What Are the Duties of a Sales Executive?

Sales executives are vital to a company because they help to generate income by bridging the gap between the company and its customers.

A sales executive job description differs from firm to company, resulting in differences in a sales executive's responsibilities. Because of their relevance, sales executive jobs are in high demand across industries.  

In general, industries can be split into two types of business models: business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) (B2C). This blog will go over the duties of a sales executive based on business models and the requirements needed to become a sales executive.

What is B2B sales

A B2B form of transaction takes place between two businesses, for example, a wholesaler and a retailer. To put it simply, a retailer purchases raw materials from the wholesalers for their business interests.

What is B2C sales

A B2C business model indicates the process of selling products directly to end-users/ consumers. Take for example an e-commerce website whose end-users are customers who purchase products from that site.

B2B responsibilities of a sales executive

Now that the concept of a B2B business model is cleared, here’s a list of responsibilities of a sales executive to be undertaken.

• Building and maintaining good professional relationships
• Understand the requirements of customers i.e. Business partners
• Have knowledge of and researching about the current markets and related products
• Keeping track of competitors
• Present the product/services in a professionally structured manner to clients

B2C responsibilities of a sales executive

As per the requirements of a B2C business model, the following list of responsibilities of a sales executive needs to be executed.

• Pay attention to customer requirements and provide appropriate solutions to make a sale
• Have the knack to develop and maintain client relationships via email, call, or in-person
• Be quick to revert to emails and calls
• Accumulate market and customer information
• Acts as a bridge between the company and potential clients
• Help in product development by suggesting client requirements
• Create detailed proposals in line with customer requirements and demand
• Coming up with numbers, costs, and quotations for clients to initiate a sale

Common responsibilities of a sales executive

Although there are different responsibilities of a sales executive based on industries, here are a few common responsibilities that are present in all sales executive job descriptions.

• Sales executives are required to negotiate costs, specifications, price, and delivery of the products to the clients and managers
• Check-in with suppliers regarding the progress of orders
• Maintaining client relationships to ensure future sale
• Maintaining sales record and order information and updating it into the system
• Be ready to represent the company and its products in trade exhibits and similar events

Apart from the different responsibilities of a sales executive based on business models, sales executive roles can be divided into inside sales and outside sales.

What is Inside sales

Inside sales indicate the sale of products/ services via telecommunication (over call, email, internet).

What is Outside sales

When sales executives meet prospective clients in person to sell a product, that is called Outside sales.

Inside sales executive responsibilities

Here is a list of responsibilities of a sales executive as an inside sales executive:

• They are required to have thorough knowledge about products as well as field customer queries
• Responsible for greeting and creating rapport with customers
• Creating referrals and leads
• Curating personal marketing plan to ensure targets are achieved

Outside sales executive responsibilities

On the other hand, outside sales executives have the following list of responsibilities.

• Represent the company to service areas
• Maintain company image as well as creating calls to sell products
• Take note of sales opportunities
• Research and monitor market conditions, keep an eye on the competition
• Look out for improving sales performance

Qualifications required to be a sales executive

Sales executive skills and qualities vary from organization to organization. Some organizations might prefer to hire candidates from top business colleges or have some strict criteria to help maintain the standard of the company.

However, below is a list of sales executive skills and qualities that most companies look for in a sales executive:

• Degree in business, management/ marketing
• Any Bachelor's degree like media studies/engineering
• Proficient in English or other languages based on the area of operation

Degrees like engineering, media, etc. help in the sales department of technical, media sales, and the likes as they have the in-depth knowledge to impress the clients and help in promoting the product.

Salary of a sales executive

Based on the company and years of experience, AmbitionBox records the salary of a sales executive in India ranges between 1- 5LPA with an average salary of 2.2 LPA.

To conclude, the responsibilities of a sales executive is extremely crucial to companies as it helps to generate revenue that helps businesses stay relevant. But before you go on, it’s important to have the perfect sales executive resume and ensure you have all the sales executive skills and qualities to become a star sales executive.

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