Developing a career as a Sales Executive

Sales team having business presentation in an office. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

For any company, the sales team is the driving force behind the company’s eventual success or failure. With a good sales team by your side, you can enjoy all the benefits that profitability brings – long standing relationships, new business deals, invaluable networking opportunities and of course, increased sales.

Closing a sale can create a certain ‘buzz’ or sense of achievement, and carries with it an opportunity for eventual growth and personal development that few other jobs can bring. It is a challenging career path, but it is also just as rewarding as you climb up the ladder.

Job Description

As a sales executive, the following will be the main tasks you will be carrying out. These are given from a general perspective, so the needs might change depending on who you’re working for and what you’re selling:

• Develop new contacts to create new business potential
• Provide quotations for products to customers
• Carry out negotiations for terms of sales agreements until the deal is closed
• Carry out market research and provide reports on buying tendencies and customer information
• Be the company’s representative at trade fairs – demonstrations, exhibitions and events
• Identify new potentially lucrative untapped markets
• Maintain a record of your sales and report on the same
• Periodically review your performance vis-à-vis the sales targets given

A sales job is much different from a regular 9-5 desk job; you can expect slightly longer hours, particularly in the peak periods of the business, as well as lots of time on the road and overseas.

With hard work and commitment, as a sales executive, you can go on to become product line sales manager, area then regional sales manager and finally the sales director. The bonuses and commissions carried by this job can make it a very lucrative career path for you, not forgetting the networking contacts that you build with people from various backgrounds and fields of work.

What you need

To be a successful sales executive, your sales abilities need to be unrivalled. In addition, the following soft skills will come in handy:

• Very good communication skills
• A strong spirit – the ability to put up with rejection and move on
• Self-drive and passion for success
• Confidence and determination in your approach
• A little competitiveness

Getting an effective sales team as an employer

As a company owner, having an effective sales team is pivotal to the success of your enterprise. You may hire the correct people with all the experience and knowledge, but if they do not fully understand what your organization is, what you do and how they fit into the picture, you’ll have a team giving the bare minimum to keep the paycheck coming.

Does that describe your team as an employer? Not to worry, through the intervention of an efficient sales outsourcing solution, you can relax and allow yourself to focus on other aspects of running your enterprise – the sales arm being trusted to effective hands.

If you’re having a problem jumpstarting your sales team and getting your products out on the market, the executive sales team over at Sales Outsourcing Pros will in association with you help to identify and tackle the various challenges in communications, service, sales and marketing that hamper your journey to high performance.

Bio: Charlie Brown loves to share information on sales outsourcing and other range of business solutions for many clients companies. To know more about him visit his personal blog.