Sales jobs and it\\\'s many guises

>role is to find new customers and develop more
business. In recruitment terms these sales jobs
Sales jobs are the corner stone of most businesses.require a totally different type of animal to account
If they don't sell enough stuff, it just doesn't work. managers. People looking to fill business development
If you are interested in a career in sales and havemanager vacancies usually look for highly competitive
already started to look at vacancies you may bepeople who are driven and ambitious.
finding it difficult to understand all the different termsTelesales rep
used to describe sales jobs, and indeed fathomAs the name implies, telesales are sales jobs which
whether the different titles do actually meanare office and phone based. These roles normally
different jobs.involve smaller value but high volume products, where
Here's some of the most common titles you willit simply wouldn't be cost effective to drive around
come across with a brief explanation of why theyand visit clients, indeed it may nor be practically
may be different.possible. Telesales jobs are an excellent introduction
Field Sales repto the sales role and can often be the catalyst for
Whenever you see the word 'field' in the title, thissomeone's career in sales, progressing on to bigger
normally refers to a sales job on the road, out seeingand better field based sales roles.
customers across an area, or as is usually referred toTerritory manager/Territory business manager
as a territory. In field sales jobs you will likely have anUnlike the roles above, rather than an emphasis on
expensed company car, and these days be furnishedeither the business development or the account
with a laptop and mobile phone to perform your job.management, the emphasis of this title is on the
If it's a national company, the chances are you will be'territory'. In these sales jobs you will be in charge of
based from home and be expected to run a homeall aspects of business on your territory presenting
office for your job.you with both business development and account
Account managermanagement challenges. Indeed the challenge is often
When you see this title, it can either mean one ofstriking the right balance between the two.
two things. The true sense of this title is a roleArea sales manager
where the business accounts are already established,Now we are starting to get caught up in semantics.
and the company stands to loose if accounts are notFor example in the pharmaceutical industry, anything
maintained. Hence he emphasis of the accountwith 'sales manager' in the title is reserved for roles
manager's job is look after existing customers towhich involve the management of sales people. In
maintain their business. There is, of course, usually anthe Healthcare industry next door, area sales
element built in to encourage these characters tomanager is, in fact, usually a sales job. In many cases
expand these accounts, but the essence is that thisthe phrases 'sales manager' is often used to describe
can be a much 'softer' sales job. The second instancea sales job to try and make it sound more senior.
where this title is used is an employer who, himself,Sales executive
isn't that familiar with terminology and simply choosesAgain this is essentially a play on words, the use of
it to describe his vacant sales jobs!the word executive to add a little shine on what will
Business Development managerbasically be a sales job.
In contrast to the above, the emphasis of this role isYou are likely to see all manner of variations and
in finding new customers. In practice there will alwayscombinations of this, but if you take the above
be a degree of account management within this job,descriptions you should be able to work out whether
indeed maintaining one account may open the dooreach sales job really is different and if there is an
to another. However, the primary emphasis of theemphasis what that might be.