
| 2 | Bimbo Bakeries | $50,075 | $24.07 | 200 |
| 3 | Herr Foods | $50,023 | $24.05 | 123 |
| 4 | Utz Brands | $50,001 | $24.04 | 116 |
| 5 | The Schwan Food Company | $49,920 | $24.00 | 358 |
| 6 | Odwalla Juice Co | $49,878 | $23.98 | 83 |
| 7 | UniFirst | $49,679 | $23.88 | 517 |
| 8 | Frito-Lay | $49,620 | $23.86 | 3,001 |
| 9 | Franz Bakery | $48,905 | $23.51 | 62 |
| 10 | Farmer Brothers | $48,561 | $23.35 | 80 |
Becoming a Route Sales Representative FAQs
How much do route sales reps make?
Route sales reps make approximately $42,000 per year, and also earn an average of $3,600 each year in bonuses and added incentives. The top 10% of route sales reps make around $49,000 nationally, while the entry-level positions bring in approximately $37,000 per year.
What training do you need to be a sales representative?
The training needed to be a sales representative is usually provided by the employer. Most companies require their sales representatives to have a high school diploma.
Some companies may seek out candidates who have completed a technical program or have an earned associate's or bachelor's degree, depending on the type of sales representative position.