Sales Director - Down

Sales Director

Any business, whether they’re mass producing widgets or selling their consultancy services, needs a steady flow of new customers to achieve growth or replace those that are lost.

In a competitive sector, that can’t be done with placing ads in industry newspapers and building a website – it needs an overarching sales strategy that takes the board’s growth and sustainability goals and achieves them through winning new clients and keeping existing clients happy.

This strategy is the responsibility of the director of sales, an executive level position that ensures the commercial health of the company is assured, at least from the revenue perspective.

The sales director accomplishes this strategic goal by managing a team of sales consultants, which might have its own hierarchy or could be just a few people, depending on the size of the business.

Sales Director skills required

Sales director jobs always require a good understanding of the basics of sales: marketing, networking, negotiation and contracts. A vital component of the skill set will be an ability to fully understand the products and services they are selling, as they may well be asked very technical questions whether it’s a sales meeting or a trade fair, and full knowledge is impressive and expedient.

They’ll also need to know the capabilities of the production team, supply chain and logistics when they are promising to supply goods or services to customers. That means they should be able to communicate effectively internally and externally, and to maintain good working relationships across the board.